FIC: Fragments (Complete Story)
Title: Fragments
Fandom: Queer As Folk (Brian/Justin)
Rating: R/M (for language, violence, sexual situations, drug use... if you've seen the show, you're good)
Category: Very dark and angsty as Justin works through his trauma, with romantic undertones between Brian/Justin towards the latter half of the story, along with friendship.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I any way affiliated with the characters, actors, or production company that were part of Queer As Folk. I am however the owner of the characters and places you do not recognize (e.g. Rae, Sphinx, Cleopatra's).
Timeline: 4 and a half years post series finale.
Dedication: thememoryslides who convinced me that this deserved posting around the net.
Summary: Justin went to New York in search of recognition for his talent. What he found was 4 and a half years of unhappiness, culminating in three gunshots on a sidewalk late at night. After being made a victim once more, Justin decides it's time to move back to Pittsburgh.
ONE.
The first thing you registered was warm blood spraying your face. It wasn’t the burning pain of a bullet slicing through your chest, nor the gunshot or muzzle flash from the gun pointed at you from five feet away. It was the way your life essence exploded from your chest, dotting your arms and face as the rest pulled apart in the air and hung like a cloud. The second bullet finally registered the pain. The third knocked oxygen back into your lungs as you gasped and laid you on your ass. Cold cement, blood pooling. Someone else’s memories of a night so long ago.
Even as you lay on the ground with the blood pumping from three gunshot wounds, you couldn’t do much more than stare at the sky. You couldn’t call for help. Couldn’t move your arms as the closely aimed bullets quickly drained your blood from two through and through shots. You watched enough random episodes of crime procedurals to know that you’re in shit shape.
The world vibrated with bright color, starbursts as the tears spread and dripped across your temples. There was a gasp, someone crying out your name, hands pressing against your wounds, blurry cinnamon skin next to a dancing streetlamp. Help on the way. Hang on. Too much to give up. Hang on damn it!
I jerked awake, the fear trembling through my stomach as I dreamt the vivid memory of the night from nearly eight months ago that left me a victim once more. Fucking prick. It was never gonna leave me. When I was bashed, there was some reprieve. This, I remembered instantaneously. Oh, how I longed for the months of ignorance that I’d had at 18. 9 years after being bashed, and I was right back in that fucking faggot mindset. Scared to go out at night, scared to look strangers in the eye. Pussy.
I rolled on my hip to sit up in bed, my feet pressing against the cold hardwood floors, my hands gripping the edge of the bed as I quelled the nausea. I hated this. Fucking hated it! It was worse this time. I didn’t know his fucking name. I didn’t know him personally. I hadn’t been betrayed ‘cause of some schoolboy hand-job. I had been victimized solely because I could be. And the bastard was still roaming the streets. I longed for the days of vigilantism, wearing pink tank tops and camouflage pants with combat boots. Wielding an empty revolver, only to load it and shove it in Chris Hobbs’ mouth. The power high for even just those ten minutes was fucking addictive. But making it to the end of the block and throwing up everything I’d ate that day, I could’ve done without.
New fucking York. Nearly five years in this city and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. I wasn’t Justin Taylor, the next Andy Warhol. I was Justin Taylor, victim of random sidewalk shooting. My pieces were dark. Too dark for some. Depressive, oppressive, repressive. Lacked life, had too much hatred. Too much self-loathing. The looks I got from those pretentious fucks when they looked at my art. Pity. The only way I was able to heal and they were telling me it wasn’t right for their shows. Well excuse the fuck out of me for getting my head bashed in with a baseball bat at 18 and then shot three times in the chest at 27. Sorry I’m not living up to my nickname of being all sunshine and happy days.
Sunshine. Christ. Been a long time since I’ve thought about that… since I’ve had contact with anyone from the Pitts. A couple years after I’d left to become some great artiste, the foreground players dropped off. Brian, Michael, Debbie, Lindsay, Emmett, Ted in a way. Ironically, I kept closer in contact with Mel and Ben. The lovers to the devoted defenders of my ex. You can’t make that shit up. Brian, Michael, Lindsay. Justin, Ben, Mel. It’s hilarious. Our partners all in love with someone else, Michael and Lindsay in love with Brian, and Brian in love with himself. But after being gunned down, I forgot all about everyone. Ignored calls and emails, aside from answering once in awhile to be aloof and a particularly big prick in order for them to get the message to back off. I haven’t even talked to Daphne since I left Pitts. She went to college; I came here to become the best homosexual I could be.
Fail. Fail. Fail. It’s a glaring marquee over my head. All the time. It wasn’t as prominent until I was raped of my safety, once more.
“Justin,” a sleepy voice questioned from behind me. “Another one?”
“I’m fine.” I tell Rae, my roommate for the last four years. After the friend Daphne had hooked me up with decided to run off and be a drag queen in Miami, I came across Rachael through a friend of a friend. She needed a roommate and what started as convenience turned into a great friendship.
“Then lay back down and go to sleep or go fucking paint, ‘cause your depression is too loud for me.” Rae bemoaned, rolling back over on the bed and going to sleep. After I’d been shot, I took to sleeping in with her. Her bed was like one of those corny honeymoon suite circular beds, but it was huge and we both slept on it without kicking the other. Which is saying something, given we’re both restless sleepers. But I couldn’t be alone. Like after the bashing.
Rae was there that night. We were walking home from work… her work, she was a go-go girl at Sphinx, a club that was New York’s Babylon, only it catered to men and women equally; gay, bi, pan, lesbian, straight, whatever. The club made sure to employ both female and male dancers in that case, and Rae was one of the main attractions.
There are times when I’m grateful that she’d ran back around the corner to find an earring she’d dropped and hadn’t been there when he’d came up. But then there are times when I look at her and hate her so fucking much for not being there, too. I hate her. I hate myself. I hate this apartment. I hate the galleries. I hate the sounds of the city. I hate the city itself. I hate living in fear. I hate only being able to see a cruel smirk in my mind’s eye behind the gun as the memory of my shooter. I hate my art. I hate sidewalks. I hate the night sky. I hate my fucking life here.
“I’m going back.” I tell Rae, even though I’m pretty sure she’s back to sleep. Even though I’m pretty sure I’m losing my mind right now.
“I know. And I’m going with you.” Rae’s voice is sleepy, but I know she’s lucid enough to understand. Fucking bitch always knew what I was gonna do before I did it.
“I’m moving back, Rae.”
“I know. And I’m going with you.”
Sometimes I don’t hate her. Sometimes I love her, ‘cause she’s my Daphne and my Brian rolled into one. My best friend, my support, my understanding. Then again, that’s partly the reason I hate her too.
TWO.
Three weeks ago I moved home. Mom -- who I never told about the shooting -- found us a studio-loft styled, three bedroom apartment relatively fast. Far from Liberty Avenue, Tremont, the suburbs. Thank God. I don’t think I’m ready to see my extended family yet. Especially when the last one I saw in person was Brian four years ago. Though, I ran into Hunter two years ago but I don’t really think he counts seeing as we both barely tolerate the other.
Rae was great about the whole thing. She only bitched once when she got up in the middle of the night to pee and walked into the wall, expecting it to be her doorway back in New York. She called me a cowardice fucking pussy as she angrily stumbled down the hallway, rubbing her forehead.
I smiled for the first time in months.
Everything is backwards for me. I hate what’s right and love what’s wrong. Being back here is wrong, but I love it. Seeing my surrogate family is right, but it makes me want to drown myself. I wonder if the trauma of being shot tricked my brain into thinking I was bashed in the head again and rewired itself somehow. It wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not about to pay 250 an hour to some hack to tell me that being bashed and surviving a bombing and being shot and all my fucking traumas are just catching up with me.
You know what else is wrong? I think of Brian and there’s… nothing. Abso-fuckin’-lutely nothing. Maybe that’s right.
So when I see him for the first time in four and a half years, my heart doesn’t accelerate. My stomach doesn’t flip flop. There’s no pulse quickening, butterflies flapping, sweat secreting. No pain, anger, bitterness, hope, love. Nothing. Obviously, he doesn’t see me. I made sure of that. I’m not in the mood for his snark. I just need my fucking pain pills. Not that they do anything. The doctor swears it’s phantom pain… my mind tricking me into thinking it’s physical pain when it’s all mental. Fuck you too doc, but thanks for leaving your prescription pad just laying there while you gave me a moment. Best thing about being an artist? I can always be a forger if I’m not the next Warhol.
Rae worries. I know she does. Dependency, addiction, whatever. You know what? Coming from a former addict, she can blow me. She gets it. She gets the pull of numbing yourself. Not that that’s what I’m doing. If I were, I’d be going for something better. Cocaine. That shit was great when I last had it. New York has one up on the Pitts in the drug field. Stronger, potent.
Being around the living is too much. They mill around like Goddamn ants. Narcissistic, sycophant assholes who have no idea what pain is. They want to see pain? I’ll shave my head again and show them the scar and indentation in my head from where Chris Hobbs used my head for baseball practice. I’ll take off my shirt and show them the triangle of jagged scars from bullets. Five new ones. Three going in the chest, two going out the shoulder blade.
“You’re gonna have to see people sooner or later, Justin. You can’t become some sort of recluse.”
I know she’s right. I also can’t care. But to show her I’m still alive, I reenrolled at PIFA. I hate that wasteland, but they can’t kick me out ‘cause my art is too dark. Interpret a prompt, that’s all it is. If I choose to smear red on a canvas over peach and ice blue, then what? It’ll be brilliant, all my work is. So they can give me a B minus for not following the prompt precisely. They can’t fail me otherwise and they can’t kick me out unless I’m failing or blow up the building. Fuck the breeders. Brian would be proud.
Speaking of. I should’ve known that when I reenrolled, they’d call the previous financier of my education. Maybe I knew and just didn’t care. Maybe I wanted a random woman over the phone to let Brian know I was back. Save me the trouble of having to go through the awkward ‘hey’ stage, and just let him get straight to being pissed off after being home for a month. So the knock at the door wasn’t really a surprise.
