FAN FICTION POST: "Precious", part 4 (Queer As Folk)
Title: Precious
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
Previous chapters: Prologue | I | II | III
Notes: Okay, so the last chapter was when things got kind of hard for me to write. I fortunately have never experienced a loss like the one some of these characters are going through, or even seen up-close somebody else go through something like that, and was really concerned about portraying this stuff realistically. So needless to say, getting comments with words like "realistic" and "insightful" was a very pleasant surprise and really encouraging. You guys are too kind. But that last chapter was kind of intense to do and I needed a little bit of a break (and to get caught up on schoolwork after neglecting it for fic writing, LOL), so I hardly wrote anything for a couple days. But I really am trying to write this as fast as I can without it compromising my grades or eating and sleeping habits.
So now, onto part 4, in which Debbie pwns Brian and Justin is completely missing-in-action. Yeah, I'm not really sure how that happened, and I feel really bad for taking so long to update only to give you a chapter with absolutely no B/J interaction, but I also think it's kind of necessary to take a step back from focusing completely on the death for a while to get some relief from all the angst. So...please don't kill me. :(
p a r t | f o u r
After they get back and Brian takes Justin to his mom’s, the rest of the day ticks by agonizingly one second at a time until it is finally very late into the night and feels like it’s been three days since the last morning. Brian is still awake when someone knocks on his door at 2:50 AM. When he opens it tiredly rubbing one eye and sees Debbie standing there with a dish of tuna macaroni casserole, he says right away in an exhausted voice, “Oh, fuck yes.”
As she comes into the loft she explains, “I got so busy cooking some chicken parmesan to bring for Justin tomorrow and food to feed my own house that I figured I might as well take care of you, too.”
“Just hang on a second,” he says, going to the end of the room to get into his stash drawer. “I’m going to have to roll one.”
For the first couple minutes they sit at the counter smoking the joint together, they don’t say anything at all. Then Brian stares into the air in that way people do when they’re looking far back into the past, and says, “You remember that guy Mikey and I went to school with who died in the middle of our senior year?”
“The one who was in a car accident?” she asks.
“Yeah. Tony...Ficeli. That was his name. I keep thinking about him now. I still remember the morning after that happened. I think I’d slept over at your house the night before; me and Michael went to school together. We got there about ten minutes late and there were still a whole lot of kids out in the halls talking. I think it was this guy named Derek Holland who came up to talk to us and we said, ‘What’s going on?’ and he just said, ‘Tony died.’ Even though it was a perfectly logical explanation all I could think was he had to be shitting me. I remember there were all these girls who had barely even known him hugging each other and crying in the halls. That whole day it was like the entire school had suddenly been contaminated with the post-mature realization that he existed and was a really great guy.”
Debbie just sits silently, like she’s remembering back to the time herself.
“I guess it’s just different when this happens to people who are still young,” he says. “Maybe most of the kids in that school didn’t really care about him while he was alive, but when those things happen it’s kind of like a reality check. Because even if you didn’t really know him, he was just kind of one of us. And then when he died we were forced to realize that just because we’re young it doesn’t mean we’re invincible. Everybody was affected by that.”
“Even you?” Debbie asks in a sarcastically shocked voice.
He gets an annoyed look on his face and says, “I knew Tony.” Then he takes in one very long drag, inhaling it almost angrily, and breathes it out in one quick breath. “I mean, what the hell kind of world is this? To imagine there are these assholes who would actually tell you these things happen for a reason. What’s one good reason this should happen to a thirteen-year-old girl?”
Debbie just shakes her head. “This is the reason: that kid and his friends were being too rowdy and he was driving too fast, and he didn’t even think to check the crosswalk before turning around that corner.”
“That’s a good Catholic girl’s explanation, huh?”
“Yes. Of course, it helps us to imagine it’s all part of some kind of divine intervention, some plan that will all work out for the greater good. And sometimes it helps to just blame ourselves and find any kind of reason to say, ‘It was my fault.’ It gives us a sense of control over it...the illusion that we can keep it from happening again to somebody else. But you can’t prevent all these things. Shit just happens, and often it’s not anybody’s fault or responsibility. All you can do is live life to its fullest and hold dear the people who mean the most to you. Tell the people you love that you love them. Every day.” She stands up and starts going through some drawers until she finds some forks, and takes out two. “Fuck, who do I think I’m talking to? You’re not going to do any of those things.”
Brian laughs quietly. “Believe it or not, I just might have managed to learn a thing or two from Vic’s very unexpected departure.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about Vic,” she says, staring at him with her hand on her hip the way he remembers she used to stare at Michael waiting for him to admit something like “Okay, so I wasn’t actually out studying.” How does she always know? he used to wonder in amazement.
Brian doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge where she’s trying to steer the subject, so she has to go on herself. “Michael’s told me how you and Sunshine haven’t exactly been on frequent speaking terms,” she says as she sits back down.
“Goddamn it, Deb,” he sighs. “This is no time to-”
“Of course it is,” she interrupts. “When else are you going to think about it? When it’s too late?”
He annoyedly taps his knuckles on the counter. “Micheal needs to keep his fucking mouth shut.”
“He just doesn’t like watching you do these things to yourself. And neither do I.”
