Reverberations #13
In preparation for writing this, I started by writing a separate post in which I vented long and loudly about how I felt about the bizarre dialogue between Justin and Brian in 511. That rant now out of the way (see here if you're interested, but it's not necessary to read it: 511 rant), here is Reverberations #13.
Warnings: Content is suitable for adults only. If you click on the links you are signifying you are old enough to read such content.
Click here for all chapters of Reverberations
Last time, with two days to go before his first gallery show, Justin was getting geared up to go to the Anti-Prop 14 fundraiser, while Brian was getting ready to go to Chicago to meet with Leo Brown.
Reverberations #13
Brian
It’s starting to get light outside so I guess it’s morning. I try to straighten and stretch my legs without disturbing the woman next to me whose son was …
He’s still in surgery; and like the rest of us, she’s stuck here in this fucking hellhole I’d hoped I’d seen the last of, waiting for news of him just like we wait for Mikey. She fell asleep about ten minutes ago leaning against my shoulder, but even I, asshole that I am, can’t begrudge her a few minutes escape from this craziness.
Justin and I both showered and changed before we came back to the hospital, but we still smell of smoke and fire and hate.
Fuck!
Damn them all to Hell!
I reach out, I have to, to touch him, and he’s solid and warm and alive under my hand. He turns his head toward me. His eyes are red rimmed with smoke and lack of sleep, and they are so fucking beautiful.
I lean my forehead against his.
“I meant it,” I whisper.
His smile, even in that pale, tired, red-eyed face, lights up the fucking waiting room.
“I know,” he mouths. The smile widens. “Me too,” he says.
I just rest there a moment, taking a deep breath of him. Then I straighten, and he turns away; although the warmth of his shoulder against mine keeps my fucking heart beating.
Across from us, Ben sits. He looks gutted. The strain of waiting till Mikey gets out of surgery and we fucking hear something other than “too soon” and “we’ll know more later” is beginning to put cracks in even his vaunted calm. For a moment I flash back to the two occasions I’ve seen that calm shattered; once was the gym incident during his ‘roid period, the other is a much more pleasant memory of him flushed and panting, moaning and mewling while my dick plowed his ass.
Then Justin shifts slightly beside me, and those images are banished, my whole attention going back to him.
I want to get him out of here. I didn’t want him to come. I want him home, safe, not here in this place that brings back memories of …
But he insisted. And, if I’m honest, I’m not sure I could have fucking left him, anyway.
I’m worried about Michael, of course I am.
But the thought that I could have lost Justin last night simmers all the time beneath my fears for Mikey; it twists my gut, makes my head pound like a motherfucker and tells me I shouldn’t fucking expect to sleep soundly again any time soon.
His hand, the one that he had to learn to use all over again after some other fucking bastard tried to destroy him, to take him away from me, flutters a little, then comes to rest on my thigh, and I swear it’s the only thing that keeps me from coming apart. That and the scent of him, warm and sweet and whole beside me.
*****
Justin
I can feel Brian beside me, feel the angst building in him as we sit and wait. He’s not good at this, not good at feeling helpless.
When he touches me, I turn to look at him and the desperate weariness in his face makes me want to kill whoever did this with my bare hands. Then his eyes soften. He leans his forehead against mine and whispers, “I meant it” and my heart does this ridiculous flip, like some silly heroine in a lame romance novel.
I feel kind of dumb that it means so much to me that he finally said it. I mean, it was such a cliché, right? He thinks I’ve been hurt again, or worse, and in the relief of finding me he spouts off that he loves me. It’s like some pathetic soap opera.
But Brian is totally not a cliché. If he said it, it’s because he means it, and he meant to say it. I mean, obviously the bombing triggered it, but with Brian, the reasons behind what he does are never the obvious ones. I don’t know what made him say it then. Fuck! He probably doesn’t really know himself. But he said it. After all this time he finally said it. Earlier, he’d come looking for me in the rubble and smoke and I knew how scared he’d been. He had to leave then, to go look after Deb and take her to the hospital and that was fine. But he came back; he left Mikey, left Deb to come looking for me again. Then he told me he loved me. Told me I was the one he’d been thinking of, the one he’d been terrified of losing. Told me all the things I’d stopped waiting for him to say, all the things I’d convinced myself I didn’t need to hear. But when he said them, I knew how wrong I’d been about that, because it mattered. It mattered that he said them. It turned my personal world around in ways no damned bomb ever could.