“You look like fucking shit.” Neither was his opening line. A four year gap in seeing one another wouldn’t make Brian act any less Brian-like.
“Is there something I can do for you?” I’m disinterested in his presence. Still, absolutely nothing. I loved him once, right? Though I can acknowledge that at nearly 40, Brian still looks amazing. Especially in a charcoal grey Armani suit and silk eggplant dress shirt.
“I’m not…”
“I know. It was a mistake. I’ll fix it.” I interrupt ‘cause I know he’s gonna say he’s not paying for my education after having blown it off in the past. “Bye.” I say, before closing the door in his face and locking it. Two deadbolts, a chain and steel pull later, I’m secure in my bubble once more. I didn’t even slam it. I think that’s what shocks him enough to walk away. Or so I assume, from the odd distorted angle I saw of him through the peephole.
I take my fourth pain pill in two hours ‘cause suddenly my chest hurts, and wonder if this is my fate. Misery.
THREE.
He manages to keep that I’m home a secret for a full two weeks. Rae is instantly overwhelmed by the amount of people that swoop to our door. Debbie scares the hell out of her, shoving her way into the apartment, followed by Emmett and Michael. I’m promised a visit from Ben and Hunter later, along with Melanie, Lindsay, Gus and Jenny when they’re done moving back as well. Ironic timing. I know I can expect Ted at some point, probably dragged back next time with Emmett or by Blake. I know Brian’s made his one and only visit and did all he could to keep from the others that I was home. That rounds out the gang, seeing as Daphne’s at Princeton and Vic’s dead. I miss Vic.
Miss. Fuck, is that an emotion? Maybe I’m making progress.
Rae looks pale when they finally leave and I almost laugh at her discomfort, her pain. She thinks that’s something? Wait ‘til I drag her to the Sunday dinner I’ve been strong armed into this weekend. I don’t want to go. Don’t wanna talk about how fucking great New York is. Don’t wanna avoid talking about why I came back; not home, back. I don’t have a specific home anymore. Don’t wanna lie about everything and anything. Yes, I had a few shows. Yes, I sold paintings. Yes, I was happy. No, I didn’t meet anyone worth mentioning.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. When did I become such a good liar?
I’m fine, Rae.
BANG.
It’ll pass, Fiona.
BANG.
I’m over it, Sean.
BANG.
I love you too, Declan.
Silence.
I was never fine. It never passed. I never got over it. I was never in love with Declan. Maybe it’s because I met him not long before I was shot. Maybe because of that, I was too fucked to love him. I’ve never loved anyone except Brian. Not truly. Not even Ethan. Ethan was… post traumatic stress. I resented Brian for wanting to forget about the prom. For never wanting to acknowledge such a poignant moment for us, for never wanting to acknowledge me. So when Ethan came around with his bullshit words and pansy assed gestures, I got swept up in feeling the feeling of being wanted, being needed. And it was the biggest mistake of my life. But I wouldn’t undo it, ‘cause it reminded me who Brian really is. Was… I don’t even know anymore.
I don’t go out after dark alone anymore. Rae hates it, ‘cause I usually want to randomly go out at 1, 3, 4 in the morning and I wake her and bug her until she goes with me. She works three jobs to supplement for us because between school and the sun setting by 5 pm, I don’t have a job. She works 7 am to 11 am at a daycare center, 1 pm to 5 pm at a hotel bar in uptown, 8 to 12 bartending at some dyke bar on Liberty, then sleeps from 1 am to 6 am before starting the day over. Rae’s open to anyone, but she mainly swings towards cock, so I find it hilarious when she comes home with more numbers than a stock broker has in his cell phone.
I wish she weren’t so fucking great about this. I relish the moments that she calls me a pussy as we’re walking down a sidewalk, bundled up against the freezing cold and chain smoking to feel a little bit of warmth. She calls me a pussy ‘cause I crowd into her, cringing when anyone comes from an alley giggling or I see a streetlight.
I remember when streetlights were a sign of something positive. When Brian first picked me up. Now they remind me of copper and burning. Sensations that were the absolute opposite of horniness. Although when I glimpsed down an alley to see some hustler blowing some middle aged breeder, I felt my cock twitch. It’s been too long. Six months. Since I’ve sucked or been sucked, since I’ve rimmed or been rimmed, since I’ve jerked off, since I’ve fucked. The last person to fuck me was Brian, four years ago. Even my PTSD lets me long for a stiff 9 inches up my ass.
I wasn’t surprised when I found myself on Tremont, Rae looking at me oddly when I stopped at a building and rang up to the familiar floor. All I had to do was say it’s me and the door opened.
Rae sat in the stairwell while Brian fucked me for the first time in four and a half years against the steel support column, never once mentioning the oddity that I demand my shirt be left on. I couldn’t let him see the scars. No one has except Rae, but that’s ‘cause she walked in on me staring at them after I’d showered, not long after they’d healed, and she didn’t know I was home. Letting Brian see them would be too vulnerable. I wouldn’t be able to handle that.
He fucked me, and I left before he could even pull his pants up. I barely looked at him, didn’t even kiss him. Kissing was too intimate. It’s the reason why I’d included that in our stupid rules way back when. It’s also why I broke the rule… once upon a time I’d longed for that intimacy anywhere when it verbally lacked in one relationship. I could tell he was surprised when I stepped in and reached into the pocket of his jeans for the condom that was always there, undid his pants, stroked him to full mast and sheathed his cock. But he snapped out of it when he saw my ass staring up at him when I pressed against the column.
He’d tried undressing me, failed.
Tried kissing my mouth, failed.
Tried apologizing when I cried out in pain as he rammed in, succeeded.
But I felt it. Fucking felt it.
And it was beautiful.
FOUR.
He didn’t act any differently towards me three days later at Sunday dinner. I stuck close to Rae, feeling awkward in the group. Debbie, Carl, Mom, Tucker, Molly, Brian, Ben, Michael, Hunter, Lindsay, Mel, Gus, Jenny Rebecca, Ted, Blake, Drew, Emmett, Rae, me. It turned into a big barbeque and the house seemed cramped with close to twenty people piled between Debbie’s kitchen, dining room and living room.
It’s the most people I’ve been around that I know, since I was left for dead. I want to run. But Rae’s with me. I know she’ll protect me. Fucking pathetic, I need a girl to protect me.
He keeps watching me and it’s making me paranoid. It’s just Brian, but fucking Christ what’s with him?
“I get why you were infatuated with him,” Bitch. “He’s got that sort of God thing about him, doesn’t he? Or at least, that’s what you were crying out the other night in that building.”
“Fuck off, Rae.”
She snorts. It’s wrong to hit women, right? ‘Cause I’d been steadfast in not telling her a single thing about the building on Tremont. Not the tenant I’d been to see, not the reason the person knew who ‘me’ was through a garbled intercom, nothing. And I’d just let myself be completely manipulated into that one.
“Now, Sunshine, if I were to fuck off, you’d break down in seconds. So don’t act like you don’t need me and don’t act like I’m here for any other reason besides that.” She’d started of in a bitchily joking manner, but grew serious by the time she mentioned me breaking down.
Alright, she’s forgiven. She hates crowds where she’s not safe on a platform high above the dancing bodies. We don’t really talk about our pasts, but I think she’s got some form of PTSD herself where she’s not comfortable as herself in crowds. Working, she’s a character. A firewoman, a cop, a naughty school girl. But here, she’s just herself and that’s scarier than anything. Hah. Kindred spirits.
“So, how’d you two meet?” Debbie asks at dinner and it all begins.
“Friend of a friend when I needed a new roommate.” I answer shortly, piling Italian food onto a fork and shoving it in my mouth. Food tastes like ash now and Debbie’s cooking is no exception.
“What do you do, honey?”
“In New York, I danced at a club. Kinda like your Babylon, according to Justin. But here I have a few jobs. Day care, bartender uptown and at…”
Rae gets interrupted by Emmett, “That’s right! I saw you working at Cleopatra’s the other night when I met with a client. I thought you looked familiar, sugar!”
“Another dyke? Fabulous.” Brian intones and I glare at him.
“I lick and suck,” Rae responds with a smirk. I knew she’d never be deterred by Brian and I think that’s why I was willing to come tonight. “But I prefer stick-shift to the automatic models.” She’s not like Daphne, where Daphne would secretly root for Brian. Rae champions me alone, is loyal to only me. Which is probably why our friendship works. I need something that’s mine. Someone. Never really thought I’d be the type of fag to always need a hag, but lets be realistic: gay guys can’t be just friends without emotional entanglements or extracurricular sexual activities and no way I’d be friends with some fucking breeder.
Emmett giggles and draws Rae into a conversation, leaving me to lie incessantly about my New York life and plaster on my fakest smile to date. Only one person isn’t fooled, and he catches me as I’m in the backyard smoking. Fucker sneaks up on me and I jump, and I can tell by the look on his face that he fucking knows.
“Don’t think I recognize the signs, Sunshine? You lived with me for months after the bashing. I remember vividly what PTSD looks like.” He takes a drag from my cigarette. “I’m onto you.”
Biggest load of bullshit. I have nothing to say so he walks away, thinking he’s won. He’s won nothing. I don’t expect it to be a secret forever (okay, maybe I hope it will be) and Brian’s always been too damn intuitive for someone who plays oblivious really well.
And he took my cigarette!
I score that night. Leave Rae at Cleopatra’s while she gets her check long enough to run five doors down to Woody’s and find Anita by luck. The aging drag queen gives me some good blow and I snort half of it in the bathroom at home. The burn is a relief as the world kaleidoscopes into shapeless color and light.
I’m coming off the high the next morning when I feel a lightweight material land on my bare chest. I’m spread out across my bed, my hands hanging off either side like a crucified Christ. That’s how I feel.
“What the fuck is that?” Rae enunciates and her voice throbs through my head.
“You should know. It’s fucked your nasal cavity enough times.” I groan as I roll over, not interested in her bitch fit.
“Fuck off, Justin.” Her tone is hard, I’ve never heard her like this. “Get that shit out of my fucking house or take it with you when you leave.”