“Then look away,” he says with a kind of finality, telling Debbie it’s the end of that conversation.
She shakes her head, taking the joint from him. "Did you ever read All The King's Men?"
It's such an irrelevant question that Brian takes a second to react and then laughs. "Yeah, like in tenth grade."
"That's one of the only things I remember reading in high school,” she reflects. “I remember it had all these...philosophical ideas in it. About how you can only make good out of bad."
"Because there's nothing else to make it out of," Brian says.
"That's right. You can't get anything good done without ever getting your hands dirty, and that's why nobody is free of sin. And you cannot just have the good things. You have to take the bad with it. When my English teacher explained this to my class I remember thinking it sounded like an awfully negative point of view to have about the world. But you know, it can also be kind of optimistic. Just look at everything that happened between you and Justin that wouldn’t have if he didn’t get hurt. These terrible things happen to people, and it's so hard to think how there could be a good reason. I wouldn't say there is and that’s why they happen, but that doesn't mean you can't see how sometimes good things can result from bad. It just depends on what you make of it."
Brian takes another drag on the joint and exhales slowly, looking up thoughtfully. "Wasn't that book about a corrupt politician?"
She looks annoyed. "So what?"
"Well Debbie, you're comparing apples and oranges here. Robert Penn Warren was writing about human nature. Good intentions and bad intentions. Decency and sin. You're talking about all the good and bad shit everybody has to go through in life, and that's not the same thing."
"Well, you can still see it the same way,” she says agitatedly. “That character in it was always talking about dirt. How there's nothing in the whole world that didn’t come from dirt. We live on it. Trees grow out of it. The ocean is nothing but dirt on the bottom. And even a diamond is just a piece of dirt that got hot. But you see...you can choose to just say it's dirt, or you can say it's a diamond. Who cares where it came from anyway?
"Maybe what you and Justin had didn't start out so pretty and you went through some pretty tough times as a result of meeting each other. You finally opened yourself up to somebody and it turned out so bad it seemed crazy to actually allow yourself to have that kind of vulnerability again. Must have been kind of like...I don’t know. Being terrified of dogs your whole life and then one day deciding to try petting one and just starting to think, Hey, this isn’t so bad right before you almost get your hand bitten off.”
Brian immediately starts snickering at the comparison.
“What? Shut up and listen, I’m trying to-”
“Give me a lecture,” he says.
“Damn right I am...What was I talking about?”
“Um...” Brian reaches across the counter to pick up one of the forks she got out. “Petting.”
Then she laughs a little too, taking the lid off of the casserole and pushing it across the table so it’s sitting in between them.
“So...” Debbie continues, forking out a bite. “I know a lot of the time it’s been hard going through all the things that came along with being in a relationship. That doesn’t make it a bad thing that you met. When he's away in New York and you're missing him, is it all those bad things that happened you think about? Are you relieved that you’re not together having to deal with that? Or do you just remember how good it was having him here with you when you woke up in the morning?"
Brian stares off into the air, not answering just as she expected.
"You and him really love each other," she continues, "and that alone means you have something that some people never even find in their whole lives. It's like you've found this diamond amidst a bunch of dirt, something that could mean the difference between you having a good life and a bad one. But you're just casting it aside, because you think it's just more dirt, and that's all life is. But life doesn't have to be nothing but endless suffering if you’ve got the balls to do what it takes to be happy when you actually have the chance.”
He takes a bite of tuna and macaroni and finally after he finishes chewing says with that exaggeratedly big smile of his, “As much fun as it is getting stoned and philosophizing with you over macaroni, I think you really don’t know anything about it and should mind your own fucking business.”
But the way she keeps looking at him, he might as well be in an interrogation room under bright lights being mercilessly questioned until he confesses to everything. She doesn’t even have to ask any questions. After a moment of shifting in his seat uncomfortably he just spills out what’s on his mind. “He's been seeing this other kid, you know. Luke.”
"Okay,” she says flatly. “Big deal. You've probably been with a hundred other guys since he left."
"But it’s not that kind of thing. They don’t just get together and fuck. They hang out. They go to movies. They visit each other even when one of them is sick and fucking is out of the question. And bring orange juice. As in they actually give a shit about each other.”
“I'm sure if it was something serious you're not the only one who would have heard about him.”
"That's the thing, he hasn't actually told me. I just know. And maybe he hasn't told me because it's nothing. Or maybe he hasn't because it's something, or could be, if I wasn't the only obstruction getting in the way."
"So?"
"So?" he repeats, looking in disbelief that she would act like it doesn't even matter. "So he's not just some other Ethan Gold who's full of shit. He's worse than that, because he actually seems like a good guy. He seems....good for him,” he finishes in a quieter voice.
"You mean better for him than you?" she asks.
Brian looks down and forks a huge amount of casserole in his mouth, not meeting eyes with her.
"So maybe he is,” she says. “But you know what? Tough shit. You can't decide that for him. He's an adult. If he wanted to be with this guy Luke or with anybody else, then he would be. But he wants to be with you. Even if it’s not so easy when you live far apart. And why don't you just admit that it's not even just about this one guy? Is it?"
Brian looks up at her like he doesn't understand anything she just said. "What?"
"I bet he isn't even important, but it's what he represents that you're afraid of. That there's always going to be some other guy out there Justin could meet who's younger than you, more like him than you, and more suitable for him than you."
