Stars Made of Paper (3/7)
Genre: AU, non-h/c
Warnings: nothing more hardcore than canon, angst, Justin/OMC
Rating: hate to say it, but PG-13 for miles and miles
Word count: this chapter: 5000
Beta: moonbrightnites
A/N: This fic is for Sakesushimaki <3
Chapter 3
“So, tell me again why you can't live with your grandparents?” Brian started out of the blue, because that was the only way to start with those conversations.
“Huh?” Justin looked up from Brian's econ book he was browsing, taking peculiar pleasure in devouring any studying material above his high school level. “Why do you ask?”
“Trying to keep track of things.”
“Well, for one, they're my father's parents. For another, they're my father's parents. There's a reason he grew up to be the way he is.”
“So they're... what's their problem?”
“They annually donate money to anti-gay legislators. And one summer break in grade school when I stayed with them, they made me play with the handicapped son of my godmother every time Daphne wanted to come see me.”
“Oh.”
As Brian was sitting quiet, processing those factors, Justin straightened up and asked, looking at the dresser across the room from Brian's bed, “Do you... want me to move out?”
“No.” Brian adjusted a font in the poster design he was working on in Photoshop. “Not... actively. As long as you're not in my way too much.”
“Am I?”
“Bring me a beer and I'll tell you.”
Damn it.
+
On Wednesday morning Brian stumbled into the bathroom in a near-dead state, as was the case at 6am just about every day. In his sleep-muddled, uncoordinated haze he swung his arm into the counter and sent a whole collection of things into the sink and to the floor. He just cursed and stepped into the shower - he didn’t hear anything break, so it could wait.
When he was towel-drying his hair, he started picking up those things from the floor. When he moved to the sink, he froze. He found Justin’s wash bag toppled over, spilling hand cream, toothpaste, body spray, hair comb, and three containers of medication, most of them near empty. The first impulse was to stuff them back into the bag, put them together with all the other things that were none of Brian's business, so he did that, burying the containers under the moisturizing tissues the way they usually rested there, hidden from view.
But when he finished brushing his teeth, he slammed his toothbrush into the glass, cursed Jennifer Taylor’s name with a mint-scented breath fogging the wet mirror, and dug the containers back out.
+
Over the next two weeks he found himself cursing Jennifer's name regularly.
+
One time, Brian went grocery shopping with Justin at the non-crowdy crowded deli on the way home, as was their new usual.
He'd bought two packs of that wheat-free bread Justin ate, because even though it looked like soggy cardboard, that stuff was actually tasty, plus it was sponsored by Justin’s mother. He stocked up quickly on food products for regular people who couldn’t afford eating $5 bread every day. Shopping with Justin was pure pleasure - he just kept quiet and held the basket without arguing about the brand of noodles they were buying, unlike other roommates Brian was living with right now.
Two windows down the street from the deli, where Brian parked the car, was an art supply store. When Brian was unloading the bags in the trunk, Justin stood back, his eyes flickering to the window display as he pretended he wasn't looking.
“Do you need anything?” Brian asked. He slammed the trunk shut and walked closer to the store front, fascinated by a $120 bucket of scented body paint.
Justin shrugged, shook his head. Shrugged again. So Brian pushed the door open. Justin followed him in, shooting glances at every paper, glass, plastic, metallic or wooden thing in sight.
Brian strolled slowly between the shelves and stands. They split when Justin got absorbed with sifting through a cluster of watercolor pens and Brian walked to a poster stand. Five minutes later, Justin was trying out the pens on a block of paper tacked next to the shelf. Brian stopped next to him without a word, saw Justin rearrange the pens in order of hue number and reach for the calligraphy set. But then he stepped back abruptly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Brian bit his lip. Inwardly, he cursed Jennifer Taylor's name, because who else was to blame for Brian Kinney standing in front of a shelf full of crayons and attempting this kind of talk with some kid? Or with anyone?
“You skipped art club the last three weeks.” Brian got Justin’s class schedule from Josh when he started driving the kid, and the art club was clear as day on every Wednesday till 6pm. Yet, the past three weeks Justin always asked Brian to come pick him up at three.
Justin tapped the toe of his boot into the paint stand, absorbed with the sway of bottles on the bottom shelf.
“They kicked you out or something?”
Justin scoffed, “You can’t get kicked out of the art club.”
“So why did you stop going?”
Justin picked three small jars of ink and lined them up in his palm, as if comparing the hues of black. Brian nudged his boot into Justin's. Oh, fuck you, Jennifer Taylor.
“What’s the point?" Justin slammed each jar back on the shelf, attracting the attention of the middle-aged shop owner who craned her neck around the corner to give them a reproachful look. "I can’t draw anymore. Let’s go home.”
He was already ten steps ahead.
“Anymore. You mean, since. Uh.”
“Yes.”
And fuck you, Craig Taylor.
“Does your doctor know?”
“Yes. He says it’s a mental block, because there’s no damage to my brain.”
“Oh. That’s good. Right?”
Justin snorted with contempt. Maybe at himself, or the doctor, maybe not at the Camaro that he was giving the stink eye right then.
“As if that makes any fucking difference. Brain damage or not, I can’t draw for shit, so what does it matter? Whenever I try to put a pencil to paper, all that comes out is total crap.” He slammed the door after getting in the car.
Brian toyed with his keychain for a minute before breaking the heavy silence.
"So, you're having an art block, right? I've heard about that. Wasn't it why Van Gogh killed himself?"
Justin stared at him with a look of stunned hurt. “I really hope this isn't you trying to help.”
+
Sure, he knew a full recovery wasn't going to happen overnight.
But that knowledge did nothing to quell the helpless and misdirected anger when he watched Justin in the car three times a week, pretending it was completely normal to reach for the door handle two times and retreat at the last moment, feigning to look for something in your backpack. And when he had to inconspicuously steer Justin out of the way of people approaching them on the sidewalk because otherwise the kid would freak out. Nothing was getting better and day by day, his faith in Justin's ability to deal with it on his own, died a little.