I laugh bitterly. She really thinks she can kick me out?
“I mean it. Clean yourself up or I’m kicking you out. I can’t have that in my fucking house. I was addicted to it, you jackass!”
“Yeah, and yet you still smoke weed.”
“It’s a plant! It makes you hungry and giggly. I remember what that… shit felt like, okay? I live with it every day and I face it every day when you’re being a problematic twat and I want nothing more than to have a hit in order to handle you or my shit life. I cannot have that here, Justin. And if you’re using, you can’t be here either. And where the fuck do you think you’re gonna go? Mommy’s? Debbie’s? Brian’s? Yeah, like you’ll go anywhere where they might see your fucking scars; learn the truth about the person they love. I’m all you’ve got so you better clean your ass up, or I will.”
“The person they love died nine months ago.”
She made a disgusted, exasperated sound as she threw her hands in the air. “You’re such a dramatic little cunt. The only reason that person ‘died’, is ‘cause you were too much of a coward in the face of pain to keep him alive and thriving. Instead of moving on, you let yourself drown in quicksand. God, be a man, Justin. Face your past, face your fears, face whatever the fuck you need to face, but do it quickly. Or you really will have nothing.” She leaves the room and it’s a minute or two before I hear the door slam shut.
I take the baggie, empty it onto the nightstand, plug a nostril and inhale.
FIVE.
“Fix him!”
Ugh, Rae. Shut the fuck up.
“What the fuck do you think I can do?”
I am trying to sleep here, Christ.
“I don’t know. You were his lover for five years.”
“Four.”
“Really? You’re gonna do that right now?”
Huh?
“Who the fuck are you anyways?”
“Justin’s friend.”
“You can’t call me up at 4 o’clock in the afternoon at my place of fucking business and tell my assistant that Justin’s in trouble, and not give me something more than Justin’s friend as an excuse.”
Wait… I know that voice…
“Like you were so concerned! It’s 7 hours later and you smell like you’ve been in Woody’s bathroom getting your worry sucked right out of you through your cock! … Look… things happened to Justin in New York. Things that even I won’t tell you about, no matter how much I want you to help. But I just… I was addicted to cocaine and meth for four years after I got to New York. I was 19, this guy was offering me stardom, so I took a few hits. Then a few more at the next party, and then I shot up at the next one. Things didn’t go well and I was addicted from there on out. I’d just started to clean myself up when I met Justin. He knows what I looked like through withdrawals when I fell off. He took me to meetings. Helped me through rehab. And now he’s bringing powder into my home and I can’t be around that. I can’t be around him on it, because it’s not only temptation, but I don’t want to see it destroy his life. And right now, I have no fucking clue how I can help him. But you…”
I trail out of the conversation as my mind slowly clears. How much did I fucking take? My limbs are heavy and my head refuses to move. Is this an OD?
Doubtful, Rae would have me at a hospital by now. Or maybe a rehab facility.
She’s being honest. I remember. The clammy skin, vomiting, bargaining for just one more hit. I hated it. She’d been clean six months when we met and then right before her one year anniversary, she fell off when her brother died overseas. It was a huge setback for her that lasted three months before I got her into a rehab program with the help of Ted and Blake. Mostly Blake, who drove in to help me with her.
But back to the conversation… the man’s voice is muffled. Lover? There’s no way. She wouldn’t do that. No matter how desperate she is.
“What happened to him in New York?”
“I can’t tell you. But it happened about 10 months ago and it’s… it was bad. I was there, and it was really bad. This method of pain management… it could kill him. I’ve seen it happen. You’re the only person who can fix him. Please.”
“Where is he?”
Brian.
Fuck. Me.
I’m gonna kill her.
The door opens and I scramble to grab for the sheet, my sluggish movements getting him halfway to my bed before I can cover up the scars on my shirtless torso. Thankfully the faint moonlight slating through the blinds isn’t enough for him to see them.
“What the fuck are you doing, Sunshine?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Kinney?” I don’t need some Goddamn intervention. Especially from him. Manwhore, alcoholic, drug abusing asshole.
“Kinney?” He chuckles and I want to punch his teeth in. But that’d require movement.
“Get out of here, Brian. I don’t want or need help, least of all from a hypocritical asshole like you.”
His face instantly hardens. Struck a nerve. Justin - 1, Brian - 0.
“Don’t be such a twat, Justin. Your friend was telling me that you’re resuming your habits that you picked up when whoring… I mean dancing at Babylon. Thought you’d gotten over that when Sap and his friends tried to rape you.”
Justin - 1. Brian - 2. Ouch.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“If that were anatomically possible, I wouldn’t have needed you that one time.”
“One? Try seven.”
“Oh, you counted? That’s so… lesbionic.”
“What do I have to do to get you to go the fuck away?” I hated myself more than usual for the pleading note in my voice.
“Tell me what happened in New York.” I knew it. Even the moments of silence, I knew it’s what he was gonna ask.
“The usual. Went, saw, didn’t conquer, came back with my tail between my legs. Happy? Are you fucking happy? You pushed me into that decision when I wanted nothing to fucking do with it because I was happy here, but you were so fucking sure that New York was what I needed. That I needed to go there and experience the failure I knew I was going to achieve. Well congratulations, Brian. Every fucking thing I went through in that shithole city was because of you. For you. So I hope you’re happy.” I laid back on the bed, making sure the sheet was up to my neck so my shoulders didn’t show. “It’s getting late. Don’t want to keep your drooling admirers waiting too long at Babylon. The backroom must be teeming with inexperienced twinks waiting for you to make their life’s decisions all for their incapable little selves.”
Brian - 2. Justin - 4.
Maybe that’s why I feel nothing when I look at Brian.
Maybe I really do blame him for New York.
Failure, disappointment, nearly being killed.
Maybe it’s his fault.
Ouch. There’s that pain again. Maybe I should lay off the coke for a few nights. Make Rae happy, get her off my back. Goddamn ex-junkies. At least she went to Brian and not Blake. Brian’s easier to deal with. Throw emotion in his face and he backs right the fuck off. Example? Three, two… front door slam. Ta-da.
“I’m trying to help you.” I look up and she’s braced herself against the doorjamb.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yes, you did.”
God Rae, please.
It’s okay, it’s okay, Jus.
Fuck, it hurts so much.
I know, I know. The ambulance is coming.
Please help me, please, fuck, oh God, Rae, please!
Calm down, just calm down. They’re coming, I swear to you. Just please, God, hold on.
Help!
She leaves for work and I’m glad, ‘cause I hate her again.
But above all, over Chris Hobbs, my father, the Prop 14 assholes who planted the bomb, the shooter… over all of them, I hate myself the most.
SIX.
The first person to find out isn’t Brian.
It isn’t my mother.
It isn’t Debbie.
It’s fucking Mel.
When I’d been arrested by my father, I retained Mel as legal counsel for advice and shit. And the ADA from New York contacted her in order to get in contact with me ‘cause I’d broken my cell phone when I threw it at the wall in a fit of rage two weeks ago. Apparently there was a suspect in custody regarding my case.
I guess I had to be grateful that she didn’t go to the rest of the family or ask Lindsay about it. I still wish no one fucking knew.
She was very lawyer about it. Didn’t press me as a friend would, didn’t ask if I’m okay, didn’t look at my shirt imploringly, didn’t ask about scarring.
The only thing that really bugged her was the answer to her question about who in Pittsburgh knew about the shooting. My answer was Rae and now her, only. She thinks Mom should know. Debbie should know. Brian should know. She agrees that he’s a gigantic asshole, but he loves me.
Loves. Not loved. She’s obviously been in Mountie land far too long if she thinks that’s still the case. Brian doesn’t love anyone. He’s not in love with anyone but himself. He just wants to fix people ‘cause no one ever fixed him.
She tells me I have to go to New York for a line-up. As soon as possible. She’ll be going with me as counsel, Rae will automatically come as support. Both can fuck off ‘cause I’m not going. I don’t need to see the judicial system fail me up close and personal this time.
Badger, badger, badger. Have to do it, he’ll do it again, could kill someone, do you want that blood on your hands?
FUCK YOU!
Who the hell do they think they are? I can’t take it! So I run.
I’m running.
I ran.
All the way to Tremont street. Why the hell do I keep coming back here? Why? He’s everything I want to run away from. He’s everything that’s wrong… but isn’t that right, now? What’s wrong is right. I stand in the middle of the street, the random passing car honking and swerving around me as I stare at the building. What the fuck? What am I doing?
Before I can turn to walk away, the door buzzes and I look up seconds later to see a silhouette in his window. Fuck me.
Hmm, that sounds like a good idea.
So I take the steps two at a time, the door’s already open and I attack him. “Fuck me.”
And he does. Against the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the chaise, the couch, against the shower stall. Never the bed. Never with my shirt off. I know in the recesses of my mind that I came here tonight, ‘cause I wouldn’t be leaving him in the dark anymore. I needed him to know. ‘Cause I need him in New York with me. If I go. When I go. I need to pretend he’s my lover and he can protect me. That he’ll find me in the darkness again. Like he found me when my head was bleeding on cement, when sparks rained overhead. I need him.
I need him. I need. Need is an emotion, right? Maybe I’m not such a lost cause.
“What happened?” He asks, his temple pressed against mine. “Please, Justin. I need to know.”
Stomach lurch. Maybe nothing was a bit premature, in regards to what I feel for Brian.
“Let go.” I tell him, his head pulling back but his hands never leaving my face. “I need you to take my shirt off.”
He gulps and pales. He’s afraid. He’s afraid of how bad it is, if there’s physical remains of the trauma.
So am I.
His eyes bore into mine until the shirt’s on the floor, and then he examines me. I know the second he sees them. Pupils dilate, breath hitches and stops altogether, fists tighten.
“What the fuck are those?”
I wonder what he think they could be. They look like bullet wounds, don’t they? I look down at them and suppose they could look like someone put out a cigar on me, but that’d be worse. Wow… something could be worse that this.