And the fact that right now, when we’re both tired and cranky and anxious and the adrenalin’s long ago seeped away, he’s made a point of reminding me of what he said, letting me know that it wasn’t just the fear and adrenalin speaking ... that ... that’s almost better than when he said it the first time.
We only look at each other for a moment, and then I have to look away. I feel almost ashamed to be so happy while we don’t even know if Michael is going to make it. I mean, shit! He hasn’t exactly been my favorite person lately, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. And I hate to see Deb looking so ... old, and bewildered and sad. It’s awful.
The police were here earlier, taking statements. They asked us to go to the station later and make formal ones, but they wanted to get the basic details.
They asked Brian a lot of questions. Apparently they made a big deal out of the fact that he wasn’t there. He said he felt like he was a suspect, like he’d blown up his own place to get the insurance or something.
I felt sick when they told us it was a fucking bomb. I guess I was hoping it had been some sort of gas leak or something. But Carl was here and he told Brian it was a bomb. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What kind of freak would do something like this?
Brian wanted to go down to the club later to check out the damage, but Carl told him that it’s closed off as a crime scene, and even if it wasn’t, the safety people wouldn’t let him in.
I’m glad. I don’t want him there. I don’t want either of us to have to go near the place again. Not for a while, anyway.
I’m tired, but I don’t want to go home, don’t want to have to try to sleep. I ... I’m afraid. I feel like all the fucking nightmares that I dealt with for months after the bashing, and thought I’d finally put behind me are just waiting for me to close my eyes, to let my guard down, before they pounce again.
It’s fucking ridiculous! I’m fine. I wasn’t hurt at all. There’s no reason for me to feel so ...
I can feel the shakes start, but I reach out and put my hand on Brian’s leg, and somehow that grounds me. He’s here. He’s fine. I’m fine.
We’re gonna be okay.
It’s all gonna be okay.
*****
Brian
By the time I make it into Kinnetic I’m fucking exhausted. But, aside from the fact that I have to talk to Leo Brown and reschedule, I need to check things out. I tried to find out if anyone from the staff was hurt last night at the hospital, but all they kept telling me was that the police were compiling a list of names and they needed to contact relatives first. Fuckers! The assholes just don’t get it. I bet there were a whole bunch of dear ol’ Maws and Paws who slammed the door in the faces of police officers who arrived to tell them Little Johnny had been blown up in some gay club. They probably haven’t spoken to poor fucking Johnny since he fell out of the closet.
Cyn relieves that one of my worries at least. Only one staff member was hurt, and he’s just got a broken leg; which in the scheme of things isn’t such a big deal. I tell her to send fruit and flowers, and I’ll go down there myself later. I don’t know why I feel like I have to visit some loser who let himself get trampled on, for crissakes, but … Anyhow, for now at least, that’s all fine.
Cynthia’s also spoken to Leo already, and explained. Apparently he’d heard about the bombing and was shocked to find out it was my place. She said he insisted I take all the time I need before I get back to him. When I call, he’s very sympathetic, tells me it can wait, all that shit. But then he asks if I can possibly get there tomorrow. I tell him that’s not an option, that Monday would be the earliest, and we settle on that.
Maybe I can get Justin to come with me. There’s obviously some fucking curse on me when it comes to trips to Chicago. But maybe he needs to hang around for his exhibition. Fucked if I know what the deal is with that. You’d think he’d only need to be there for the opening, but who knows? Linds would. I make a note to call her. I should anyway, check on how she is. Not that I particularly want to talk to her at the moment, but …
Ted is antsy. He’s already been talking to the insurance, and trying to get estimates for repairs. Like anyone is going to give an estimate before they know how bad the fucking damage is. It’ll be days before we can even get someone in there to check it out. Maybe weeks.
Doesn’t matter.
I sure as hell don’t plan to just rebuild and reopen like not a damned thing has happened.
Ted’s shocked when I tell him I plan to sell, but what the fuck does he expect?
It’s prime real estate. Or it was. I guess this little incident could put a major dint in property prices.
Shit!
My cell rings. It’s him.
“Are you okay?” I snap at him. “I fucking told you you should …”
“Brian, I’m fine. I just wanted to know how things are there. Was anyone hurt?”
I sigh, and tell him what little good news I’ve got.
I wanted him to go home. Or at least to come with me. But no, he insisted on being dropped off at his fucking studio. Like he’s in any state to do any fucking work.
Twat!