And every time Justin smiled at him over the dinner, the food became too spicy and the room too small, the air too sparse.
A week before Christmas break Brian started having internal conversations with Justin in the car and each one was more abusive than the one before. He felt like the time Justin was buying, he was using to set roots in Brian's life and that simply was not acceptable.
And he cursed Jennifer's name every time that he dug into Justin's wash bag and counted the prescription pills in the plastic containers, finding invariably that the rate they disappeared at wasn't even close to what he'd looked up online. And they were running out, which inevitably had to lead to either a visit at the doctor's or some kind of meltdown. And Brian knew how low the odds were of the former happening.
+
A week before Christmas Jennifer came by to convince Justin to have the Christmas dinner with his family. Brian could hear how well that went from behind his closed door. It was a bigger fight than he'd ever heard them have and he waited at least an hour after Jennifer left to come out of his room and into the former battle zone.
When he did come out into the living room, Justin told him, in an air of utter indignation, that Jennifer sent his application to PIFA, and he'd gotten in. That was apparently a bad thing for her to announce in the middle of Justin's art block, so Brian didn't say what he thought about Justin's outrage at having his education sponsored by his parents and handed over on a silver platter.
"Where do you want to go, instead?" he asked.
"My SATs are legendary, I could get into any school I wanted. I could also choose to become an actor, a gardener, or join a fucking circus and it would be none of my mother's business."
"Yeah, but where else do you want to go, is what I asked."
He looked away, his jaw straining with chewed anger. “Nowhere. I've been wanting to go to PIFA since tenth grade. And my mom knew that, so now that she and Craig finally agreed to finance it, she goes and rubs it in my face, knowing I can't go there anymore."
Somehow, Brian didn't think that was Jennifer's intention. But he was internally at war with her, so he didn't voice that opinion.
"Well, now you're in PIFA. You've got both your legs and arms, so you can go there."
"Yeah, awesome. Have you been listening to me? I can't draw anymore."
"How do you know? When was the last time you tried? Because the last sketchbook I found in the trash was three weeks ago."
"What's the point of doing it when it's obviously not working?"
"If you expect to always succeed by the first hundredth try, maybe you should think twice about joining that circus. Being an accountant might just be the career for you. You'll be spared all that pesky insecurity, satisfaction and any chance at being remarkable."
The result of the falling-out with Jennifer was that Justin would be staying with Brian for Christmas. Which, just like Thanksgiving, he was planning to spend as far from his family as possible, so it made no difference to him, as long as he and Justin stayed on opposite ends of the sofa.
A problem, however, emerged on the weekend before Christmas.
+
All the weeks that Brian stayed at home with Justin or at work buttering up Manolo, one thing he'd been looking forward to as the reward for all this time of hard work and no fun, was the trip to Preston Park with the volleyball team he'd planned two months in advance. So it was understandable that his reaction to Josh telling him on Thursday that he had to stay home, was to burst out laughing.
“Nice try, Josh.” He patted him on the shoulder and spread a heaping spoon of BBQ sauce on his sandwich.
“That’s Justin’s sauce,” Josh pointed out. “And his bread. And his ham.”
“Justin likes to share.” Josh frowned dubiously, so Brian clarified, "with me."
“I’m serious.”
“I know you’re fucking serious, that’s why it’s so hilarious. You’ve known for a month I’m out of town this weekend. So the answer is ‘fuck no.’”
Josh followed Brian to his room and shut the door behind them when he heard the tap run in the bathroom.
“So what am I supposed to do? I can’t not go to this conference. If I don't, I’m unemployed.”
“That’s very touching, but not like I can do anything about it, so you can let yourself out of this room.”
“You know he can’t stay home alone. What am I gonna do? Leave him with Jennifer?”
“Why don’t you take him with you?”
“Brian.”
“Just pretend I don’t exist. I’m sure you’ll think of some solution if you try for at least a second not to rope me into something you’re exclusively responsible for.”
“Brian.”
Brian stood up and pulled his shirt off. He stared down at Josh, who, however, didn’t back off. Experience showed, though, that Brian’s nudity had a weakening effect on his roommate’s resolve. So Brian took off his tank top, too. Josh frowned and folded his arms across his chest, but otherwise didn’t seem especially intimidated.
“There are only two possible solutions, Brian. And you know it. And one of them is out of question.”
Brian reached for his belt.
“Brian? Can I come in?” Justin’s voice came from behind the door.
“Yeah.”
The door opened and Justin made a step in, but as soon as he looked at Brian’s chest, he froze.
“Am I… interrupting something?”
“No!” Josh shouted. “Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, okay.” His eyes kept drifting to Brian’s chest, and snapping away, as he spoke. “Are you arguing about me?”
“Why would we do that?” Josh waved his hand.
“Right. You told me Brian is staying home this weekend, but the calendar in the kitchen says he’s gonna be in Poconos, like I told you in the car, and um. You’re arguing. And you just said my mom’s name.”
“Brian changed his plans.”
Brian stared at him, disbelief making him dizzy and his fingers cramping into claws. Surely, he had to be hallucinating?
“Oh. You did?” Brian straightened his fingers and pressed his hands flat against his thighs. He didn’t trust himself to speak, yet. “You didn’t. Okay, listen. I know you think you have to babysit me all the time, which, by the way, isn’t true. But my mom is probably paying you to do that, or threatening you with god knows what, so I’m gonna play along.” He scratched the patch of skin behind his ear, his eyes on the floor and skin flushed. “But you don’t have to call off the trip. I can stay with Daphne.”
It was a solution neither of them had thought of, so perhaps that meant it wasn’t viable?
“For two days?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” Brian waved his hand around, as if that would help him come up with some inconspicuous argument. “I’m not a kid. I’m not gonna start a house fire or accidentally drink liquid Plumr.”