“Rae and I were walking home from Sphinx and she dropped an earring. She went back for it so I lit up a cigarette and waited on the sidewalk. This guy came out of nowhere with a gun…”
“FUCK!”
“And shot me.” I continue like he never interrupted. I can’t even hear him. Can’t hear anything but blood pumping in my ears as I relive it. Piecing together more puzzle pieces. Things that had been fragmented by fear and trauma. I can see his face a little clearer. Tattoo of a teardrop below his eye, dark skin.
Great, Lil Wayne shot me.
“Your breeder-dyke friend told me a few weeks ago that something happened to you ten months ago, eleven now. You’ve been home three fucking months and didn’t tell anyone that someone…” He can’t finish. Spears his fingers through his hair, turns away, swallows loudly. Can’t say the words.
“He left me there.” I started again, blankly staring at a patch of wall across from where I stood near the bedroom stairs. “I remember hearing laughter… Rae’s as she came back. All I could do was stare at the sky and mutter that it hurt. She tried to stop the bleeding but two went straight through and I was just bleeding too fast, too much. I woke up in the hospital three days later.”
“Three days… fucking Christ! Why the fuck didn’t Jennifer tell anyone?”
“She doesn’t know. The only people that know are Rae, Mel and now you.”
“Melanie fucking knew before me? Before your mother?”
“The ADA assigned to the case contacted her. They have a suspect and ‘cause she was once listed as my counsel before Craig dropped the charges against me, they contacted her. They want me to come in for a line-up.”
“And you’re telling me because you don’t think Mel can keep attorney-client privilege when it’s someone in the family?”
He’s digging, I know it. I’ll let him find the treasure. “I’m telling you because I need you. I need you with me, Brian. If I do this, I need you by my side.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
He turns away.
I knew he’s gonna reject me. We aren’t lovers anymore. We’re not engaged anymore. We’re not even friends. We’re just fucking occasionally, when I need an itch scratched and when he wants to feel a tight hole versus Babylon’s loose regulars.
He grabs his cell phone and I can see he presses number 3. Speed dial.
Yes, I know what fucking time it is, I’m not an imbecile.
Shut up and clear my schedule for tomorrow and Friday.
I need to go to New York.
Yes, I know about the staff meeting and meeting with Remson. I made them, it’s my company.
It’s a family emergency.
Fuck off, Cynthia.
“You don’t have to do that.” I tell him when he hangs up. I’d forgotten all about Kinnetik, to be perfectly honest. Forgot that he wasn’t just sitting around like some rich aristocrat, never having to work a day in his life like us mere peasants.
“Yes, I do.”
His look is full of meaning and I feel my heart constrict, pumping life back into it as the thumping dislodged the spider webs.
SEVEN.
Number four.
And that was it.
Two words and it’s supposedly over.
So why don’t I feel better? Why am I still numb? Why isn’t it over?
He’s barely eighteen. Really? A fucking eighteen year old gunned down someone that has nearly a decade in life on them? And for what? For what?
Mel squeezes my shoulder and steers me back out into the station where everyone are waiting. Yes, everyone. My everyone. Brian, Rae and several other New York friends that Rae accidentally told we were coming back. Fiona, Sean and Maxxie are here. Fi’s the friend of a friend that I met Rae through, after having met Fiona -- a photographer -- at a gallery I first worked at when I got to New York. Then Rae introduced me to Sean, and Maxxie found us.
I didn’t want to see them. I just wanted to be alone with Brian. Needed that.
Brian had been great. Arranged for all four of us at a great hotel. Mel in her own room, Rae and me in a suite and Brian in his own. He knew me too well, after traumas. Knew without question that I couldn’t sleep alone. Didn’t make the assumption or push for it to be him that I’d be sharing a room with. I don’t think I’m ready for that, so quickly after him seeing my scars.
I’ve already been told that I’ll need to tell my family when I get home. I figure I’ll gather Mom and Debbie separately so they can go off on their identical mother-tirades together and save me the repetitive shouting. Then I’ll let whatever happens, happen. If Mel goes home and talks to Lindsay about it and she mentions it to Michael, so be it. It’ll be around Liberty Avenue within hours. Or if Debbie keeps it quiet and doesn’t tell Michael, that’s great too. No one will have to know outright.
I forgo dinner and clubbing with everyone, in order to go back to the hotel room. Seeing him brought back instant flashes. Muzzle fire, tongue licking lips, smirk hanging above my head. Mother fucker smiled down at me after he shot me. I’d forgotten that snippet, as the pain had flooded in.
I went out on the balcony for a smoke, and looked out at the city. Brian had booked us in an upscale, ritzy place and the skyline was beautiful. I could almost remember why I’d wanted to come here so bad. But the city was poison. Had been poisoned. By failure and gunshots and pity. It left me with absolutely no regrets on moving back to the Pitts, even though two people now knew I was once again the faggot victim -- even though it was a gang initiation shooting and not a hate crime, lucky me -- and soon enough, most others probably would too.
Victim. Fucking hate that word. Rae calls me survivor. I think it’s her mindset. She survived addiction, survived whatever hell those guys put her through with the promise of stardom. She won’t talk about it, and I don’t bring it up, but I suspect it’s something nasty. So she uses survivor instead of victim. But what did I survive? I still hate going out alone at night, or period sometimes. I cringe in crowds again. I don’t make eye contact with people ‘cause I worry that it’ll offend them somehow and pull out a… knife next time, I suppose. Already been struck down by a bat, bomb and gun. Knife is probably next. Maybe a car. How many times can Justin Taylor get back up? A weekly episodic reality show. Big Brother meets Survivor. More like the Saw movies, than anything else.
I feel like this is some cosmic game. Fucking seriously. A bat. A bomb. A gun. Why? What’s the point? Am I just supposed to keep moving on? Keep getting “stronger”? Why? Why can’t I just give up? What the fuck do I have that I need to be strong for?
There’s a knock at the door and I know who it is without even moving an inch. I laugh up at the sky. Really? Is that supposed to be some sort of a sign? I have to be strong for when Brian needs a blowjob and the tricks in New York aren’t satisfactory? Great. My life’s goal.
I open the door and I’m startled to see him look like shit. His eyes are bloodshot and his pallor is awful. His shirt is rumpled and untucked in a familiar way of decade’s past, and reeks as badly. This time of alcohol. He shakes when he envelopes me in his arms, burying his face in my neck and inhaling. One arm around my shoulder, the other around the middle of my back; fingers gripping shoulder, side, as he holds me tightly. Tighter than he’s ever held me, even after he found me in Babylon’s rubble.
It takes me a minute before my arms go around him, and I sink into his embrace.
He’s warm. When was the last time I felt warm?
“I just needed…” I think he’s trying not to cry. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” It’s a mantra as his hands start pressing against my body, his head pulling back to take in every minute detail of my face, his fingers following his eyes. He’s trying to reassure himself that I’m okay, and that shakes me to my very core.
Where’s the arrogant asshole façade that he kept up all the time, especially around me? Where’s the guy who fucked trick after trick in order to prove he’s still hot shit and that love can’t weigh him down? Where’s Mount Kinney? Isn’t this the part where I’m pushed off the highest point and into the jagged rocks below, when he’s shown a fraction of emotion?
“Can’t happen again.”
I don’t think he’s even aware that he’s talking. His words are fragmented, like wild thoughts zooming through his head.
“I’m fine.” I’m lying.
He knows it.
Hands slide against my cheeks, lips pressing to my closed eyelids, temple, cheek, jaw, nose, mouth. God, his mouth. It’s the first time we’ve kissed in nearly five years. How the hell did I survive without this?
Oh, right. I didn’t.
My hands fist in the material of his sleeves as we kiss and kiss and kiss in the open doorway of my hotel room. It’s oxygen. My lungs expanding and contracting. It’s blood, flying through veins and pumping life into me. It’s my soul, revitalizing life.
It’s a start.
A start to healing.
“It’s okay, Sunshine. It’s okay.” He mumbles against my lips, and I know from his tone that he’s trying to reassure me this time. It’s then that I realize I’m crying. When did that start? I haven’t cried. Not since I laid on cold cement, for the second time in my life with my blood pouring out of me and someone who loves me crying above me as sight and sound faded.
He holds me as I cry, breaking down in his arms like I’ve never broken down before. He closes the door and brings me to bed, and just holds me. Doesn’t try to fuck it away, doesn’t trying to tell me it’ll get better. When he says it’s okay, he means I’m not alone anymore. That I’m not gonna have to deal with this on my own.
That means more to me than anything.
It’s him saying I love you.
And when I curl into him and press my lips to his, it’s me saying that I could love him too, like I used to, when we put back together the fractured shards that represent the remnants of my life.
EPILOGUE.
Rae once said to me that she thinks we’re born to die. Every second of every day that we breathe, we’re just getting that much closer to dying. We’re born so the world can be inflicted upon us, and we can face tragedy and pain and hatred, so that we can die with a story. I think she’s right.
My story isn’t simple. It isn’t short. My life changed 10 years ago under a street light. The infatuation that followed turned to love. I was disowned for being who I am. I was bashed in the head for loving who I love. I was swayed by false hope and rescued by true love. I created masterpieces, and a comic. I saw dreams burst into flames in Los Angeles, and go out with a bang in New York.
But it brought me back here. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Where my family, my home, my love are. I have my two mothers, biological and surrogate who love me more than anything, and were supportive above all. I have my best friend, who stayed with me in Pittsburgh through my hardest times even when Broadway called.
I have Brian. Who held my hand after I testified and bruised my ribs in a hug when my shooter got ten years in prison.
I have Brian, who hired me as Kinnetik’s art director when PIFA became tedious, and Rae told me to get a job so she could quit being around screaming kids.
I have Brian, who walks with me through a parking garage with his arm around my shoulders every night, and walks me to my apartment door because the dark still scares me.
I have Brian, who told me he loved me after my first big art show at Sidney Bloom’s gallery and sold four of the six paintings I’d done.
I have Brian, who is like the glue slowly drying the broken pieces back together.
I have Brian.
And that’s the thing I need the most.