"So then why the fuck should he be with me?” Brian asks. “And why should I actually believe he'll always want to be with me?"
"Because that’s the only way anybody can ever end up being happy with somebody else. Honey, this is the truth: Sunshine will tell you if you ask him that he's never going to love anybody else like he loves you, and you'll want to tell him he can't know that for sure, and guess what? You're absolutely right. You don't know. And it’s got nothing to do with him being younger than you and unexperienced, either. The same exact same thing goes for you and the question of whether or not you'll always feel the same way. That's just life. If you think that's any reason to not even try, then you're doing a good job of ensuring that you’ll be living the rest of your miserable and pathetic life alone.”
With that said, Debbie exhales heavily as if catching her breath after such a long-winded verbal beating, and looks around until she sees a clock. “Well, shit. I have to go into work in four and a half hours.”
“At least the business at the diner hasn’t been fucked up the ass because of the unfortunate situation today. I’ll be lucky if I didn’t lose our account with Warner Home Security.”
“You really care?”
He looks upward for a second like thinking about it for the first time. “No. Not really.”
She suddenly smiles very warmly at him as she stands up. “You’re not going to do what I’ve been afraid you’re going to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Decide to be there for Justin today and pull one of your disappearing acts the next day.”
He leans back in his seat, unrolling his sleeves, and just bites his lip for a second. “No. I’m not going to do that. Even though I might wake up tomorrow and want to.”
Debbie stands there and keeps looking at him that way, practically beaming at him. Brian has only seen her look that way at someone a few times before, and it was at her son, not him. It’s so strange to see it almost makes him feel uncomfortable.
“You know something, Brian Kinney?” she says, like she’s noticing something about him right now that she never even saw before.
“...What?”
She kisses her fingers and presses them to his cheek. “You deserve to be loved.”
Then she turns and goes out the door, leaving him sitting there alone to wonder if she has any idea that she was just the first person to ever tell him anything like that. At that moment it is like a tiny flower bud has just been planted in the dead, barren wasteland of his childhood where rains no longer fall anyway. Probably too late, but maybe still worthwhile. He leans forward, crossing his arms on top of the counter, and says quietly to the dark room, “Thanks, ma.”
When Brian comes into the diner the next morning, Ted and Emmett are sitting across from each other at a booth. Without a word of greeting he sits next to Ted and pushes him to the side sliding further into the seat.
“...And I told him he should take it easy,” Ted says, continuing with whatever he was saying to Emmett before he came in and rolling his eyes as he moves his breakfast and cup of coffee over so he can reach them from his new sitting position. “But he went in today anyway. What can I say? Blake really takes his job seriously. I just hope he doesn’t make himself more sick.”
“Uh-huh,” Emmett says, not sounding very interested. “Hey, Brian. How’s, um...How’s Justin doing?”
“How do you think he’s doing?” Brian says. “Hey, Deb! Coffee!”
“Yeah, I see you!” Debbie calls back from behind the counter.
“It’s just nobody’s seen him yet but you and Debbie,” Emmett says. “God, I just feel terrible for him. The poor baby. What can you do?”
“Why don’t you go see him yourself?” Brian asks.
“He won’t be at home,” Ted says. “Debbie said he’s helping his parents take care of the funeral arrangements today.”
He nods. Then he takes a quick glance around the restaurant. “Did Michael decide to sleep in or something?”
“He’s at the store,” Emmett says.
“It’s not even open this early.”
“Yeah, but he had a lot of inventory he should have been working on yesterday and didn’t get a chance to, so he went in early.”
“By the way, when are you supposed to be getting to the airport?” Ted asks.
“Airport?” Brian says, confused, and then remembers, his mouth dropping open. He looks up at the clock. “Fuck. The munchers.”
When Brian reaches the area of the airport right outside the gate where Melanie and Lindsay’s plane came in, Mel sees him coming first and stands up with a pissed-off look on her face to walk toward him.
“About time, asshole!” she yells. “You were supposed to be here almost an hour ago! Maybe you’ve got nothing more important to worry about than getting a couple blow jobs on the way over here, but we’ve got two hungry, whining kids here-”
She is shocked into suddenly going quiet when he calmly walks forward and pulls her into a quick hug. “Nice to see you, too,” he says. “Mind watching your language around the kids?”
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks as he then walks past her to where the others are.
“Hey, Gus!” he says brightly, grabbing him and picking him up. “Did you miss your old man? Huh?”
Gus giggles loudly as he spins around in circles holding him up in the air.
“Holy shit! When did you get so heavy?” he asks, putting him back down.
“So much for watching language,” Melanie mutters.
“Hey, Bri,” Lindsay says, coming forward to kiss him and then hugging him tightly. “What took you so long anyway?”
“Never mind,” he says. “Everything’s been kind of...intense.”
“And where’s Michael?” Melanie says, picking up Jenny Rebecca in her carrier from the seat and taking her suitcase in the other hand. “I thought he’d be here.”
“He’s a little tied up at the store.”
“Too much to come meet his daughter? What’s going on? Did you and him trade personalities or something?”