And thus Friday afternoon found Brian reclining in the backseat of a SUV headed to the Poconos, with three hunky volleyball players. Josh was dropping Justin off in Daphne's care at the Casa Chambers before he drove to Philadelphia, and Brian’s boss was threatening to cut his salary in half.
+
It was nearing 11pm on Saturday when he got the phonecall.
Daphne was having a breakdown on the other end of the line and he did what was in his limited might to get through to her. What does the doctor say? No, don't call-- please don't fucking call his mom, she's gonna take him back to-- I can't get there, I'm in fucking Poc-- Daphne, what does the doctor say?.. Don't hang up. Hello!?
He barged in on the first unfortunate fuck who didn't lock his door and found him in bed with some girl, who yelped and pulled up the covers as Brian stepped in.
“I need to take your car,” Brian said, stopping over the bed.
“What the fuck, Kinney! Get the fuck out of my room!”
“Come on, I've got an emergency, need to get back to Pitts. ...Please.”
“Are you fucking high? I'm not giving you my car!”
“The keys are in his jeans, on the floor,” came the voice of the girl pressed into the bed by the weight of the guy, Shane, Brian recognized him from the bar the previous night, where he'd been drinking shots from between his girlfriend's boobs.
“What the fuck, Chloe?” Shane's eyes snapped to her face.
“Thank you. I'll pay you back for the gas. This is my phone number.” He scrawled it on a gas station receipt while sticking the car keys into his pants' pocket, away from Shane's grabbing hands. "Thank you."
“This is a fucking felony, Kinney! I'm calling the police,” Brian could hear as he walked down the corridor. He stormed into his room and swept into his bag what he saw of his things, then got out on the driveway and miraculously, found the right car with no owner or his girlfriend in sight. He didn't wait for them to catch up.
He made the four-and-a-half hour trip in less than three hours, remembered almost nothing of it as he pulled into the parking lot of Allegheny General. Nothing except trying desperately to stop the images of Justin's cold body in a hospital bed, and focus on the road. Then, as he sat in the car for ten minutes, he felt like Justin must've felt, biding his time before he had to get out and face whatever terrifying shit he imagined on the other side of the car door.
Brian expected to find Jennifer, since obviously even if Daphne listened to him and didn't call her, the hospital staff would have. He expected to find Justin, paler than usual and even more scared, and he expected to be unable to look the kid in the eye. But he had to go there and make sure he was breathing.
He expected the look of betrayal and loathing on Jennifer's face and somehow expected to see the same on Justin's. But the kid just smiled at him feebly and waved before his mother escorted Brian out of sight.
“Mom,” he protested weakly, but she ignored it.
“You know, when I came here, I thought, as I waited to find whether he was going to survive this... I thought: if he has the nerve to show his face here, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. But the truth is, I don't care whether you learn anything from this or if you continue living your irresponsible life without any regrets. All that matters is that Justin won't be there anymore to suffer the next time you screw up.”
“How is he?”
Maybe she expected an apology, because she took a moment to reply.
“He's alive, Brian. But he's not fine.”
“Can I see him?”
“What for?”
He didn't know how to answer that.
She didn't seem to care about his answer, either.
He went back home and straight into the shower, looking at Justin's ridiculously soft lilac towel hanging on the rack as his sight blurred from the water and eyes stung from the soap.
What the fuck was Brian thinking? A goddamn fucking hero, getting in the way between a sick kid and his mother, helping him live out his dreams of escaping from the evil world of grown ups. As if he could offer anything better in return.
+
He was woken a few hours later by the sounds of Josh's return, unzipping of his coat, clinking of his keys.
“Brian?” he asked, reaching for the handle of Brian's door.
“Fuck off,” Brian answered, pulling the duvet over his head.
“What happened to Justin?”
Brian didn't say anything. Eventually Josh fucked off.
+
When the doorbell rang, Brian got up to answer it, certain it was Jennifer coming to pick up Justin's things.
It wasn't.
“Daphne took my key,” Justin said as a means of greeting.
“Did you come with your mom?” Brian asked after staring at Justin's new scarf and hat for a while.
“Yeah. I... I wanted to--” He cut himself off and chewed on his lower lip, staring at the breast pocket of Brian's shirt and looking like he was making up his mind. “Can we go somewhere?”
Brian moved aside to let him into the apartment.
“No, I meant, somewhere else. On a car ride.”
“A what?” Maybe car rides didn't mean what they'd used to mean, because in Brian's dictionary they didn't qualify as something Jennifer would let her son partake in with Brian, especially straight out of hospital.
“Please. Just one last time. Please.”
“Brian? Who's at the door?” Josh's voice asked from the kitchen.
“Please.”
And car rides didn't qualify as something Brian would do, in his right mind, with Justin, right after almost-quite coming to terms with the fact that the kid was finally out of his life, hopefully getting the help he needed and no longer letting Brian's bad decisions affect him.
“Mailman. I'm going out,” Brian threw in the kitchen's direction, grabbing his jacket and keys from the hanger by the door.
The gratitude on Justin's face told him that he was probably going to regret this.
“We're not going with your mother, I presume?”
“She's parked in front of the building. Is there a back exit?”
Unbelievable. As if he hadn't used up his suicidally bad decisions quota yet.
Later Brian decided that he'd probably fallen for the tempting illusion of escape, too. He knew they weren't going far, and they were eventually coming back, but it was at least a goodbye he could give the kid. Last reckless thing Brian could do for Justin to complete their months-long lie, before Justin got locked away in some kind of safety chosen by his parents.
The Pittsburgh city area disappeared behind them before either spoke.
“My mom nearly shit a brick when she came to the hospital.”
Brian just kept staring at the road and the fields of snow lying ahead.
“I could hear her right before they started pumping my stomach. My dad actually came with her, but I didn't want to see him. I heard them arguing about you. He was furious, piling blame on you, as if you had anything to do with what happened. You didn't.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Brian could see Justin look at him, as if expecting a reply.