Fandom: Queer As Folk (Brian/Justin)
Rating: R/M (for language, violence, sexual situations, drug use... if you've seen the show, you're good)
Category: Very dark and angsty as Justin works through his trauma, with romantic undertones between Brian/Justin towards the latter half of the story, along with friendship.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor am I any way affiliated with the characters, actors, or production company that were part of Queer As Folk. I am however the owner of the characters and places you do not recognize (e.g. Rae, Sphinx, Cleopatra's).
Timeline: 4 and a half years post series finale.
Dedication: thememoryslides who convinced me that this deserved posting around the net.
Summary: Justin went to New York in search of recognition for his talent. What he found was 4 and a half years of unhappiness, culminating in three gunshots on a sidewalk late at night. After being made a victim once more, Justin decides it's time to move back to Pittsburgh.
ONE.
The first thing you registered was warm blood spraying your face. It wasn’t the burning pain of a bullet slicing through your chest, nor the gunshot or muzzle flash from the gun pointed at you from five feet away. It was the way your life essence exploded from your chest, dotting your arms and face as the rest pulled apart in the air and hung like a cloud. The second bullet finally registered the pain. The third knocked oxygen back into your lungs as you gasped and laid you on your ass. Cold cement, blood pooling. Someone else’s memories of a night so long ago.
Even as you lay on the ground with the blood pumping from three gunshot wounds, you couldn’t do much more than stare at the sky. You couldn’t call for help. Couldn’t move your arms as the closely aimed bullets quickly drained your blood from two through and through shots. You watched enough random episodes of crime procedurals to know that you’re in shit shape.
The world vibrated with bright color, starbursts as the tears spread and dripped across your temples. There was a gasp, someone crying out your name, hands pressing against your wounds, blurry cinnamon skin next to a dancing streetlamp. Help on the way. Hang on. Too much to give up. Hang on damn it!
I jerked awake, the fear trembling through my stomach as I dreamt the vivid memory of the night from nearly eight months ago that left me a victim once more. Fucking prick. It was never gonna leave me. When I was bashed, there was some reprieve. This, I remembered instantaneously. Oh, how I longed for the months of ignorance that I’d had at 18. 9 years after being bashed, and I was right back in that fucking faggot mindset. Scared to go out at night, scared to look strangers in the eye. Pussy.
I rolled on my hip to sit up in bed, my feet pressing against the cold hardwood floors, my hands gripping the edge of the bed as I quelled the nausea. I hated this. Fucking hated it! It was worse this time. I didn’t know his fucking name. I didn’t know him personally. I hadn’t been betrayed ‘cause of some schoolboy hand-job. I had been victimized solely because I could be. And the bastard was still roaming the streets. I longed for the days of vigilantism, wearing pink tank tops and camouflage pants with combat boots. Wielding an empty revolver, only to load it and shove it in Chris Hobbs’ mouth. The power high for even just those ten minutes was fucking addictive. But making it to the end of the block and throwing up everything I’d ate that day, I could’ve done without.
New fucking York. Nearly five years in this city and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. I wasn’t Justin Taylor, the next Andy Warhol. I was Justin Taylor, victim of random sidewalk shooting. My pieces were dark. Too dark for some. Depressive, oppressive, repressive. Lacked life, had too much hatred. Too much self-loathing. The looks I got from those pretentious fucks when they looked at my art. Pity. The only way I was able to heal and they were telling me it wasn’t right for their shows. Well excuse the fuck out of me for getting my head bashed in with a baseball bat at 18 and then shot three times in the chest at 27. Sorry I’m not living up to my nickname of being all sunshine and happy days.
Sunshine. Christ. Been a long time since I’ve thought about that… since I’ve had contact with anyone from the Pitts. A couple years after I’d left to become some great artiste, the foreground players dropped off. Brian, Michael, Debbie, Lindsay, Emmett, Ted in a way. Ironically, I kept closer in contact with Mel and Ben. The lovers to the devoted defenders of my ex. You can’t make that shit up. Brian, Michael, Lindsay. Justin, Ben, Mel. It’s hilarious. Our partners all in love with someone else, Michael and Lindsay in love with Brian, and Brian in love with himself. But after being gunned down, I forgot all about everyone. Ignored calls and emails, aside from answering once in awhile to be aloof and a particularly big prick in order for them to get the message to back off. I haven’t even talked to Daphne since I left Pitts. She went to college; I came here to become the best homosexual I could be.
Fail. Fail. Fail. It’s a glaring marquee over my head. All the time. It wasn’t as prominent until I was raped of my safety, once more.
“Justin,” a sleepy voice questioned from behind me. “Another one?”
“I’m fine.” I tell Rae, my roommate for the last four years. After the friend Daphne had hooked me up with decided to run off and be a drag queen in Miami, I came across Rachael through a friend of a friend. She needed a roommate and what started as convenience turned into a great friendship.
“Then lay back down and go to sleep or go fucking paint, ‘cause your depression is too loud for me.” Rae bemoaned, rolling back over on the bed and going to sleep. After I’d been shot, I took to sleeping in with her. Her bed was like one of those corny honeymoon suite circular beds, but it was huge and we both slept on it without kicking the other. Which is saying something, given we’re both restless sleepers. But I couldn’t be alone. Like after the bashing.
Rae was there that night. We were walking home from work… her work, she was a go-go girl at Sphinx, a club that was New York’s Babylon, only it catered to men and women equally; gay, bi, pan, lesbian, straight, whatever. The club made sure to employ both female and male dancers in that case, and Rae was one of the main attractions.
There are times when I’m grateful that she’d ran back around the corner to find an earring she’d dropped and hadn’t been there when he’d came up. But then there are times when I look at her and hate her so fucking much for not being there, too. I hate her. I hate myself. I hate this apartment. I hate the galleries. I hate the sounds of the city. I hate the city itself. I hate living in fear. I hate only being able to see a cruel smirk in my mind’s eye behind the gun as the memory of my shooter. I hate my art. I hate sidewalks. I hate the night sky. I hate my fucking life here.
“I’m going back.” I tell Rae, even though I’m pretty sure she’s back to sleep. Even though I’m pretty sure I’m losing my mind right now.
“I know. And I’m going with you.” Rae’s voice is sleepy, but I know she’s lucid enough to understand. Fucking bitch always knew what I was gonna do before I did it.
“I’m moving back, Rae.”
“I know. And I’m going with you.”
Sometimes I don’t hate her. Sometimes I love her, ‘cause she’s my Daphne and my Brian rolled into one. My best friend, my support, my understanding. Then again, that’s partly the reason I hate her too.
TWO.
Three weeks ago I moved home. Mom -- who I never told about the shooting -- found us a studio-loft styled, three bedroom apartment relatively fast. Far from Liberty Avenue, Tremont, the suburbs. Thank God. I don’t think I’m ready to see my extended family yet. Especially when the last one I saw in person was Brian four years ago. Though, I ran into Hunter two years ago but I don’t really think he counts seeing as we both barely tolerate the other.
Rae was great about the whole thing. She only bitched once when she got up in the middle of the night to pee and walked into the wall, expecting it to be her doorway back in New York. She called me a cowardice fucking pussy as she angrily stumbled down the hallway, rubbing her forehead.
I smiled for the first time in months.
Everything is backwards for me. I hate what’s right and love what’s wrong. Being back here is wrong, but I love it. Seeing my surrogate family is right, but it makes me want to drown myself. I wonder if the trauma of being shot tricked my brain into thinking I was bashed in the head again and rewired itself somehow. It wouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not about to pay 250 an hour to some hack to tell me that being bashed and surviving a bombing and being shot and all my fucking traumas are just catching up with me.
You know what else is wrong? I think of Brian and there’s… nothing. Abso-fuckin’-lutely nothing. Maybe that’s right.
So when I see him for the first time in four and a half years, my heart doesn’t accelerate. My stomach doesn’t flip flop. There’s no pulse quickening, butterflies flapping, sweat secreting. No pain, anger, bitterness, hope, love. Nothing. Obviously, he doesn’t see me. I made sure of that. I’m not in the mood for his snark. I just need my fucking pain pills. Not that they do anything. The doctor swears it’s phantom pain… my mind tricking me into thinking it’s physical pain when it’s all mental. Fuck you too doc, but thanks for leaving your prescription pad just laying there while you gave me a moment. Best thing about being an artist? I can always be a forger if I’m not the next Warhol.
Rae worries. I know she does. Dependency, addiction, whatever. You know what? Coming from a former addict, she can blow me. She gets it. She gets the pull of numbing yourself. Not that that’s what I’m doing. If I were, I’d be going for something better. Cocaine. That shit was great when I last had it. New York has one up on the Pitts in the drug field. Stronger, potent.
Being around the living is too much. They mill around like Goddamn ants. Narcissistic, sycophant assholes who have no idea what pain is. They want to see pain? I’ll shave my head again and show them the scar and indentation in my head from where Chris Hobbs used my head for baseball practice. I’ll take off my shirt and show them the triangle of jagged scars from bullets. Five new ones. Three going in the chest, two going out the shoulder blade.
“You’re gonna have to see people sooner or later, Justin. You can’t become some sort of recluse.”
I know she’s right. I also can’t care. But to show her I’m still alive, I reenrolled at PIFA. I hate that wasteland, but they can’t kick me out ‘cause my art is too dark. Interpret a prompt, that’s all it is. If I choose to smear red on a canvas over peach and ice blue, then what? It’ll be brilliant, all my work is. So they can give me a B minus for not following the prompt precisely. They can’t fail me otherwise and they can’t kick me out unless I’m failing or blow up the building. Fuck the breeders. Brian would be proud.
Speaking of. I should’ve known that when I reenrolled, they’d call the previous financier of my education. Maybe I knew and just didn’t care. Maybe I wanted a random woman over the phone to let Brian know I was back. Save me the trouble of having to go through the awkward ‘hey’ stage, and just let him get straight to being pissed off after being home for a month. So the knock at the door wasn’t really a surprise.
“You look like fucking shit.” Neither was his opening line. A four year gap in seeing one another wouldn’t make Brian act any less Brian-like.