“I wish you could every once in a while,” Lindsay says to him as she takes Gus’s hand and they all start walking together. “Then maybe we’d hear from you more than once a month, and you’d call Justin often enough for him to know when we’re coming over.”
“You could have called him yourself,” he says, “and you can stop before you chew me another one about that because Debbie and Michael both already did, and he didn’t even have the free time to come visit. And because he’s here anyway.”
“What?” Melanie says, looking like she’s trying to figure out how that statement made the least bit of sense.
Brian’s pace of walking slows, and they both turn their heads to look at him. “His sister died.”
They stop walking but the looks on their faces don’t change at first, just frozen the way they were for a moment. Then as they realize he’s totally serious, their smiles fall.
“Oh my God,” says Lindsay.
They just stand that way for a few seconds, and then Gus pulls on Lindsay’s hand. “Mommy? What’s the matter?”
She just pulls him closer to her and runs a hand over his hair.
“How did it happen?” Melanie asks.
Brian tells them everything as they walk out of the airport and to his car, and Gus just lags a little behind the whole time chewing on his fingers.
“Are you guys still supposed to stay at Debbie’s?” Brian asks when they reach the car. “Cause she’s not at home now.”
“She said Carl would be,” Lindsay says, starting to load their suitcases into his trunk when he pops it open.
Gus starts walking around the car.
“Gus, don’t wander off,” says Melanie.
“Where we going?” he mumbles with his fingers still in his mouth.
“We told you, sweetie, to Grandma Debbie’s house.”
As Brian closes the trunk, it takes him a few seconds to even think twice about the fact that Melanie just referred to Debbie as “Grandma” to Gus, as if he forgot for a second that Gus isn’t really related to her.
“Hey, come here, Gus,” Brian says, motioning him to come over and then picking him up. “You want to ride with Daddy?”
Lindsay looks at Melanie. “You feel like driving? I can take JR.”
As much as she looks like she doesn’t want to, Melanie has always been able to tell when Lindsay wants to talk to Brian in some measure of confidence, so she hands JR to her and turns to Brian to get the keys.
Lindsay and Brian ride in the back with Gus in between them, mostly silent at first. Then Lindsay asks quietly, “Did you ever meet her?”
Brian thinks for a moment and then answers, “Just a couple times. When I was over at Jennifer’s house to take care of some business stuff. She didn’t say much.”
“I never saw her even once. A lot of the time I forgot Justin even had a sister.” She looks up into his face. “How’s he holding up?”
He just shrugs. “Normally, I guess.”
“And his mother? Have you seen her?”
“Only for a minute. Hard to say.”
Lindsay looks forward and shakes her head. “God, to think. Both of my children mean the world to me. I can’t even begin to imagine losing one of them.”
Brian says nothing, but his eyes seem to glaze over in that moment like he’s so deep in thought he doesn’t see anything in front of him. Then Gus scoots over close to him and leans over to peer out the window.
“You remember fabulous old Pittsburgh, Gus?” Brian says, putting his left arm around him. As they keep riding he can’t seem to stop touching Gus, picking a little piece of lint off of his shirt or just idly running the tips of his fingers through his hair, which has gotten to be the exact same color as his own.
“I have called Justin, you know,” Lindsay says. “I’ve talked to him quite a lot.”
He looks up at her. “Great.”
“We crazy lesbians know a lot more about what goes on in Pittsburgh and New York than you may think,” she says.
He just smiles. “Then I guess I owe you a thank-you for not giving me a hard time about some of the things you’ve probably heard.”
She smiles back. “I think you already give yourself enough of a hard time.” Then she laughs a little, in a way that is not really expressing amusement but just perhaps some other emotion she can’t contain. “God...I’ve missed you, asshole.”
He just smirks. Then Gus starts giggling about something, and he looks down and sees him with his hand stuffed down the pocket of his jacket.
“Hey!” Brian says with a laugh. “What are you doing in my pockets?”
He reaches around and tickles Gus in his side, making him laugh even louder and squirm around on the seat as his hand comes out of the pocket holding his leather-bound notepad and a condom.
“Oh, goodness, looky what you found,” Lindsay says, taking the condom and quickly replacing it in Brian’s pocket.
“Here, Gus,” Brian says, taking the notepad and flipping it open and getting a pen out of his other pocket. “We can play a game. You ever played hangman?”
“No,” Gus says.
“Not ever? What do these two dykes teach you?”
“His favorite game is Twister,” Melanie says from the driver’s seat.
“Ah, taking after his daddy already. I had some Twister bedsheets once.”
Melanie makes a sound of disgust while Lindsay just laughs and says, “Oh, kinky.”
After Brian has explained the rules of hangman to Gus and finished two games with him, he gets distracted by something out the window again and Brian looks at Lindsay. “I have to go to work after this, and then I’ll call you.”
“Okay. Mel and I are having dinner with her mom tonight, but you could take Gus for the evening if you wanted.”
He nods. Then, having a thought, he asks, “Will you guys stay to go to the funeral, whenever it is?”
“...Yeah. We’ll stay.”
She sees him looking down at Gus again, who is now leaning forward and looking ahead through the front window.
“He’s missed you, too,” she tells him in a soft voice.
Brian just stares forward in silence as Melanie turns the car onto Debbie’s street.
Continue to part 5...