“You've done so much for me, spent so much time with me even though I'm probably just some annoying kid to you.” Justin reached into his pocket to pull out his cell phone. It was flashing with an incoming call. He cut it off. “So, thank you. Even though it is kind of embarrassing. Like with that handicapped cousin that I had to play with because of my grandma.”
“I wouldn't go that far in parallels.” Brian's voice was scratchy.
Fuck all did that time spent with Brian do for Justin. Maybe he would've been alright by now if he hadn't been kept away from doctors, encouraged to fuck himself up even worse with self-medication and self-care.
“Brian.”
He didn't like the sound of Justin's voice. Brian pulled over as they reached a vantage point on top of a hill, a wall of forest on one side of the road and a view of Pittsburgh on the other. He got out of the car and sat on the hood, patting his pockets for a cigarette. Justin got out of his side and sat next to him. He stared at Brian's hands working the lighter and the cigarette for a while before pulling out a pair of gray gloves from his coat's pockets.
“Here. Your hands will get all dry and chafed from this cold.”
Brian watched his cigarette-less hand disappear into the warmed-up cotton, then between Justin's palms as he closed them around Brian's fingers and let more and more warmth seep into them.
The part that Brian was admitting only at that moment, at that place far away from anyone who could judge him for it, was that he came to root for Justin's recovery. Not because it meant that Justin would go his own way then and stop making Brian feel responsible, out of his depth. Not even because Brian made it his little project to help him and he had never been one to see his projects fail.
He simply wanted Justin to be well. He was dying to see what this kid could accomplish at his full capacity. He wanted to see the best homosexual Justin could possibly be. At that moment, when Justin reached for Brian's other hand and put his soft, thin glove over it, Brian wished he could just get one more chance to make the best of his role in Justin's life.
“Brian. When I turn eighteen, will you go to Babylon with me? I've been wanting to see it from the inside since I heard...”
“I don't think so.”
Justin's cheeks flushed an even deeper shade of red, his eyes cast on the salted, shiny asphalt. It was really cold, they should be getting back soon.
“Babylon is a shithole,” Brian said. “You'll find nothing there except dubious blends of drugs and desperate disco queens. Shirtless gym bunnies, roid pigs, tweaked-out twinks. Fag hags and STDs.”
“I can't wait,” Justin concluded.
His smile was contagious.
Maybe Justin thought Brian's silence was a wordless agreement, a promise. As they drove back, Justin complained about having to live with his grandparents, then talked about moving in with Daphne when he graduated high school and taking on PIFA as a burnt-out, washed-out, uninspired, art-blocked hack, like Andy Warhol. He also answered Jennifer's call and placated her until they got back to the Pitts, where she nearly yanked him into her own car as soon as he stepped out of Brian's.
The next day, Jennifer came with a huge duffel bag to finish what her son didn't start. Josh accompanied her to point out all the places where Justin kept his things, but she only spoke to him when she absolutely had to. Brian got a strange satisfaction out of the fact that he wasn't the only one she blamed. She pretended not to see Brian until she was at the door, on her way out. Then she stepped into his room and told him:
“I want you to lose Justin's number. If he ever contacts you, don't answer him. I'm sure it's not much to ask of you.” She turned around and before she left for good, she added quietly, “Please.”
Then she was gone.
And Brian did what she asked, because she thought Brian was the last person Justin needed in order to get on with his life, and she was right.
On Christmas he got a text from Justin who wished him a lot of booze and an X-box so he didn’t have to spend the holidays watching TV. Brian didn’t reply, but it was the only holiday text he saved that year, in case someone wanted proof that even a misanthrope like Brian did have friends who remembered about him. He did that every year, and the fact that no one had actually ever accused him of not having friends, didn't derail his habit.
He never found out what really happened to Justin that Saturday night. He didn't ask Justin, accepting that they'd be acting like everything was alright with the world until the very end, honoring the tradition started the day they met.
When Justin texted him the day after Valentine's (Got my spankin' new ID and slutty clothes. Babylon on Friday?), Brian didn't answer either. After the following phone calls that he sent straight to voicemail, Brian didn't hear from Justin again.
The next Christmas he kept a text from Chloe, the girl who let him steal her boyfriend’s car in Poconos and when she collected the keys and gas money Brian owed him, she added them to her shoe fund because she’d broken up with the Shane guy. That same month Brian moved in with a new roommate, because the place he'd been sharing with Josh was just not big enough for them anymore.
Brian moved out of his new apartment after living there for only two months. His roommate was on strong anti-depressants and Brian couldn't stand the mood swings and always being the one to do the chores. But the real reason was that whenever he caught glimpse of those pills - and it seemed like they were fucking everywhere - he needed to go outside and just try to breathe normally and try not to think about three hours in the middle of the night on a highway and the feeling of impending disaster. So one day he packed his things and got the hell out of there, losing one third of his three-month deposit.
Brian finished college with honors and kept working at Manolo’s, giving up on grad school because he wasn't even sure he could ever pay the undergrad debts. He quit the restaurant work when he got an internship at Vangard that paid like crap. He made do with freelance copywriting for nameless online companies. The internship at Vangard ended after three months, employment didn’t follow. They said it was recession and they weren’t looking to hire, try again next year. He didn’t. A bigger, nationwide agency opened up shop in Pittsburgh and Brian kept trying there for two months before he got a foot in the door.
In September, he got an invitation to Josh's bachelor party. Brian wasn’t sure why. They hadn’t talked since he moved out and why Josh would think he’d want to participate in a ritual for breeders, doubtlessly sponsored by the letter “b” for “boobs,” was beyond him. He went anyway, arrived two hours late, and left after fucking a waiter, without even seeing Josh to give him drunken best wishes.