“Is there something I can do for you?” I’m disinterested in his presence. Still, absolutely nothing. I loved him once, right? Though I can acknowledge that at nearly 40, Brian still looks amazing. Especially in a charcoal grey Armani suit and silk eggplant dress shirt.
“I’m not…”
“I know. It was a mistake. I’ll fix it.” I interrupt ‘cause I know he’s gonna say he’s not paying for my education after having blown it off in the past. “Bye.” I say, before closing the door in his face and locking it. Two deadbolts, a chain and steel pull later, I’m secure in my bubble once more. I didn’t even slam it. I think that’s what shocks him enough to walk away. Or so I assume, from the odd distorted angle I saw of him through the peephole.
I take my fourth pain pill in two hours ‘cause suddenly my chest hurts, and wonder if this is my fate. Misery.
THREE.
He manages to keep that I’m home a secret for a full two weeks. Rae is instantly overwhelmed by the amount of people that swoop to our door. Debbie scares the hell out of her, shoving her way into the apartment, followed by Emmett and Michael. I’m promised a visit from Ben and Hunter later, along with Melanie, Lindsay, Gus and Jenny when they’re done moving back as well. Ironic timing. I know I can expect Ted at some point, probably dragged back next time with Emmett or by Blake. I know Brian’s made his one and only visit and did all he could to keep from the others that I was home. That rounds out the gang, seeing as Daphne’s at Princeton and Vic’s dead. I miss Vic.
Miss. Fuck, is that an emotion? Maybe I’m making progress.
Rae looks pale when they finally leave and I almost laugh at her discomfort, her pain. She thinks that’s something? Wait ‘til I drag her to the Sunday dinner I’ve been strong armed into this weekend. I don’t want to go. Don’t wanna talk about how fucking great New York is. Don’t wanna avoid talking about why I came back; not home, back. I don’t have a specific home anymore. Don’t wanna lie about everything and anything. Yes, I had a few shows. Yes, I sold paintings. Yes, I was happy. No, I didn’t meet anyone worth mentioning.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. When did I become such a good liar?
I’m fine, Rae.
BANG.
It’ll pass, Fiona.
BANG.
I’m over it, Sean.
BANG.
I love you too, Declan.
Silence.
I was never fine. It never passed. I never got over it. I was never in love with Declan. Maybe it’s because I met him not long before I was shot. Maybe because of that, I was too fucked to love him. I’ve never loved anyone except Brian. Not truly. Not even Ethan. Ethan was… post traumatic stress. I resented Brian for wanting to forget about the prom. For never wanting to acknowledge such a poignant moment for us, for never wanting to acknowledge me. So when Ethan came around with his bullshit words and pansy assed gestures, I got swept up in feeling the feeling of being wanted, being needed. And it was the biggest mistake of my life. But I wouldn’t undo it, ‘cause it reminded me who Brian really is. Was… I don’t even know anymore.
I don’t go out after dark alone anymore. Rae hates it, ‘cause I usually want to randomly go out at 1, 3, 4 in the morning and I wake her and bug her until she goes with me. She works three jobs to supplement for us because between school and the sun setting by 5 pm, I don’t have a job. She works 7 am to 11 am at a daycare center, 1 pm to 5 pm at a hotel bar in uptown, 8 to 12 bartending at some dyke bar on Liberty, then sleeps from 1 am to 6 am before starting the day over. Rae’s open to anyone, but she mainly swings towards cock, so I find it hilarious when she comes home with more numbers than a stock broker has in his cell phone.
I wish she weren’t so fucking great about this. I relish the moments that she calls me a pussy as we’re walking down a sidewalk, bundled up against the freezing cold and chain smoking to feel a little bit of warmth. She calls me a pussy ‘cause I crowd into her, cringing when anyone comes from an alley giggling or I see a streetlight.
I remember when streetlights were a sign of something positive. When Brian first picked me up. Now they remind me of copper and burning. Sensations that were the absolute opposite of horniness. Although when I glimpsed down an alley to see some hustler blowing some middle aged breeder, I felt my cock twitch. It’s been too long. Six months. Since I’ve sucked or been sucked, since I’ve rimmed or been rimmed, since I’ve jerked off, since I’ve fucked. The last person to fuck me was Brian, four years ago. Even my PTSD lets me long for a stiff 9 inches up my ass.
I wasn’t surprised when I found myself on Tremont, Rae looking at me oddly when I stopped at a building and rang up to the familiar floor. All I had to do was say it’s me and the door opened.
Rae sat in the stairwell while Brian fucked me for the first time in four and a half years against the steel support column, never once mentioning the oddity that I demand my shirt be left on. I couldn’t let him see the scars. No one has except Rae, but that’s ‘cause she walked in on me staring at them after I’d showered, not long after they’d healed, and she didn’t know I was home. Letting Brian see them would be too vulnerable. I wouldn’t be able to handle that.
He fucked me, and I left before he could even pull his pants up. I barely looked at him, didn’t even kiss him. Kissing was too intimate. It’s the reason why I’d included that in our stupid rules way back when. It’s also why I broke the rule… once upon a time I’d longed for that intimacy anywhere when it verbally lacked in one relationship. I could tell he was surprised when I stepped in and reached into the pocket of his jeans for the condom that was always there, undid his pants, stroked him to full mast and sheathed his cock. But he snapped out of it when he saw my ass staring up at him when I pressed against the column.
He’d tried undressing me, failed.
Tried kissing my mouth, failed.
Tried apologizing when I cried out in pain as he rammed in, succeeded.
But I felt it. Fucking felt it.
And it was beautiful.
FOUR.
He didn’t act any differently towards me three days later at Sunday dinner. I stuck close to Rae, feeling awkward in the group. Debbie, Carl, Mom, Tucker, Molly, Brian, Ben, Michael, Hunter, Lindsay, Mel, Gus, Jenny Rebecca, Ted, Blake, Drew, Emmett, Rae, me. It turned into a big barbeque and the house seemed cramped with close to twenty people piled between Debbie’s kitchen, dining room and living room.
It’s the most people I’ve been around that I know, since I was left for dead. I want to run. But Rae’s with me. I know she’ll protect me. Fucking pathetic, I need a girl to protect me.
He keeps watching me and it’s making me paranoid. It’s just Brian, but fucking Christ what’s with him?
“I get why you were infatuated with him,” Bitch. “He’s got that sort of God thing about him, doesn’t he? Or at least, that’s what you were crying out the other night in that building.”
“Fuck off, Rae.”
She snorts. It’s wrong to hit women, right? ‘Cause I’d been steadfast in not telling her a single thing about the building on Tremont. Not the tenant I’d been to see, not the reason the person knew who ‘me’ was through a garbled intercom, nothing. And I’d just let myself be completely manipulated into that one.
“Now, Sunshine, if I were to fuck off, you’d break down in seconds. So don’t act like you don’t need me and don’t act like I’m here for any other reason besides that.” She’d started of in a bitchily joking manner, but grew serious by the time she mentioned me breaking down.
Alright, she’s forgiven. She hates crowds where she’s not safe on a platform high above the dancing bodies. We don’t really talk about our pasts, but I think she’s got some form of PTSD herself where she’s not comfortable as herself in crowds. Working, she’s a character. A firewoman, a cop, a naughty school girl. But here, she’s just herself and that’s scarier than anything. Hah. Kindred spirits.
“So, how’d you two meet?” Debbie asks at dinner and it all begins.
“Friend of a friend when I needed a new roommate.” I answer shortly, piling Italian food onto a fork and shoving it in my mouth. Food tastes like ash now and Debbie’s cooking is no exception.
“What do you do, honey?”
“In New York, I danced at a club. Kinda like your Babylon, according to Justin. But here I have a few jobs. Day care, bartender uptown and at…”
Rae gets interrupted by Emmett, “That’s right! I saw you working at Cleopatra’s the other night when I met with a client. I thought you looked familiar, sugar!”
“Another dyke? Fabulous.” Brian intones and I glare at him.
“I lick and suck,” Rae responds with a smirk. I knew she’d never be deterred by Brian and I think that’s why I was willing to come tonight. “But I prefer stick-shift to the automatic models.” She’s not like Daphne, where Daphne would secretly root for Brian. Rae champions me alone, is loyal to only me. Which is probably why our friendship works. I need something that’s mine. Someone. Never really thought I’d be the type of fag to always need a hag, but lets be realistic: gay guys can’t be just friends without emotional entanglements or extracurricular sexual activities and no way I’d be friends with some fucking breeder.
Emmett giggles and draws Rae into a conversation, leaving me to lie incessantly about my New York life and plaster on my fakest smile to date. Only one person isn’t fooled, and he catches me as I’m in the backyard smoking. Fucker sneaks up on me and I jump, and I can tell by the look on his face that he fucking knows.
“Don’t think I recognize the signs, Sunshine? You lived with me for months after the bashing. I remember vividly what PTSD looks like.” He takes a drag from my cigarette. “I’m onto you.”
Biggest load of bullshit. I have nothing to say so he walks away, thinking he’s won. He’s won nothing. I don’t expect it to be a secret forever (okay, maybe I hope it will be) and Brian’s always been too damn intuitive for someone who plays oblivious really well.
And he took my cigarette!
I score that night. Leave Rae at Cleopatra’s while she gets her check long enough to run five doors down to Woody’s and find Anita by luck. The aging drag queen gives me some good blow and I snort half of it in the bathroom at home. The burn is a relief as the world kaleidoscopes into shapeless color and light.
I’m coming off the high the next morning when I feel a lightweight material land on my bare chest. I’m spread out across my bed, my hands hanging off either side like a crucified Christ. That’s how I feel.
“What the fuck is that?” Rae enunciates and her voice throbs through my head.
“You should know. It’s fucked your nasal cavity enough times.” I groan as I roll over, not interested in her bitch fit.
“Fuck off, Justin.” Her tone is hard, I’ve never heard her like this. “Get that shit out of my fucking house or take it with you when you leave.”
I laugh bitterly. She really thinks she can kick me out?