“They’re having a vigil tonight,” he says.
I nod. I’d heard already.
“Senator Baxter’s going to be there.”
I can imagine. Showing how much she fucking “cares”. Where was she last night?
“Um … I want to go.”
Of course he does. I nod again, and then, because it’s a fucking phone, I have to force my voice to work so I can say something.
“Yeah,” I grunt.
For some stupid fucking reason my stomach is churning, just thinking of him being in a crowd, being out there in the open, being …
Fuck!
Well, this time they’ll have the chance to take us both out, because I’m going to be right there with him.
“Okay,” he says, sounding happier.
“Meant it,” I hear myself saying, my voice sounding husky.
There’s a pause. Then a little sigh. “Me too,” he says, and I can tell he’s smiling.
“I’ve got some things I have to deal with here. Then I have to go to the police station,” I say. “And then on to the hospital. Unless the cops throw my ass into jail.”
“Why don’t you come and get me when you’re ready, and I’ll go with you,” he offers. “I’ll protect you.”
Now he’s laughing. Little shit.
“Okay,” I tell him.
*****
Justin
Making our statements wasn’t all that bad. Brian says they didn’t give him a hard time. Well, he said they were assholes, but that’s just Brian.
I think he’s surprised by how seriously they seem to be taking it. I guess he thought they’d just go through the motions, but they seem to have a whole huge team on it, all very keen to catch whoever did it. We ran into Carl while we were at the hospital and he said that the mayor has been making it clear that he expects results or heads will roll, so all the top brass is putting pressure on to get a result. I guess maybe Deakins remembers who put him in office in the first place.
Carl said that they don’t think anyone from Babylon was involved. Apparently, there were no new staff on last night, and it was so last minute to use Babylon that it doesn’t seem likely it could have been any of the regular staff. But there were a whole catering crew that the GLC had organized that they were going to use in the original venue and just brought across to Babylon, and Carl said the cops think it might have been one of them.
I guess it could have been anyone really.
After the police station I get Brian to drop me off at the gallery. Although it seems bizarre, I still have an opening tomorrow night. My first, really. Even if it’s not just my work on show. If it was up to me, I’d bail on the whole thing but when I said that to Brian he just stared at me for what seemed like forever like it was the most outrageous thing he’d ever heard.
Then suddenly he nodded.
“Okay,” he said. He took a breath and nodded again. “Okay. That might be good.”
I could hear in his voice that he really meant it would be safer; that he would like to keep me wrapped up like a fucking cocoon and that he will if I let him.
That’s when I realize what the stare meant. Of course he thought I’d lost my mind. If I let this affect me to that extent, I’m letting the bigots and the bastards who did this win.
So I need to go in to the gallery today and take care of business.
When I get there, I find out that Lindsay isn’t in. Apparently she’s too shaken up. I know she and Mel were pretty good friends with one of the women who died.
People died.
I can feel the shakes ready to start again, but I can’t let them. I practice some of my breathing techniques and call Brian to tell him that I’ll head over to the studio as soon as I’m done here.
He wants to pick me up and drive me there, but that’s crazy. I finally agree to take a cab and he says he’ll organize one for me from the car service the company uses. He’s totally going to drive me crazy if he keeps this up, but I’m too tired to argue.
Sydney insists that everything’s fine, and I should go home and rest and all that shit, so I take off back to my studio.
I’m up to my eyeballs in the new painting when Brian finally turns up. I’d started sketching it out this morning, but this afternoon, it just took off, and now I have a canvas covered in scrawls of charcoal - black and angry, almost menacing.
He walks in and looks at it for a moment, and I see his brows draw together. I step back and look at what I’ve drawn.
Okay. I guess it is a little dark.
“Justin, what the fuck?” he says.
My name, even. I sigh. “Brian …”
“Why the fuck would you want to draw that shit?”
I almost smile at that. Of course he can’t understand. His way of dealing is to not even think about things that upset him. He does his best to put them out of his mind completely, or at least to shut them down. I have to get them out there, splash them across paper, or screen, or canvas. That’s my way of dealing.
I try to explain to him, but he’s just shrugging it off, practically biting his tongue off to stop himself saying, ‘Just forget about it’.
In desperation, I say, “Do you know what was the worst thing for me after the bashing?”
That stops him in his tracks, just like I knew it would. This is totally a taboo subject with him.
I don’t give him time to blow up at me for even daring to mention it, I just carry on with what I’m trying to say.