-Next Part-
---
A/N: I'm gonna leave you here for one day longer than usual, because I need to make a few last-minutes edits, but won't have enough time to do it sooner. Hey, at least it's not a cliffhanger, right? :D
Warnings: nothing more hardcore than canon, angst, Justin/OMC
Rating: hate to say it, but PG-13 for miles and miles
Word count: this chapter: 5000
Beta: moonbrightnites
A/N: This fic is for Sakesushimaki <3
Chapter 3
“So, tell me again why you can't live with your grandparents?” Brian started out of the blue, because that was the only way to start with those conversations.
“Huh?” Justin looked up from Brian's econ book he was browsing, taking peculiar pleasure in devouring any studying material above his high school level. “Why do you ask?”
“Trying to keep track of things.”
“Well, for one, they're my father's parents. For another, they're my father's parents. There's a reason he grew up to be the way he is.”
“So they're... what's their problem?”
“They annually donate money to anti-gay legislators. And one summer break in grade school when I stayed with them, they made me play with the handicapped son of my godmother every time Daphne wanted to come see me.”
“Oh.”
As Brian was sitting quiet, processing those factors, Justin straightened up and asked, looking at the dresser across the room from Brian's bed, “Do you... want me to move out?”
“No.” Brian adjusted a font in the poster design he was working on in Photoshop. “Not... actively. As long as you're not in my way too much.”
“Am I?”
“Bring me a beer and I'll tell you.”
Damn it.
+
On Wednesday morning Brian stumbled into the bathroom in a near-dead state, as was the case at 6am just about every day. In his sleep-muddled, uncoordinated haze he swung his arm into the counter and sent a whole collection of things into the sink and to the floor. He just cursed and stepped into the shower - he didn’t hear anything break, so it could wait.
When he was towel-drying his hair, he started picking up those things from the floor. When he moved to the sink, he froze. He found Justin’s wash bag toppled over, spilling hand cream, toothpaste, body spray, hair comb, and three containers of medication, most of them near empty. The first impulse was to stuff them back into the bag, put them together with all the other things that were none of Brian's business, so he did that, burying the containers under the moisturizing tissues the way they usually rested there, hidden from view.
But when he finished brushing his teeth, he slammed his toothbrush into the glass, cursed Jennifer Taylor’s name with a mint-scented breath fogging the wet mirror, and dug the containers back out.
+
Over the next two weeks he found himself cursing Jennifer's name regularly.
+
One time, Brian went grocery shopping with Justin at the non-crowdy crowded deli on the way home, as was their new usual.
He'd bought two packs of that wheat-free bread Justin ate, because even though it looked like soggy cardboard, that stuff was actually tasty, plus it was sponsored by Justin’s mother. He stocked up quickly on food products for regular people who couldn’t afford eating $5 bread every day. Shopping with Justin was pure pleasure - he just kept quiet and held the basket without arguing about the brand of noodles they were buying, unlike other roommates Brian was living with right now.
Two windows down the street from the deli, where Brian parked the car, was an art supply store. When Brian was unloading the bags in the trunk, Justin stood back, his eyes flickering to the window display as he pretended he wasn't looking.
“Do you need anything?” Brian asked. He slammed the trunk shut and walked closer to the store front, fascinated by a $120 bucket of scented body paint.
Justin shrugged, shook his head. Shrugged again. So Brian pushed the door open. Justin followed him in, shooting glances at every paper, glass, plastic, metallic or wooden thing in sight.
Brian strolled slowly between the shelves and stands. They split when Justin got absorbed with sifting through a cluster of watercolor pens and Brian walked to a poster stand. Five minutes later, Justin was trying out the pens on a block of paper tacked next to the shelf. Brian stopped next to him without a word, saw Justin rearrange the pens in order of hue number and reach for the calligraphy set. But then he stepped back abruptly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat.
Brian bit his lip. Inwardly, he cursed Jennifer Taylor's name, because who else was to blame for Brian Kinney standing in front of a shelf full of crayons and attempting this kind of talk with some kid? Or with anyone?
“You skipped art club the last three weeks.” Brian got Justin’s class schedule from Josh when he started driving the kid, and the art club was clear as day on every Wednesday till 6pm. Yet, the past three weeks Justin always asked Brian to come pick him up at three.
Justin tapped the toe of his boot into the paint stand, absorbed with the sway of bottles on the bottom shelf.
“They kicked you out or something?”
Justin scoffed, “You can’t get kicked out of the art club.”
“So why did you stop going?”
Justin picked three small jars of ink and lined them up in his palm, as if comparing the hues of black. Brian nudged his boot into Justin's. Oh, fuck you, Jennifer Taylor.
“What’s the point?" Justin slammed each jar back on the shelf, attracting the attention of the middle-aged shop owner who craned her neck around the corner to give them a reproachful look. "I can’t draw anymore. Let’s go home.”
He was already ten steps ahead.
“Anymore. You mean, since. Uh.”
“Yes.”
And fuck you, Craig Taylor.
“Does your doctor know?”
“Yes. He says it’s a mental block, because there’s no damage to my brain.”
“Oh. That’s good. Right?”
Justin snorted with contempt. Maybe at himself, or the doctor, maybe not at the Camaro that he was giving the stink eye right then.
“As if that makes any fucking difference. Brain damage or not, I can’t draw for shit, so what does it matter? Whenever I try to put a pencil to paper, all that comes out is total crap.” He slammed the door after getting in the car.
Brian toyed with his keychain for a minute before breaking the heavy silence.
"So, you're having an art block, right? I've heard about that. Wasn't it why Van Gogh killed himself?"
Justin stared at him with a look of stunned hurt. “I really hope this isn't you trying to help.”
+
Sure, he knew a full recovery wasn't going to happen overnight.
But that knowledge did nothing to quell the helpless and misdirected anger when he watched Justin in the car three times a week, pretending it was completely normal to reach for the door handle two times and retreat at the last moment, feigning to look for something in your backpack. And when he had to inconspicuously steer Justin out of the way of people approaching them on the sidewalk because otherwise the kid would freak out. Nothing was getting better and day by day, his faith in Justin's ability to deal with it on his own, died a little.