“I mean it. Clean yourself up or I’m kicking you out. I can’t have that in my fucking house. I was addicted to it, you jackass!”
“Yeah, and yet you still smoke weed.”
“It’s a plant! It makes you hungry and giggly. I remember what that… shit felt like, okay? I live with it every day and I face it every day when you’re being a problematic twat and I want nothing more than to have a hit in order to handle you or my shit life. I cannot have that here, Justin. And if you’re using, you can’t be here either. And where the fuck do you think you’re gonna go? Mommy’s? Debbie’s? Brian’s? Yeah, like you’ll go anywhere where they might see your fucking scars; learn the truth about the person they love. I’m all you’ve got so you better clean your ass up, or I will.”
“The person they love died nine months ago.”
She made a disgusted, exasperated sound as she threw her hands in the air. “You’re such a dramatic little cunt. The only reason that person ‘died’, is ‘cause you were too much of a coward in the face of pain to keep him alive and thriving. Instead of moving on, you let yourself drown in quicksand. God, be a man, Justin. Face your past, face your fears, face whatever the fuck you need to face, but do it quickly. Or you really will have nothing.” She leaves the room and it’s a minute or two before I hear the door slam shut.
I take the baggie, empty it onto the nightstand, plug a nostril and inhale.
FIVE.
“Fix him!”
Ugh, Rae. Shut the fuck up.
“What the fuck do you think I can do?”
I am trying to sleep here, Christ.
“I don’t know. You were his lover for five years.”
“Four.”
“Really? You’re gonna do that right now?”
Huh?
“Who the fuck are you anyways?”
“Justin’s friend.”
“You can’t call me up at 4 o’clock in the afternoon at my place of fucking business and tell my assistant that Justin’s in trouble, and not give me something more than Justin’s friend as an excuse.”
Wait… I know that voice…
“Like you were so concerned! It’s 7 hours later and you smell like you’ve been in Woody’s bathroom getting your worry sucked right out of you through your cock! … Look… things happened to Justin in New York. Things that even I won’t tell you about, no matter how much I want you to help. But I just… I was addicted to cocaine and meth for four years after I got to New York. I was 19, this guy was offering me stardom, so I took a few hits. Then a few more at the next party, and then I shot up at the next one. Things didn’t go well and I was addicted from there on out. I’d just started to clean myself up when I met Justin. He knows what I looked like through withdrawals when I fell off. He took me to meetings. Helped me through rehab. And now he’s bringing powder into my home and I can’t be around that. I can’t be around him on it, because it’s not only temptation, but I don’t want to see it destroy his life. And right now, I have no fucking clue how I can help him. But you…”
I trail out of the conversation as my mind slowly clears. How much did I fucking take? My limbs are heavy and my head refuses to move. Is this an OD?
Doubtful, Rae would have me at a hospital by now. Or maybe a rehab facility.
She’s being honest. I remember. The clammy skin, vomiting, bargaining for just one more hit. I hated it. She’d been clean six months when we met and then right before her one year anniversary, she fell off when her brother died overseas. It was a huge setback for her that lasted three months before I got her into a rehab program with the help of Ted and Blake. Mostly Blake, who drove in to help me with her.
But back to the conversation… the man’s voice is muffled. Lover? There’s no way. She wouldn’t do that. No matter how desperate she is.
“What happened to him in New York?”
“I can’t tell you. But it happened about 10 months ago and it’s… it was bad. I was there, and it was really bad. This method of pain management… it could kill him. I’ve seen it happen. You’re the only person who can fix him. Please.”
“Where is he?”
Brian.
Fuck. Me.
I’m gonna kill her.
The door opens and I scramble to grab for the sheet, my sluggish movements getting him halfway to my bed before I can cover up the scars on my shirtless torso. Thankfully the faint moonlight slating through the blinds isn’t enough for him to see them.
“What the fuck are you doing, Sunshine?”
“What the fuck are you doing, Kinney?” I don’t need some Goddamn intervention. Especially from him. Manwhore, alcoholic, drug abusing asshole.
“Kinney?” He chuckles and I want to punch his teeth in. But that’d require movement.
“Get out of here, Brian. I don’t want or need help, least of all from a hypocritical asshole like you.”
His face instantly hardens. Struck a nerve. Justin - 1, Brian - 0.
“Don’t be such a twat, Justin. Your friend was telling me that you’re resuming your habits that you picked up when whoring… I mean dancing at Babylon. Thought you’d gotten over that when Sap and his friends tried to rape you.”
Justin - 1. Brian - 2. Ouch.
“Go fuck yourself.”
“If that were anatomically possible, I wouldn’t have needed you that one time.”
“One? Try seven.”
“Oh, you counted? That’s so… lesbionic.”
“What do I have to do to get you to go the fuck away?” I hated myself more than usual for the pleading note in my voice.
“Tell me what happened in New York.” I knew it. Even the moments of silence, I knew it’s what he was gonna ask.
“The usual. Went, saw, didn’t conquer, came back with my tail between my legs. Happy? Are you fucking happy? You pushed me into that decision when I wanted nothing to fucking do with it because I was happy here, but you were so fucking sure that New York was what I needed. That I needed to go there and experience the failure I knew I was going to achieve. Well congratulations, Brian. Every fucking thing I went through in that shithole city was because of you. For you. So I hope you’re happy.” I laid back on the bed, making sure the sheet was up to my neck so my shoulders didn’t show. “It’s getting late. Don’t want to keep your drooling admirers waiting too long at Babylon. The backroom must be teeming with inexperienced twinks waiting for you to make their life’s decisions all for their incapable little selves.”
Brian - 2. Justin - 4.
Maybe that’s why I feel nothing when I look at Brian.
Maybe I really do blame him for New York.
Failure, disappointment, nearly being killed.
Maybe it’s his fault.
Ouch. There’s that pain again. Maybe I should lay off the coke for a few nights. Make Rae happy, get her off my back. Goddamn ex-junkies. At least she went to Brian and not Blake. Brian’s easier to deal with. Throw emotion in his face and he backs right the fuck off. Example? Three, two… front door slam. Ta-da.
“I’m trying to help you.” I look up and she’s braced herself against the doorjamb.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“Yes, you did.”
God Rae, please.
It’s okay, it’s okay, Jus.
Fuck, it hurts so much.
I know, I know. The ambulance is coming.
Please help me, please, fuck, oh God, Rae, please!
Calm down, just calm down. They’re coming, I swear to you. Just please, God, hold on.
Help!
She leaves for work and I’m glad, ‘cause I hate her again.
But above all, over Chris Hobbs, my father, the Prop 14 assholes who planted the bomb, the shooter… over all of them, I hate myself the most.
SIX.
The first person to find out isn’t Brian.
It isn’t my mother.
It isn’t Debbie.
It’s fucking Mel.
When I’d been arrested by my father, I retained Mel as legal counsel for advice and shit. And the ADA from New York contacted her in order to get in contact with me ‘cause I’d broken my cell phone when I threw it at the wall in a fit of rage two weeks ago. Apparently there was a suspect in custody regarding my case.
I guess I had to be grateful that she didn’t go to the rest of the family or ask Lindsay about it. I still wish no one fucking knew.
She was very lawyer about it. Didn’t press me as a friend would, didn’t ask if I’m okay, didn’t look at my shirt imploringly, didn’t ask about scarring.
The only thing that really bugged her was the answer to her question about who in Pittsburgh knew about the shooting. My answer was Rae and now her, only. She thinks Mom should know. Debbie should know. Brian should know. She agrees that he’s a gigantic asshole, but he loves me.
Loves. Not loved. She’s obviously been in Mountie land far too long if she thinks that’s still the case. Brian doesn’t love anyone. He’s not in love with anyone but himself. He just wants to fix people ‘cause no one ever fixed him.
She tells me I have to go to New York for a line-up. As soon as possible. She’ll be going with me as counsel, Rae will automatically come as support. Both can fuck off ‘cause I’m not going. I don’t need to see the judicial system fail me up close and personal this time.
Badger, badger, badger. Have to do it, he’ll do it again, could kill someone, do you want that blood on your hands?
FUCK YOU!
Who the hell do they think they are? I can’t take it! So I run.
I’m running.
I ran.
All the way to Tremont street. Why the hell do I keep coming back here? Why? He’s everything I want to run away from. He’s everything that’s wrong… but isn’t that right, now? What’s wrong is right. I stand in the middle of the street, the random passing car honking and swerving around me as I stare at the building. What the fuck? What am I doing?
Before I can turn to walk away, the door buzzes and I look up seconds later to see a silhouette in his window. Fuck me.
Hmm, that sounds like a good idea.
So I take the steps two at a time, the door’s already open and I attack him. “Fuck me.”
And he does. Against the kitchen counter, the dining room table, the chaise, the couch, against the shower stall. Never the bed. Never with my shirt off. I know in the recesses of my mind that I came here tonight, ‘cause I wouldn’t be leaving him in the dark anymore. I needed him to know. ‘Cause I need him in New York with me. If I go. When I go. I need to pretend he’s my lover and he can protect me. That he’ll find me in the darkness again. Like he found me when my head was bleeding on cement, when sparks rained overhead. I need him.
I need him. I need. Need is an emotion, right? Maybe I’m not such a lost cause.
“What happened?” He asks, his temple pressed against mine. “Please, Justin. I need to know.”
Stomach lurch. Maybe nothing was a bit premature, in regards to what I feel for Brian.
“Let go.” I tell him, his head pulling back but his hands never leaving my face. “I need you to take my shirt off.”
He gulps and pales. He’s afraid. He’s afraid of how bad it is, if there’s physical remains of the trauma.
So am I.
His eyes bore into mine until the shirt’s on the floor, and then he examines me. I know the second he sees them. Pupils dilate, breath hitches and stops altogether, fists tighten.
“What the fuck are those?”
I wonder what he think they could be. They look like bullet wounds, don’t they? I look down at them and suppose they could look like someone put out a cigar on me, but that’d be worse. Wow… something could be worse that this.