Author: me
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Brian/Justin
Summary: Too many times it has taken some kind of tragedy to bring Justin and Brian closer together.
Previous chapters: Prologue | I | II | III
Notes: Okay, so the last chapter was when things got kind of hard for me to write. I fortunately have never experienced a loss like the one some of these characters are going through, or even seen up-close somebody else go through something like that, and was really concerned about portraying this stuff realistically. So needless to say, getting comments with words like "realistic" and "insightful" was a very pleasant surprise and really encouraging. You guys are too kind. But that last chapter was kind of intense to do and I needed a little bit of a break (and to get caught up on schoolwork after neglecting it for fic writing, LOL), so I hardly wrote anything for a couple days. But I really am trying to write this as fast as I can without it compromising my grades or eating and sleeping habits.
So now, onto part 4, in which Debbie pwns Brian and Justin is completely missing-in-action. Yeah, I'm not really sure how that happened, and I feel really bad for taking so long to update only to give you a chapter with absolutely no B/J interaction, but I also think it's kind of necessary to take a step back from focusing completely on the death for a while to get some relief from all the angst. So...please don't kill me. :(
p a r t | f o u r
After they get back and Brian takes Justin to his mom’s, the rest of the day ticks by agonizingly one second at a time until it is finally very late into the night and feels like it’s been three days since the last morning. Brian is still awake when someone knocks on his door at 2:50 AM. When he opens it tiredly rubbing one eye and sees Debbie standing there with a dish of tuna macaroni casserole, he says right away in an exhausted voice, “Oh, fuck yes.”
As she comes into the loft she explains, “I got so busy cooking some chicken parmesan to bring for Justin tomorrow and food to feed my own house that I figured I might as well take care of you, too.”
“Just hang on a second,” he says, going to the end of the room to get into his stash drawer. “I’m going to have to roll one.”
For the first couple minutes they sit at the counter smoking the joint together, they don’t say anything at all. Then Brian stares into the air in that way people do when they’re looking far back into the past, and says, “You remember that guy Mikey and I went to school with who died in the middle of our senior year?”
“The one who was in a car accident?” she asks.
“Yeah. Tony...Ficeli. That was his name. I keep thinking about him now. I still remember the morning after that happened. I think I’d slept over at your house the night before; me and Michael went to school together. We got there about ten minutes late and there were still a whole lot of kids out in the halls talking. I think it was this guy named Derek Holland who came up to talk to us and we said, ‘What’s going on?’ and he just said, ‘Tony died.’ Even though it was a perfectly logical explanation all I could think was he had to be shitting me. I remember there were all these girls who had barely even known him hugging each other and crying in the halls. That whole day it was like the entire school had suddenly been contaminated with the post-mature realization that he existed and was a really great guy.”
Debbie just sits silently, like she’s remembering back to the time herself.
“I guess it’s just different when this happens to people who are still young,” he says. “Maybe most of the kids in that school didn’t really care about him while he was alive, but when those things happen it’s kind of like a reality check. Because even if you didn’t really know him, he was just kind of one of us. And then when he died we were forced to realize that just because we’re young it doesn’t mean we’re invincible. Everybody was affected by that.”
“Even you?” Debbie asks in a sarcastically shocked voice.
He gets an annoyed look on his face and says, “I knew Tony.” Then he takes in one very long drag, inhaling it almost angrily, and breathes it out in one quick breath. “I mean, what the hell kind of world is this? To imagine there are these assholes who would actually tell you these things happen for a reason. What’s one good reason this should happen to a thirteen-year-old girl?”
Debbie just shakes her head. “This is the reason: that kid and his friends were being too rowdy and he was driving too fast, and he didn’t even think to check the crosswalk before turning around that corner.”
“That’s a good Catholic girl’s explanation, huh?”
“Yes. Of course, it helps us to imagine it’s all part of some kind of divine intervention, some plan that will all work out for the greater good. And sometimes it helps to just blame ourselves and find any kind of reason to say, ‘It was my fault.’ It gives us a sense of control over it...the illusion that we can keep it from happening again to somebody else. But you can’t prevent all these things. Shit just happens, and often it’s not anybody’s fault or responsibility. All you can do is live life to its fullest and hold dear the people who mean the most to you. Tell the people you love that you love them. Every day.” She stands up and starts going through some drawers until she finds some forks, and takes out two. “Fuck, who do I think I’m talking to? You’re not going to do any of those things.”
Brian laughs quietly. “Believe it or not, I just might have managed to learn a thing or two from Vic’s very unexpected departure.”
“I wasn’t really thinking about Vic,” she says, staring at him with her hand on her hip the way he remembers she used to stare at Michael waiting for him to admit something like “Okay, so I wasn’t actually out studying.” How does she always know? he used to wonder in amazement.
Brian doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge where she’s trying to steer the subject, so she has to go on herself. “Michael’s told me how you and Sunshine haven’t exactly been on frequent speaking terms,” she says as she sits back down.
“Goddamn it, Deb,” he sighs. “This is no time to-”
“Of course it is,” she interrupts. “When else are you going to think about it? When it’s too late?”
He annoyedly taps his knuckles on the counter. “Micheal needs to keep his fucking mouth shut.”
“He just doesn’t like watching you do these things to yourself. And neither do I.”