And every time Justin smiled at him over the dinner, the food became too spicy and the room too small, the air too sparse.
A week before Christmas break Brian started having internal conversations with Justin in the car and each one was more abusive than the one before. He felt like the time Justin was buying, he was using to set roots in Brian's life and that simply was not acceptable.
And he cursed Jennifer's name every time that he dug into Justin's wash bag and counted the prescription pills in the plastic containers, finding invariably that the rate they disappeared at wasn't even close to what he'd looked up online. And they were running out, which inevitably had to lead to either a visit at the doctor's or some kind of meltdown. And Brian knew how low the odds were of the former happening.
+
A week before Christmas Jennifer came by to convince Justin to have the Christmas dinner with his family. Brian could hear how well that went from behind his closed door. It was a bigger fight than he'd ever heard them have and he waited at least an hour after Jennifer left to come out of his room and into the former battle zone.
When he did come out into the living room, Justin told him, in an air of utter indignation, that Jennifer sent his application to PIFA, and he'd gotten in. That was apparently a bad thing for her to announce in the middle of Justin's art block, so Brian didn't say what he thought about Justin's outrage at having his education sponsored by his parents and handed over on a silver platter.
"Where do you want to go, instead?" he asked.
"My SATs are legendary, I could get into any school I wanted. I could also choose to become an actor, a gardener, or join a fucking circus and it would be none of my mother's business."
"Yeah, but where else do you want to go, is what I asked."
He looked away, his jaw straining with chewed anger. “Nowhere. I've been wanting to go to PIFA since tenth grade. And my mom knew that, so now that she and Craig finally agreed to finance it, she goes and rubs it in my face, knowing I can't go there anymore."
Somehow, Brian didn't think that was Jennifer's intention. But he was internally at war with her, so he didn't voice that opinion.
"Well, now you're in PIFA. You've got both your legs and arms, so you can go there."
"Yeah, awesome. Have you been listening to me? I can't draw anymore."
"How do you know? When was the last time you tried? Because the last sketchbook I found in the trash was three weeks ago."
"What's the point of doing it when it's obviously not working?"
"If you expect to always succeed by the first hundredth try, maybe you should think twice about joining that circus. Being an accountant might just be the career for you. You'll be spared all that pesky insecurity, satisfaction and any chance at being remarkable."
The result of the falling-out with Jennifer was that Justin would be staying with Brian for Christmas. Which, just like Thanksgiving, he was planning to spend as far from his family as possible, so it made no difference to him, as long as he and Justin stayed on opposite ends of the sofa.
A problem, however, emerged on the weekend before Christmas.
+
All the weeks that Brian stayed at home with Justin or at work buttering up Manolo, one thing he'd been looking forward to as the reward for all this time of hard work and no fun, was the trip to Preston Park with the volleyball team he'd planned two months in advance. So it was understandable that his reaction to Josh telling him on Thursday that he had to stay home, was to burst out laughing.
“Nice try, Josh.” He patted him on the shoulder and spread a heaping spoon of BBQ sauce on his sandwich.
“That’s Justin’s sauce,” Josh pointed out. “And his bread. And his ham.”
“Justin likes to share.” Josh frowned dubiously, so Brian clarified, "with me."
“I’m serious.”
“I know you’re fucking serious, that’s why it’s so hilarious. You’ve known for a month I’m out of town this weekend. So the answer is ‘fuck no.’”
Josh followed Brian to his room and shut the door behind them when he heard the tap run in the bathroom.
“So what am I supposed to do? I can’t not go to this conference. If I don't, I’m unemployed.”
“That’s very touching, but not like I can do anything about it, so you can let yourself out of this room.”
“You know he can’t stay home alone. What am I gonna do? Leave him with Jennifer?”
“Why don’t you take him with you?”
“Brian.”
“Just pretend I don’t exist. I’m sure you’ll think of some solution if you try for at least a second not to rope me into something you’re exclusively responsible for.”
“Brian.”
Brian stood up and pulled his shirt off. He stared down at Josh, who, however, didn’t back off. Experience showed, though, that Brian’s nudity had a weakening effect on his roommate’s resolve. So Brian took off his tank top, too. Josh frowned and folded his arms across his chest, but otherwise didn’t seem especially intimidated.
“There are only two possible solutions, Brian. And you know it. And one of them is out of question.”
Brian reached for his belt.
“Brian? Can I come in?” Justin’s voice came from behind the door.
“Yeah.”
The door opened and Justin made a step in, but as soon as he looked at Brian’s chest, he froze.
“Am I… interrupting something?”
“No!” Josh shouted. “Absolutely not.”
“Yeah, okay.” His eyes kept drifting to Brian’s chest, and snapping away, as he spoke. “Are you arguing about me?”
“Why would we do that?” Josh waved his hand.
“Right. You told me Brian is staying home this weekend, but the calendar in the kitchen says he’s gonna be in Poconos, like I told you in the car, and um. You’re arguing. And you just said my mom’s name.”
“Brian changed his plans.”
Brian stared at him, disbelief making him dizzy and his fingers cramping into claws. Surely, he had to be hallucinating?
“Oh. You did?” Brian straightened his fingers and pressed his hands flat against his thighs. He didn’t trust himself to speak, yet. “You didn’t. Okay, listen. I know you think you have to babysit me all the time, which, by the way, isn’t true. But my mom is probably paying you to do that, or threatening you with god knows what, so I’m gonna play along.” He scratched the patch of skin behind his ear, his eyes on the floor and skin flushed. “But you don’t have to call off the trip. I can stay with Daphne.”
It was a solution neither of them had thought of, so perhaps that meant it wasn’t viable?
“For two days?”
“Yes. What’s wrong with that?” Brian waved his hand around, as if that would help him come up with some inconspicuous argument. “I’m not a kid. I’m not gonna start a house fire or accidentally drink liquid Plumr.”