“It was that I had no way to express how I was feeling. I couldn’t get it outside, couldn’t put it down on paper. My hand was so fucked and I couldn’t draw or paint or even scribble.
“I couldn’t talk about it - there weren’t words. And, anyway, it was all too vague ... it wasn’t ... I didn’t have thoughts, nothing clear or coherent, maybe because I didn’t have any real memory of what happened; I just had all these feelings and I couldn’t do anything with them.
“Up till then, my whole life, whatever I’d been feeling I’d been able to put it down on paper - express it, however badly, in my art. But after the bashing ... I didn’t even have that, and that was absolutely the worst thing about it.
“This time … I can at least do that. I need to do that.”
I look at Brian, and realize that he’s hearing me, but he’s hearing the wrong thing. He’s putting himself back then and blaming himself all over again. I move towards him and putting my hands on his shoulders, I shake him a little.
“No!” I tell him. “Brian, don’t do that.”
His eyes meet mine, deep and full of pain. I touch his face gently.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I say. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault but his. Hobbs. He was the only one to blame.”
Stubborn jackass shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything, but I hear it anyway. He still blames himself for being there.
I resist the urge to smack him and just give him a little shove with my chest. That brings a grin, like I knew it would. He thinks he’s so much physically stronger than me that he gets amused whenever I make any attempt to assert myself with him. Sometimes he forgets that I’m not that little twink anymore, and although I’m not exactly a gym bunny, I do work out now on a regular basis. He’s still taller, heavier, and probably stronger, but I wouldn’t be as much of a push over as he’d like to think. But … he likes feeling all macho sometimes, so I let him have his little moments of amusement. Sometimes, like now, I can use it to my advantage.
Now that the grin has surfaced, and the guilt trip has been de-railed a little, I smile at him, letting him see that I know what I’m saying, and that I mean it.
“I was the one who invited you to the Prom,” I tell him. “And it … I am so fucking glad you came.”
His mouth twists and he gives me one of those looks I hate, full of bitterness and self-mockery.
“Even if you can’t fucking remember me even being there,” he says harshly, his hand snaking round the back of my neck in a touch that isn’t harsh at all.
I look into his eyes, knowing that this is the time to tell him the things I’ve never had the chance to say to him about that.
I nod, short and jerky, then I say quickly, before I can think better of it, “You’re right. I don’t remember. Not really. But sometimes … I get snatches, you know?”
He stares at me.
“When we’re at Babylon maybe, and the light flashes in a certain way, or sometimes when we’re in bed … I see your face close to me, and … I get a flash of us dancing, your face is close to mine and you’re smiling right into my eyes and I’m smiling at you and … and I know that you love me. And I am so fucking happy …”
I break off, overwhelmed by a sudden revelation.
I was happy in that moment, deliriously happy. But not because I knew Brian loved me. I … I think I’d always known that. Suspected it, anyhow. No, that wasn’t it. Or not all of it. Not the best part.
“Not just because you loved me,” I tell him, finally figuring it out, finally seeing it, feeling it, knowing it. “But because you were happy that you loved me. You … you wanted it,” I tell him, my voice suddenly choked with tears as I realize exactly what it was that Hobbs had destroyed that night, what he’d robbed me of, what he’d stolen from Brian, from us.
For one brief moment, Brian had let himself believe in love, believe in being happy, believe that he could have that with someone. He’d dropped his guard and just let his feelings show for once in his life.
Then Chris Hobbs came along and beat my brains in, and beat into Brian’s brain the knowledge that his admitting to loving someone can only lead to pain - not just for him, but for the one he loves.
I wrap my arms around him, overwhelmed with an insight that I am completely unable to put into words.
He holds me, though, tightly against him, and breathes into my hair and somehow I know he’s heard me. Heard all the things I can’t say to him.
Mainly how sorry I am for all the shit I’ve put him through.
Sorry for all the resentment I’ve been carrying around. All this time.
Without me even really knowing it, that resentment has been eating at me ever since I got out of hospital; I’d been hating him a little for not wanting to love me; for making me fight him so hard just to get him to admit that maybe he could deal with the idea that we might be together for more than the next fuck.
And all this time, he’s been living with this horrible, soul-destroying secret.
Not just with the belief that he was to blame for what happened to me. It’s worse than that. All this time part of him has believed that it was him being in love, admitting it, being happy about it, letting me and all the rest of the world see that happiness, that put the bat in Chris’s hand.