“Then look away,” he says with a kind of finality, telling Debbie it’s the end of that conversation.
She shakes her head, taking the joint from him. "Did you ever read All The King's Men?"
It's such an irrelevant question that Brian takes a second to react and then laughs. "Yeah, like in tenth grade."
"That's one of the only things I remember reading in high school,” she reflects. “I remember it had all these...philosophical ideas in it. About how you can only make good out of bad."
"Because there's nothing else to make it out of," Brian says.
"That's right. You can't get anything good done without ever getting your hands dirty, and that's why nobody is free of sin. And you cannot just have the good things. You have to take the bad with it. When my English teacher explained this to my class I remember thinking it sounded like an awfully negative point of view to have about the world. But you know, it can also be kind of optimistic. Just look at everything that happened between you and Justin that wouldn’t have if he didn’t get hurt. These terrible things happen to people, and it's so hard to think how there could be a good reason. I wouldn't say there is and that’s why they happen, but that doesn't mean you can't see how sometimes good things can result from bad. It just depends on what you make of it."
Brian takes another drag on the joint and exhales slowly, looking up thoughtfully. "Wasn't that book about a corrupt politician?"
She looks annoyed. "So what?"
"Well Debbie, you're comparing apples and oranges here. Robert Penn Warren was writing about human nature. Good intentions and bad intentions. Decency and sin. You're talking about all the good and bad shit everybody has to go through in life, and that's not the same thing."
"Well, you can still see it the same way,” she says agitatedly. “That character in it was always talking about dirt. How there's nothing in the whole world that didn’t come from dirt. We live on it. Trees grow out of it. The ocean is nothing but dirt on the bottom. And even a diamond is just a piece of dirt that got hot. But you see...you can choose to just say it's dirt, or you can say it's a diamond. Who cares where it came from anyway?
"Maybe what you and Justin had didn't start out so pretty and you went through some pretty tough times as a result of meeting each other. You finally opened yourself up to somebody and it turned out so bad it seemed crazy to actually allow yourself to have that kind of vulnerability again. Must have been kind of like...I don’t know. Being terrified of dogs your whole life and then one day deciding to try petting one and just starting to think, Hey, this isn’t so bad right before you almost get your hand bitten off.”
Brian immediately starts snickering at the comparison.
“What? Shut up and listen, I’m trying to-”
“Give me a lecture,” he says.
“Damn right I am...What was I talking about?”
“Um...” Brian reaches across the counter to pick up one of the forks she got out. “Petting.”
Then she laughs a little too, taking the lid off of the casserole and pushing it across the table so it’s sitting in between them.
“So...” Debbie continues, forking out a bite. “I know a lot of the time it’s been hard going through all the things that came along with being in a relationship. That doesn’t make it a bad thing that you met. When he's away in New York and you're missing him, is it all those bad things that happened you think about? Are you relieved that you’re not together having to deal with that? Or do you just remember how good it was having him here with you when you woke up in the morning?"
Brian stares off into the air, not answering just as she expected.
"You and him really love each other," she continues, "and that alone means you have something that some people never even find in their whole lives. It's like you've found this diamond amidst a bunch of dirt, something that could mean the difference between you having a good life and a bad one. But you're just casting it aside, because you think it's just more dirt, and that's all life is. But life doesn't have to be nothing but endless suffering if you’ve got the balls to do what it takes to be happy when you actually have the chance.”
He takes a bite of tuna and macaroni and finally after he finishes chewing says with that exaggeratedly big smile of his, “As much fun as it is getting stoned and philosophizing with you over macaroni, I think you really don’t know anything about it and should mind your own fucking business.”
But the way she keeps looking at him, he might as well be in an interrogation room under bright lights being mercilessly questioned until he confesses to everything. She doesn’t even have to ask any questions. After a moment of shifting in his seat uncomfortably he just spills out what’s on his mind. “He's been seeing this other kid, you know. Luke.”
"Okay,” she says flatly. “Big deal. You've probably been with a hundred other guys since he left."
"But it’s not that kind of thing. They don’t just get together and fuck. They hang out. They go to movies. They visit each other even when one of them is sick and fucking is out of the question. And bring orange juice. As in they actually give a shit about each other.”
“I'm sure if it was something serious you're not the only one who would have heard about him.”
"That's the thing, he hasn't actually told me. I just know. And maybe he hasn't told me because it's nothing. Or maybe he hasn't because it's something, or could be, if I wasn't the only obstruction getting in the way."
"So?"
"So?" he repeats, looking in disbelief that she would act like it doesn't even matter. "So he's not just some other Ethan Gold who's full of shit. He's worse than that, because he actually seems like a good guy. He seems....good for him,” he finishes in a quieter voice.
"You mean better for him than you?" she asks.
Brian looks down and forks a huge amount of casserole in his mouth, not meeting eyes with her.
"So maybe he is,” she says. “But you know what? Tough shit. You can't decide that for him. He's an adult. If he wanted to be with this guy Luke or with anybody else, then he would be. But he wants to be with you. Even if it’s not so easy when you live far apart. And why don't you just admit that it's not even just about this one guy? Is it?"
Brian looks up at her like he doesn't understand anything she just said. "What?"