And thus Friday afternoon found Brian reclining in the backseat of a SUV headed to the Poconos, with three hunky volleyball players. Josh was dropping Justin off in Daphne's care at the Casa Chambers before he drove to Philadelphia, and Brian’s boss was threatening to cut his salary in half.
+
It was nearing 11pm on Saturday when he got the phonecall.
Daphne was having a breakdown on the other end of the line and he did what was in his limited might to get through to her. What does the doctor say? No, don't call-- please don't fucking call his mom, she's gonna take him back to-- I can't get there, I'm in fucking Poc-- Daphne, what does the doctor say?.. Don't hang up. Hello!?
He barged in on the first unfortunate fuck who didn't lock his door and found him in bed with some girl, who yelped and pulled up the covers as Brian stepped in.
“I need to take your car,” Brian said, stopping over the bed.
“What the fuck, Kinney! Get the fuck out of my room!”
“Come on, I've got an emergency, need to get back to Pitts. ...Please.”
“Are you fucking high? I'm not giving you my car!”
“The keys are in his jeans, on the floor,” came the voice of the girl pressed into the bed by the weight of the guy, Shane, Brian recognized him from the bar the previous night, where he'd been drinking shots from between his girlfriend's boobs.
“What the fuck, Chloe?” Shane's eyes snapped to her face.
“Thank you. I'll pay you back for the gas. This is my phone number.” He scrawled it on a gas station receipt while sticking the car keys into his pants' pocket, away from Shane's grabbing hands. "Thank you."
“This is a fucking felony, Kinney! I'm calling the police,” Brian could hear as he walked down the corridor. He stormed into his room and swept into his bag what he saw of his things, then got out on the driveway and miraculously, found the right car with no owner or his girlfriend in sight. He didn't wait for them to catch up.
He made the four-and-a-half hour trip in less than three hours, remembered almost nothing of it as he pulled into the parking lot of Allegheny General. Nothing except trying desperately to stop the images of Justin's cold body in a hospital bed, and focus on the road. Then, as he sat in the car for ten minutes, he felt like Justin must've felt, biding his time before he had to get out and face whatever terrifying shit he imagined on the other side of the car door.
Brian expected to find Jennifer, since obviously even if Daphne listened to him and didn't call her, the hospital staff would have. He expected to find Justin, paler than usual and even more scared, and he expected to be unable to look the kid in the eye. But he had to go there and make sure he was breathing.
He expected the look of betrayal and loathing on Jennifer's face and somehow expected to see the same on Justin's. But the kid just smiled at him feebly and waved before his mother escorted Brian out of sight.
“Mom,” he protested weakly, but she ignored it.
“You know, when I came here, I thought, as I waited to find whether he was going to survive this... I thought: if he has the nerve to show his face here, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. But the truth is, I don't care whether you learn anything from this or if you continue living your irresponsible life without any regrets. All that matters is that Justin won't be there anymore to suffer the next time you screw up.”
“How is he?”
Maybe she expected an apology, because she took a moment to reply.
“He's alive, Brian. But he's not fine.”
“Can I see him?”
“What for?”
He didn't know how to answer that.
She didn't seem to care about his answer, either.
He went back home and straight into the shower, looking at Justin's ridiculously soft lilac towel hanging on the rack as his sight blurred from the water and eyes stung from the soap.
What the fuck was Brian thinking? A goddamn fucking hero, getting in the way between a sick kid and his mother, helping him live out his dreams of escaping from the evil world of grown ups. As if he could offer anything better in return.
+
He was woken a few hours later by the sounds of Josh's return, unzipping of his coat, clinking of his keys.
“Brian?” he asked, reaching for the handle of Brian's door.
“Fuck off,” Brian answered, pulling the duvet over his head.
“What happened to Justin?”
Brian didn't say anything. Eventually Josh fucked off.
+
When the doorbell rang, Brian got up to answer it, certain it was Jennifer coming to pick up Justin's things.
It wasn't.
“Daphne took my key,” Justin said as a means of greeting.
“Did you come with your mom?” Brian asked after staring at Justin's new scarf and hat for a while.
“Yeah. I... I wanted to--” He cut himself off and chewed on his lower lip, staring at the breast pocket of Brian's shirt and looking like he was making up his mind. “Can we go somewhere?”
Brian moved aside to let him into the apartment.
“No, I meant, somewhere else. On a car ride.”
“A what?” Maybe car rides didn't mean what they'd used to mean, because in Brian's dictionary they didn't qualify as something Jennifer would let her son partake in with Brian, especially straight out of hospital.
“Please. Just one last time. Please.”
“Brian? Who's at the door?” Josh's voice asked from the kitchen.
“Please.”
And car rides didn't qualify as something Brian would do, in his right mind, with Justin, right after almost-quite coming to terms with the fact that the kid was finally out of his life, hopefully getting the help he needed and no longer letting Brian's bad decisions affect him.
“Mailman. I'm going out,” Brian threw in the kitchen's direction, grabbing his jacket and keys from the hanger by the door.
The gratitude on Justin's face told him that he was probably going to regret this.
“We're not going with your mother, I presume?”
“She's parked in front of the building. Is there a back exit?”
Unbelievable. As if he hadn't used up his suicidally bad decisions quota yet.
Later Brian decided that he'd probably fallen for the tempting illusion of escape, too. He knew they weren't going far, and they were eventually coming back, but it was at least a goodbye he could give the kid. Last reckless thing Brian could do for Justin to complete their months-long lie, before Justin got locked away in some kind of safety chosen by his parents.
The Pittsburgh city area disappeared behind them before either spoke.
“My mom nearly shit a brick when she came to the hospital.”
Brian just kept staring at the road and the fields of snow lying ahead.
“I could hear her right before they started pumping my stomach. My dad actually came with her, but I didn't want to see him. I heard them arguing about you. He was furious, piling blame on you, as if you had anything to do with what happened. You didn't.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Brian could see Justin look at him, as if expecting a reply.