No wonder he closed off again. No wonder he let me go with Ethan without any kind of a fight. It’s a fucking miracle that he let me back into his life at all, when he’s taught himself, when he’s been taught, to believe that him loving someone, admitting that he loves them, can only fuck them over. Or maybe he believes that it’s okay as long as he doesn’t enjoy it.
I feel a wave of laughter shake me suddenly.
He is so fucked up.
And such an arrogant asshole to believe that all the shit I went through revolved around him.
But he’s my fucked up asshole and I love him.
I feel suddenly like dancing or singing or flying or any other fucking clichéd idea of what happy feels like.
It’s totally wrong that I should feel like this right now, but it’s such a relief. Being free of that resentment is … it makes me feel like I can do anything, be anything. That we can be anything.
“Marry me,” he says.
*****
Brian
I guess I should have given him some sort of fucking warning, because he looks like he’s swallowed a cow.
He just stands there and gawps at me for about an hour. Then he comes to me and puts his arms around my waist, so I have to let mine slide around him, even though all I really want to do is wrap my hands around his throat and fucking choke an answer out of him.
“Brian, no,” he says, smiling at me all sweet and gentle, like he isn’t kicking me in my one remaining ball. Then he fucking kisses the edge of my mouth, gently, like I’m some fucking fragile little flower. “I love you. You don’t have to …”
He stops and gives me one of those blinding fucking smiles of his.
“I love you,” he says again, his eyes shining at me like he hasn’t just shot me down in flames. “You’re just freaked out by last night. But I’m fine. We’re fine.”
He grins at me then. “We’re better than fine,” he says, squeezing his arms tighter. “I love you.”
I stick my tongue in my cheek, and look down at him, trying to figure out if this is the time to argue with him. But we’re both past exhausted, and all I want to do is take him home and get a couple of hours sleep before this damned vigil.
Meanwhile, he’s shining up at me, so I have to say something. I press my forehead against his.
“Me too,” I tell him.
He beams at me, so he’s fucking heard that right, anyway.
I wrap my arm around his neck and let him know I think it’s time to go home. He squawks and while he’s bustling around cleaning up, I start planning my next move. This discussion isn’t over, Sunshine, not by a long way. I just have to sell you on the idea, that’s all.
That’s okay. Convincing people is what I do, and I’m good at it. I’m fucking brilliant.
I guess for him the marriage thing might seemed to have come from way out in left field. He thinks he’s letting me off the hook; thinks it’s not really what I want. But he’s wrong. Because I do want it. I want a real fucking future with him in it.
And I need him to know that. Suddenly, I know that I have to find a way to make sure he knows that.
The thing is I just refuse to keep fucking things up.
I don’t have a clue why this thing between us works. It shouldn’t. I can think of a billion reasons why it shouldn’t. But it does.
Maybe it’s the absolute need to be together that drives us to find a way to make that happen somehow - even when it shouldn’t work, doesn’t work, can’t work, we somehow make it work.
Not because we want it enough, or because of the effort we put in to somehow making it happen. But because we both need it so much that it not working just isn’t an option.
‘You’re all you need’ I sneered at him once, fucking dickhead that I was. He’s not all he needs; I’m not all I need, But I don’t need him, I need … us; this whatever it is between us, that’s what I need. We both do. That’s the major fucking secret that makes this dysfunctional, completely fucking ridiculous Thing work.
And it scares the living shit out of me that one day he’ll stop needing it, and … I won’t.
I won’t ever be able to stop.
When he stops, it will end, and I’ll go right on needing something I can never have again.
That’s the thought that wakes me sometimes in the middle of the night; it comes to me in my fucking sleep and I jerk awake, cold and shaking, and I lie there for the rest of the night listening to him breathing and reminding myself over and fucking over that the way his body gravitates towards me in his sleep means that it hasn’t happened yet. Telling myself that right now, tonight, he still needs us; and all I can do is make the most of that.
There was a time when all of that would have been enough to make me push him away as hard as I fucking could, send him off to find his destiny (which surely to Christ has to be better than being with me). I would rather have tossed him off a cliff myself rather than just sit around waiting for him to be the one to step away from me. But not any more.
I learned that much at least from the fiasco with the fiddler. It didn’t hurt any less because I pulled the ax down on my own stubborn neck. In fact, it was worse, because all I was left with was ‘what if?’ and ‘if fucking only’.