"I bet he isn't even important, but it's what he represents that you're afraid of. That there's always going to be some other guy out there Justin could meet who's younger than you, more like him than you, and more suitable for him than you."
"So then why the fuck should he be with me?” Brian asks. “And why should I actually believe he'll always want to be with me?"
"Because that’s the only way anybody can ever end up being happy with somebody else. Honey, this is the truth: Sunshine will tell you if you ask him that he's never going to love anybody else like he loves you, and you'll want to tell him he can't know that for sure, and guess what? You're absolutely right. You don't know. And it’s got nothing to do with him being younger than you and unexperienced, either. The same exact same thing goes for you and the question of whether or not you'll always feel the same way. That's just life. If you think that's any reason to not even try, then you're doing a good job of ensuring that you’ll be living the rest of your miserable and pathetic life alone.”
With that said, Debbie exhales heavily as if catching her breath after such a long-winded verbal beating, and looks around until she sees a clock. “Well, shit. I have to go into work in four and a half hours.”
“At least the business at the diner hasn’t been fucked up the ass because of the unfortunate situation today. I’ll be lucky if I didn’t lose our account with Warner Home Security.”
“You really care?”
He looks upward for a second like thinking about it for the first time. “No. Not really.”
She suddenly smiles very warmly at him as she stands up. “You’re not going to do what I’ve been afraid you’re going to do.”
“What’s that?”
“Decide to be there for Justin today and pull one of your disappearing acts the next day.”
He leans back in his seat, unrolling his sleeves, and just bites his lip for a second. “No. I’m not going to do that. Even though I might wake up tomorrow and want to.”
Debbie stands there and keeps looking at him that way, practically beaming at him. Brian has only seen her look that way at someone a few times before, and it was at her son, not him. It’s so strange to see it almost makes him feel uncomfortable.
“You know something, Brian Kinney?” she says, like she’s noticing something about him right now that she never even saw before.
“...What?”
She kisses her fingers and presses them to his cheek. “You deserve to be loved.”
Then she turns and goes out the door, leaving him sitting there alone to wonder if she has any idea that she was just the first person to ever tell him anything like that. At that moment it is like a tiny flower bud has just been planted in the dead, barren wasteland of his childhood where rains no longer fall anyway. Probably too late, but maybe still worthwhile. He leans forward, crossing his arms on top of the counter, and says quietly to the dark room, “Thanks, ma.”
When Brian comes into the diner the next morning, Ted and Emmett are sitting across from each other at a booth. Without a word of greeting he sits next to Ted and pushes him to the side sliding further into the seat.
“...And I told him he should take it easy,” Ted says, continuing with whatever he was saying to Emmett before he came in and rolling his eyes as he moves his breakfast and cup of coffee over so he can reach them from his new sitting position. “But he went in today anyway. What can I say? Blake really takes his job seriously. I just hope he doesn’t make himself more sick.”
“Uh-huh,” Emmett says, not sounding very interested. “Hey, Brian. How’s, um...How’s Justin doing?”
“How do you think he’s doing?” Brian says. “Hey, Deb! Coffee!”
“Yeah, I see you!” Debbie calls back from behind the counter.
“It’s just nobody’s seen him yet but you and Debbie,” Emmett says. “God, I just feel terrible for him. The poor baby. What can you do?”
“Why don’t you go see him yourself?” Brian asks.
“He won’t be at home,” Ted says. “Debbie said he’s helping his parents take care of the funeral arrangements today.”
He nods. Then he takes a quick glance around the restaurant. “Did Michael decide to sleep in or something?”
“He’s at the store,” Emmett says.
“It’s not even open this early.”
“Yeah, but he had a lot of inventory he should have been working on yesterday and didn’t get a chance to, so he went in early.”
“By the way, when are you supposed to be getting to the airport?” Ted asks.
“Airport?” Brian says, confused, and then remembers, his mouth dropping open. He looks up at the clock. “Fuck. The munchers.”
When Brian reaches the area of the airport right outside the gate where Melanie and Lindsay’s plane came in, Mel sees him coming first and stands up with a pissed-off look on her face to walk toward him.
“About time, asshole!” she yells. “You were supposed to be here almost an hour ago! Maybe you’ve got nothing more important to worry about than getting a couple blow jobs on the way over here, but we’ve got two hungry, whining kids here-”
She is shocked into suddenly going quiet when he calmly walks forward and pulls her into a quick hug. “Nice to see you, too,” he says. “Mind watching your language around the kids?”
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks as he then walks past her to where the others are.
“Hey, Gus!” he says brightly, grabbing him and picking him up. “Did you miss your old man? Huh?”
Gus giggles loudly as he spins around in circles holding him up in the air.
“Holy shit! When did you get so heavy?” he asks, putting him back down.
“So much for watching language,” Melanie mutters.
“Hey, Bri,” Lindsay says, coming forward to kiss him and then hugging him tightly. “What took you so long anyway?”
“Never mind,” he says. “Everything’s been kind of...intense.”
“And where’s Michael?” Melanie says, picking up Jenny Rebecca in her carrier from the seat and taking her suitcase in the other hand. “I thought he’d be here.”
“He’s a little tied up at the store.”
“Too much to come meet his daughter? What’s going on? Did you and him trade personalities or something?”