“Rae and I were walking home from Sphinx and she dropped an earring. She went back for it so I lit up a cigarette and waited on the sidewalk. This guy came out of nowhere with a gun…”
“FUCK!”
“And shot me.” I continue like he never interrupted. I can’t even hear him. Can’t hear anything but blood pumping in my ears as I relive it. Piecing together more puzzle pieces. Things that had been fragmented by fear and trauma. I can see his face a little clearer. Tattoo of a teardrop below his eye, dark skin.
Great, Lil Wayne shot me.
“Your breeder-dyke friend told me a few weeks ago that something happened to you ten months ago, eleven now. You’ve been home three fucking months and didn’t tell anyone that someone…” He can’t finish. Spears his fingers through his hair, turns away, swallows loudly. Can’t say the words.
“He left me there.” I started again, blankly staring at a patch of wall across from where I stood near the bedroom stairs. “I remember hearing laughter… Rae’s as she came back. All I could do was stare at the sky and mutter that it hurt. She tried to stop the bleeding but two went straight through and I was just bleeding too fast, too much. I woke up in the hospital three days later.”
“Three days… fucking Christ! Why the fuck didn’t Jennifer tell anyone?”
“She doesn’t know. The only people that know are Rae, Mel and now you.”
“Melanie fucking knew before me? Before your mother?”
“The ADA assigned to the case contacted her. They have a suspect and ‘cause she was once listed as my counsel before Craig dropped the charges against me, they contacted her. They want me to come in for a line-up.”
“And you’re telling me because you don’t think Mel can keep attorney-client privilege when it’s someone in the family?”
He’s digging, I know it. I’ll let him find the treasure. “I’m telling you because I need you. I need you with me, Brian. If I do this, I need you by my side.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
He turns away.
I knew he’s gonna reject me. We aren’t lovers anymore. We’re not engaged anymore. We’re not even friends. We’re just fucking occasionally, when I need an itch scratched and when he wants to feel a tight hole versus Babylon’s loose regulars.
He grabs his cell phone and I can see he presses number 3. Speed dial.
Yes, I know what fucking time it is, I’m not an imbecile.
Shut up and clear my schedule for tomorrow and Friday.
I need to go to New York.
Yes, I know about the staff meeting and meeting with Remson. I made them, it’s my company.
It’s a family emergency.
Fuck off, Cynthia.
“You don’t have to do that.” I tell him when he hangs up. I’d forgotten all about Kinnetik, to be perfectly honest. Forgot that he wasn’t just sitting around like some rich aristocrat, never having to work a day in his life like us mere peasants.
“Yes, I do.”
His look is full of meaning and I feel my heart constrict, pumping life back into it as the thumping dislodged the spider webs.
SEVEN.
Number four.
And that was it.
Two words and it’s supposedly over.
So why don’t I feel better? Why am I still numb? Why isn’t it over?
He’s barely eighteen. Really? A fucking eighteen year old gunned down someone that has nearly a decade in life on them? And for what? For what?
Mel squeezes my shoulder and steers me back out into the station where everyone are waiting. Yes, everyone. My everyone. Brian, Rae and several other New York friends that Rae accidentally told we were coming back. Fiona, Sean and Maxxie are here. Fi’s the friend of a friend that I met Rae through, after having met Fiona -- a photographer -- at a gallery I first worked at when I got to New York. Then Rae introduced me to Sean, and Maxxie found us.
I didn’t want to see them. I just wanted to be alone with Brian. Needed that.
Brian had been great. Arranged for all four of us at a great hotel. Mel in her own room, Rae and me in a suite and Brian in his own. He knew me too well, after traumas. Knew without question that I couldn’t sleep alone. Didn’t make the assumption or push for it to be him that I’d be sharing a room with. I don’t think I’m ready for that, so quickly after him seeing my scars.
I’ve already been told that I’ll need to tell my family when I get home. I figure I’ll gather Mom and Debbie separately so they can go off on their identical mother-tirades together and save me the repetitive shouting. Then I’ll let whatever happens, happen. If Mel goes home and talks to Lindsay about it and she mentions it to Michael, so be it. It’ll be around Liberty Avenue within hours. Or if Debbie keeps it quiet and doesn’t tell Michael, that’s great too. No one will have to know outright.
I forgo dinner and clubbing with everyone, in order to go back to the hotel room. Seeing him brought back instant flashes. Muzzle fire, tongue licking lips, smirk hanging above my head. Mother fucker smiled down at me after he shot me. I’d forgotten that snippet, as the pain had flooded in.
I went out on the balcony for a smoke, and looked out at the city. Brian had booked us in an upscale, ritzy place and the skyline was beautiful. I could almost remember why I’d wanted to come here so bad. But the city was poison. Had been poisoned. By failure and gunshots and pity. It left me with absolutely no regrets on moving back to the Pitts, even though two people now knew I was once again the faggot victim -- even though it was a gang initiation shooting and not a hate crime, lucky me -- and soon enough, most others probably would too.
Victim. Fucking hate that word. Rae calls me survivor. I think it’s her mindset. She survived addiction, survived whatever hell those guys put her through with the promise of stardom. She won’t talk about it, and I don’t bring it up, but I suspect it’s something nasty. So she uses survivor instead of victim. But what did I survive? I still hate going out alone at night, or period sometimes. I cringe in crowds again. I don’t make eye contact with people ‘cause I worry that it’ll offend them somehow and pull out a… knife next time, I suppose. Already been struck down by a bat, bomb and gun. Knife is probably next. Maybe a car. How many times can Justin Taylor get back up? A weekly episodic reality show. Big Brother meets Survivor. More like the Saw movies, than anything else.
I feel like this is some cosmic game. Fucking seriously. A bat. A bomb. A gun. Why? What’s the point? Am I just supposed to keep moving on? Keep getting “stronger”? Why? Why can’t I just give up? What the fuck do I have that I need to be strong for?
There’s a knock at the door and I know who it is without even moving an inch. I laugh up at the sky. Really? Is that supposed to be some sort of a sign? I have to be strong for when Brian needs a blowjob and the tricks in New York aren’t satisfactory? Great. My life’s goal.
I open the door and I’m startled to see him look like shit. His eyes are bloodshot and his pallor is awful. His shirt is rumpled and untucked in a familiar way of decade’s past, and reeks as badly. This time of alcohol. He shakes when he envelopes me in his arms, burying his face in my neck and inhaling. One arm around my shoulder, the other around the middle of my back; fingers gripping shoulder, side, as he holds me tightly. Tighter than he’s ever held me, even after he found me in Babylon’s rubble.
It takes me a minute before my arms go around him, and I sink into his embrace.
He’s warm. When was the last time I felt warm?
“I just needed…” I think he’s trying not to cry. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” It’s a mantra as his hands start pressing against my body, his head pulling back to take in every minute detail of my face, his fingers following his eyes. He’s trying to reassure himself that I’m okay, and that shakes me to my very core.
Where’s the arrogant asshole façade that he kept up all the time, especially around me? Where’s the guy who fucked trick after trick in order to prove he’s still hot shit and that love can’t weigh him down? Where’s Mount Kinney? Isn’t this the part where I’m pushed off the highest point and into the jagged rocks below, when he’s shown a fraction of emotion?
“Can’t happen again.”
I don’t think he’s even aware that he’s talking. His words are fragmented, like wild thoughts zooming through his head.
“I’m fine.” I’m lying.
He knows it.
Hands slide against my cheeks, lips pressing to my closed eyelids, temple, cheek, jaw, nose, mouth. God, his mouth. It’s the first time we’ve kissed in nearly five years. How the hell did I survive without this?
Oh, right. I didn’t.
My hands fist in the material of his sleeves as we kiss and kiss and kiss in the open doorway of my hotel room. It’s oxygen. My lungs expanding and contracting. It’s blood, flying through veins and pumping life into me. It’s my soul, revitalizing life.
It’s a start.
A start to healing.
“It’s okay, Sunshine. It’s okay.” He mumbles against my lips, and I know from his tone that he’s trying to reassure me this time. It’s then that I realize I’m crying. When did that start? I haven’t cried. Not since I laid on cold cement, for the second time in my life with my blood pouring out of me and someone who loves me crying above me as sight and sound faded.
He holds me as I cry, breaking down in his arms like I’ve never broken down before. He closes the door and brings me to bed, and just holds me. Doesn’t try to fuck it away, doesn’t trying to tell me it’ll get better. When he says it’s okay, he means I’m not alone anymore. That I’m not gonna have to deal with this on my own.
That means more to me than anything.
It’s him saying I love you.
And when I curl into him and press my lips to his, it’s me saying that I could love him too, like I used to, when we put back together the fractured shards that represent the remnants of my life.
EPILOGUE.
Rae once said to me that she thinks we’re born to die. Every second of every day that we breathe, we’re just getting that much closer to dying. We’re born so the world can be inflicted upon us, and we can face tragedy and pain and hatred, so that we can die with a story. I think she’s right.
My story isn’t simple. It isn’t short. My life changed 10 years ago under a street light. The infatuation that followed turned to love. I was disowned for being who I am. I was bashed in the head for loving who I love. I was swayed by false hope and rescued by true love. I created masterpieces, and a comic. I saw dreams burst into flames in Los Angeles, and go out with a bang in New York.
But it brought me back here. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Where my family, my home, my love are. I have my two mothers, biological and surrogate who love me more than anything, and were supportive above all. I have my best friend, who stayed with me in Pittsburgh through my hardest times even when Broadway called.
I have Brian. Who held my hand after I testified and bruised my ribs in a hug when my shooter got ten years in prison.
I have Brian, who hired me as Kinnetik’s art director when PIFA became tedious, and Rae told me to get a job so she could quit being around screaming kids.
I have Brian, who walks with me through a parking garage with his arm around my shoulders every night, and walks me to my apartment door because the dark still scares me.
I have Brian, who told me he loved me after my first big art show at Sidney Bloom’s gallery and sold four of the six paintings I’d done.
I have Brian, who is like the glue slowly drying the broken pieces back together.
I have Brian.
And that’s the thing I need the most.