“You've done so much for me, spent so much time with me even though I'm probably just some annoying kid to you.” Justin reached into his pocket to pull out his cell phone. It was flashing with an incoming call. He cut it off. “So, thank you. Even though it is kind of embarrassing. Like with that handicapped cousin that I had to play with because of my grandma.”
“I wouldn't go that far in parallels.” Brian's voice was scratchy.
Fuck all did that time spent with Brian do for Justin. Maybe he would've been alright by now if he hadn't been kept away from doctors, encouraged to fuck himself up even worse with self-medication and self-care.
“Brian.”
He didn't like the sound of Justin's voice. Brian pulled over as they reached a vantage point on top of a hill, a wall of forest on one side of the road and a view of Pittsburgh on the other. He got out of the car and sat on the hood, patting his pockets for a cigarette. Justin got out of his side and sat next to him. He stared at Brian's hands working the lighter and the cigarette for a while before pulling out a pair of gray gloves from his coat's pockets.
“Here. Your hands will get all dry and chafed from this cold.”
Brian watched his cigarette-less hand disappear into the warmed-up cotton, then between Justin's palms as he closed them around Brian's fingers and let more and more warmth seep into them.
The part that Brian was admitting only at that moment, at that place far away from anyone who could judge him for it, was that he came to root for Justin's recovery. Not because it meant that Justin would go his own way then and stop making Brian feel responsible, out of his depth. Not even because Brian made it his little project to help him and he had never been one to see his projects fail.
He simply wanted Justin to be well. He was dying to see what this kid could accomplish at his full capacity. He wanted to see the best homosexual Justin could possibly be. At that moment, when Justin reached for Brian's other hand and put his soft, thin glove over it, Brian wished he could just get one more chance to make the best of his role in Justin's life.
“Brian. When I turn eighteen, will you go to Babylon with me? I've been wanting to see it from the inside since I heard...”
“I don't think so.”
Justin's cheeks flushed an even deeper shade of red, his eyes cast on the salted, shiny asphalt. It was really cold, they should be getting back soon.
“Babylon is a shithole,” Brian said. “You'll find nothing there except dubious blends of drugs and desperate disco queens. Shirtless gym bunnies, roid pigs, tweaked-out twinks. Fag hags and STDs.”
“I can't wait,” Justin concluded.
His smile was contagious.
Maybe Justin thought Brian's silence was a wordless agreement, a promise. As they drove back, Justin complained about having to live with his grandparents, then talked about moving in with Daphne when he graduated high school and taking on PIFA as a burnt-out, washed-out, uninspired, art-blocked hack, like Andy Warhol. He also answered Jennifer's call and placated her until they got back to the Pitts, where she nearly yanked him into her own car as soon as he stepped out of Brian's.
The next day, Jennifer came with a huge duffel bag to finish what her son didn't start. Josh accompanied her to point out all the places where Justin kept his things, but she only spoke to him when she absolutely had to. Brian got a strange satisfaction out of the fact that he wasn't the only one she blamed. She pretended not to see Brian until she was at the door, on her way out. Then she stepped into his room and told him:
“I want you to lose Justin's number. If he ever contacts you, don't answer him. I'm sure it's not much to ask of you.” She turned around and before she left for good, she added quietly, “Please.”
Then she was gone.
And Brian did what she asked, because she thought Brian was the last person Justin needed in order to get on with his life, and she was right.
On Christmas he got a text from Justin who wished him a lot of booze and an X-box so he didn’t have to spend the holidays watching TV. Brian didn’t reply, but it was the only holiday text he saved that year, in case someone wanted proof that even a misanthrope like Brian did have friends who remembered about him. He did that every year, and the fact that no one had actually ever accused him of not having friends, didn't derail his habit.
He never found out what really happened to Justin that Saturday night. He didn't ask Justin, accepting that they'd be acting like everything was alright with the world until the very end, honoring the tradition started the day they met.
When Justin texted him the day after Valentine's (Got my spankin' new ID and slutty clothes. Babylon on Friday?), Brian didn't answer either. After the following phone calls that he sent straight to voicemail, Brian didn't hear from Justin again.
The next Christmas he kept a text from Chloe, the girl who let him steal her boyfriend’s car in Poconos and when she collected the keys and gas money Brian owed him, she added them to her shoe fund because she’d broken up with the Shane guy. That same month Brian moved in with a new roommate, because the place he'd been sharing with Josh was just not big enough for them anymore.
Brian moved out of his new apartment after living there for only two months. His roommate was on strong anti-depressants and Brian couldn't stand the mood swings and always being the one to do the chores. But the real reason was that whenever he caught glimpse of those pills - and it seemed like they were fucking everywhere - he needed to go outside and just try to breathe normally and try not to think about three hours in the middle of the night on a highway and the feeling of impending disaster. So one day he packed his things and got the hell out of there, losing one third of his three-month deposit.
Brian finished college with honors and kept working at Manolo’s, giving up on grad school because he wasn't even sure he could ever pay the undergrad debts. He quit the restaurant work when he got an internship at Vangard that paid like crap. He made do with freelance copywriting for nameless online companies. The internship at Vangard ended after three months, employment didn’t follow. They said it was recession and they weren’t looking to hire, try again next year. He didn’t. A bigger, nationwide agency opened up shop in Pittsburgh and Brian kept trying there for two months before he got a foot in the door.
In September, he got an invitation to Josh's bachelor party. Brian wasn’t sure why. They hadn’t talked since he moved out and why Josh would think he’d want to participate in a ritual for breeders, doubtlessly sponsored by the letter “b” for “boobs,” was beyond him. He went anyway, arrived two hours late, and left after fucking a waiter, without even seeing Josh to give him drunken best wishes.
-Next Part-
---
A/N: I'm gonna leave you here for one day longer than usual, because I need to make a few last-minutes edits, but won't have enough time to do it sooner. Hey, at least it's not a cliffhanger, right? :D