Well, not any more. No ‘if onlys’. It might not work; we might not last. We probably won’t. But this time if we crash and burn it isn’t going to be because I was too chickenshit to really try.
It’s not going to be like it was after the fiddler. No one is going to be able to point at me and say ‘There goes Brian Kinney. He’s a dickhead. He could have had something fucking wonderful but he was too much of a pussy to go for it.’
I’m not the same asshole who said to him ‘in ways that I won’t’.
I am going to love him in all the ways that I can.
There are some that I can’t. They’re not in me. It’s not in me to make pretty speeches and buy him fucking flowers and all that shit. But I’m not going to leave him in any fucking doubt that I am loving him in all the ways that I can, and that I plan to go on doing that as long as I have breath.
He might think this is all about last night, but that’s only partly true. I’ve been working up to making some changes for a while. I’ve just been dragging my feet about it; pushing it to the back of my mind with all the other crap I hate thinking about; telling myself that there’s no rush, that things between us are okay, things are fine. All the usual shit to cover up the fact that I’m a fucking coward who’s so afraid of change he’d rather go through life pretending he’s still some hot young stud with his brains in his pants than actually deal with who he really is, who he really wants to be.
Last night just reminded me that I don’t have forever to do that. And I’m fucked if I’m going to lose him again because he thinks I don’t want him, thinks I don’t love him, thinks I don’t want to have a future with him.
I’m not going to have him drift away because he thinks the future with me is limited to what we’ve had in the past.
There are no fucking limits to what we can have, what we can be.
None.
*****
Justin
By the time we get to the vigil, I feel like my head is going to explode. I can hardly take in everything that’s going on at the moment.
He fucking proposed to me!
I almost feel like I should be dragging him off to the ER or something, because last night must have seriously shaken a screw loose.
At least he didn’t freak out when I said ‘no’. Or storm off somewhere to fuck a few tricks just to prove that he didn’t really mean it anyway.
Instead, we went back to the loft, and he was almost relaxed and really … loving. It’s hard to explain how amazing it is when he’s like that. No one would believe me anyway. We even managed to get a couple of hours sleep - after he’d given me the most fantastic blow job ever. It must have been just what I needed because I slept like a baby. Better.
Now we’re here, and it’s all surreal.
I’ve seen things like this on TV, but they don’t capture at all what this is really like.
It’s dark, and a little misty, so each candle has a halo of diffused light around the flame. People are huddled in little groups, looking sad and sort of self-consciously solemn. While there’s a sort of calm, at the same time there’s a sense that under the calm people are really wired; that they’re scared and sad and angry, all at once.
We seem to have been standing here forever, and my feet are starting to hurt, and it’s fucking cold. But I feel ashamed to be thinking of how uncomfortable I am, when we’re here because there are people who died last night and others who might not live through this one. So I stand between Mom and Brian and try not to shuffle about too much.
There are some protesters here, but they’re on the other side of the crowd from us. I’m glad. I don’t want to have to deal with them, and I don’t want Brian to risk getting into it with them either.
We stand and listen while Senator Baxter speaks. The only thing she says that really registers with me is that if Bush truly wants to fight a war on terror he should start in his own backyard with the right wing religious crazies who bomb abortion clinics and think that killing anyone who doesn’t share their warped vision of the world is doing God’s work.
That gets a round of applause, and again, you can sense the underlying anger in this crowd. You can feel the frustration that they … we … can’t do anything about the fact that there are people who don’t think we even have the right to live, let alone to be ourselves, and that those people are sheltered and even encouraged by the government whose duty it is to protect its citizens - us, as much as anyone else.
When she’s finished, Mayor Deakins gets up and promises that in his jurisdiction that isn’t going to be the case. He tells us that the city’s law enforcement officers have been instructed to make bringing the people who set last night’s bomb to justice their top priority.
For whatever that’s worth. Well, at least Stockwell’s not around to turn an official blind eye like he did to so many other crimes against gays.
Drew speaks next.
Then Deb.
But Deb has just started when some asshole from among the protesters shouts something that I don’t catch properly and all hell breaks loose.
Ben, of all people, goes berserk, and by the time Brian manages to drag him out of it, he’s half killed some old guy.
It takes ages for everything to calm down. There are people shouting backwards and forwards; some of them want to get into the fight (I actually see Emmett throw a punch at someone), police and ambulance sirens wail over the shouting, and there’s pretty much general mayhem.
When it all clears, the old guy has been carted off to hospital.
And Ben’s been arrested.
on to #14