“I wish you could every once in a while,” Lindsay says to him as she takes Gus’s hand and they all start walking together. “Then maybe we’d hear from you more than once a month, and you’d call Justin often enough for him to know when we’re coming over.”
“You could have called him yourself,” he says, “and you can stop before you chew me another one about that because Debbie and Michael both already did, and he didn’t even have the free time to come visit. And because he’s here anyway.”
“What?” Melanie says, looking like she’s trying to figure out how that statement made the least bit of sense.
Brian’s pace of walking slows, and they both turn their heads to look at him. “His sister died.”
They stop walking but the looks on their faces don’t change at first, just frozen the way they were for a moment. Then as they realize he’s totally serious, their smiles fall.
“Oh my God,” says Lindsay.
They just stand that way for a few seconds, and then Gus pulls on Lindsay’s hand. “Mommy? What’s the matter?”
She just pulls him closer to her and runs a hand over his hair.
“How did it happen?” Melanie asks.
Brian tells them everything as they walk out of the airport and to his car, and Gus just lags a little behind the whole time chewing on his fingers.
“Are you guys still supposed to stay at Debbie’s?” Brian asks when they reach the car. “Cause she’s not at home now.”
“She said Carl would be,” Lindsay says, starting to load their suitcases into his trunk when he pops it open.
Gus starts walking around the car.
“Gus, don’t wander off,” says Melanie.
“Where we going?” he mumbles with his fingers still in his mouth.
“We told you, sweetie, to Grandma Debbie’s house.”
As Brian closes the trunk, it takes him a few seconds to even think twice about the fact that Melanie just referred to Debbie as “Grandma” to Gus, as if he forgot for a second that Gus isn’t really related to her.
“Hey, come here, Gus,” Brian says, motioning him to come over and then picking him up. “You want to ride with Daddy?”
Lindsay looks at Melanie. “You feel like driving? I can take JR.”
As much as she looks like she doesn’t want to, Melanie has always been able to tell when Lindsay wants to talk to Brian in some measure of confidence, so she hands JR to her and turns to Brian to get the keys.
Lindsay and Brian ride in the back with Gus in between them, mostly silent at first. Then Lindsay asks quietly, “Did you ever meet her?”
Brian thinks for a moment and then answers, “Just a couple times. When I was over at Jennifer’s house to take care of some business stuff. She didn’t say much.”
“I never saw her even once. A lot of the time I forgot Justin even had a sister.” She looks up into his face. “How’s he holding up?”
He just shrugs. “Normally, I guess.”
“And his mother? Have you seen her?”
“Only for a minute. Hard to say.”
Lindsay looks forward and shakes her head. “God, to think. Both of my children mean the world to me. I can’t even begin to imagine losing one of them.”
Brian says nothing, but his eyes seem to glaze over in that moment like he’s so deep in thought he doesn’t see anything in front of him. Then Gus scoots over close to him and leans over to peer out the window.
“You remember fabulous old Pittsburgh, Gus?” Brian says, putting his left arm around him. As they keep riding he can’t seem to stop touching Gus, picking a little piece of lint off of his shirt or just idly running the tips of his fingers through his hair, which has gotten to be the exact same color as his own.
“I have called Justin, you know,” Lindsay says. “I’ve talked to him quite a lot.”
He looks up at her. “Great.”
“We crazy lesbians know a lot more about what goes on in Pittsburgh and New York than you may think,” she says.
He just smiles. “Then I guess I owe you a thank-you for not giving me a hard time about some of the things you’ve probably heard.”
She smiles back. “I think you already give yourself enough of a hard time.” Then she laughs a little, in a way that is not really expressing amusement but just perhaps some other emotion she can’t contain. “God...I’ve missed you, asshole.”
He just smirks. Then Gus starts giggling about something, and he looks down and sees him with his hand stuffed down the pocket of his jacket.
“Hey!” Brian says with a laugh. “What are you doing in my pockets?”
He reaches around and tickles Gus in his side, making him laugh even louder and squirm around on the seat as his hand comes out of the pocket holding his leather-bound notepad and a condom.
“Oh, goodness, looky what you found,” Lindsay says, taking the condom and quickly replacing it in Brian’s pocket.
“Here, Gus,” Brian says, taking the notepad and flipping it open and getting a pen out of his other pocket. “We can play a game. You ever played hangman?”
“No,” Gus says.
“Not ever? What do these two dykes teach you?”
“His favorite game is Twister,” Melanie says from the driver’s seat.
“Ah, taking after his daddy already. I had some Twister bedsheets once.”
Melanie makes a sound of disgust while Lindsay just laughs and says, “Oh, kinky.”
After Brian has explained the rules of hangman to Gus and finished two games with him, he gets distracted by something out the window again and Brian looks at Lindsay. “I have to go to work after this, and then I’ll call you.”
“Okay. Mel and I are having dinner with her mom tonight, but you could take Gus for the evening if you wanted.”
He nods. Then, having a thought, he asks, “Will you guys stay to go to the funeral, whenever it is?”
“...Yeah. We’ll stay.”
She sees him looking down at Gus again, who is now leaning forward and looking ahead through the front window.
“He’s missed you, too,” she tells him in a soft voice.
Brian just stares forward in silence as Melanie turns the car onto Debbie’s street.
Continue to part 5...