Colorblind - chapter one: Red Herring
Title: Colorblind, ch1
Notes: This isn't an anti-Brian fic. It's also not related to that song by counting crows, kthx. It was written for the 'Colors' theme at the clusterf#ck challenge (qaf_challenges) and insinuated itself into my brain like Guilleme in the Munchers Mansion. Thanks a million to sakesushimaki and merkuria for betaing and hand-holding and patience! And especially to sakesushimaki for putting up with my mega emo moods. All remaining mistakes are mine.
Promo arts: wallpapers HERE
Summary: Three years after he lost everything, Justin's past comes back to taunt him.
Colorblind
“Those who think it permissible to tell white lies soon grow colorblind.”
~Austin O'Malley
Prologue
Pittsburgh, May 2005
“Calm down? How can you even ask me to calm down!?” he sputters, slamming the tumbler on the bar counter. People sitting around them look at him warily, or maybe just curiously. Justin tones his voice down, hiding his face in his hands, crumbling. “I’m going to jail, Brian. Fuck. They’re gonna arrest me tomorrow.”
“Justin…” Brian starts and doesn’t finish, because what can he possibly say? He pulls Justin closer and kisses his temple. “Hey… We can always run away, huh?” he says quietly, his voice comforting, but helpless.
Brian is sober now. Justin is not. He owes his employer half a million dollars of stolen income. What’s a bottle of Beam compared to that? Or three bottles.
“Brian,” he says into the taller man’s shoulder, stopping his whining for a moment. “Brian, that’s a fucking brilliant idea. Come on, let’s pack our shit and be on our way. Come on.” He slides off the stool, fumbles a crumpled hundred bucks out of his pocket and throws it on the counter, then drags the unresisting Brian out of Woody’s.
Brian laughs, uncertainly, but follows him.
“You’re wasted.”
“Sue me. Take your number first. Ha, ha.” The laugh is hollow as he pats his pockets, looking for the cellphone. “Speaking of numbers, what’s the cabbie’s number? Fuck, I always forget to save it. Where’s that fucking card!?”
“Come on, let’s walk, drunkface.” Brian hooks his arm around Justin, directs them up the sidewalk to Justin’s place.
“I don’t wanna walk,” Justin sulks, but he goes nevertheless. “God. Brian, wait.” He stops.
“What?”
“You can’t run away with me. You can’t, you-- You’ve still got a career, a life! You can’t help a felon escape the law.”
“Christ, Justin. That was just a joke. Calm down. You’re not running away either.”
“I’m not?” Justin looks devastated. Brian looks at him and bites his lips trying not to laugh. Justin frowns. “Stop telling me to calm down!”
And then Brian kisses him. He envelops Justin in his arms, holding him tight, his tongue prodding and pushing into Justin’s willing mouth. Justin sighs, squeezing his eyes shut and clutching at the shirt underneath Brian’s open jacket. He never wants to let go, but he knows that no later than tomorrow there will be no Brian for him anymore. Just a cold prison cell, dull uniform and days that never end.
Brian pulls away. He keeps his arm around Justin as they walk on. Justin’s apartment is eight blocks away, but the night is warm and the streets are quiet, most people squeezing the last hours of fun out of the weekend that’s about to end.
Brian stops them at an intersection, right under a dilapidated converted warehouse. He asks for a cigarette and Justin looks up as he pulls a pack out of his jacket. The lights on the fourth floor are out, the white curtains were taken down and he wonders if anyone has bought that loft yet. He was planning to take a loan next month and move in there; he had a little money saved. That place was amazing. He wouldn’t even have to decorate, just bring a bed and kitchen appliances and he could easily live between those bare bricks, on the hardwood floor, in that beautiful, huge, open space.
When Justin looks at Brian, he’s staring back at him, studying his face with intent. Justin smiles slowly, pulling at the lapels of Brian’s jacket and guiding them left, into an alley lit by a single lamp activated by motion. He pushes Brian’s back to the wall of the building where he could live if his career hadn’t taken such a drastic turn, and drops to his knees.
He’s got Brian’s pants half unbuttoned and Brian’s fingers grasping at his hair when he hears footsteps.
He only manages to look up before the two gunshots pierce the air and the bullets slam Brian into the wall.
Justin whips his head around. The gunman has taken off in a run down the street and he’s already too far, even if Justin’s legs weren’t pinned to the ground, even if he could move. He looks at Brian whose eyes are staring ahead, uncomprehending, as if he can’t believe this is happening, either.
“Brian?”
Brian’s hand moves to the wound in his chest, to the black shirt that’s now glistening in the artificial light.
“Brian!? Brian…” Justin gets up. Brian’s feet are sliding on the concrete, Justin eases him down. “Oh my God, Brian!” Justin is shocked when he idly notes he’s not even crying, that he doesn’t feel anything; and then he realizes that he’s bawling his eyes out and muttering words his consciousness doesn’t even register. “Brian, don’t do this to me, not now… Stop! You can’t-- oh God! Help!” he shouts. Nobody comes.
He gets blood all over Brian’s right cheek and he doesn’t know what to do, what do you-- Fuck, call 911.
“Brian, open your eyes. Brian!” He waits for the call to connect, astounded that he managed to dial the three digits, he can’t actually recall dialing, just kissing Brian’s face, pressing against him desperately. “Brian, you’re supposed to send me porn to jail, stay with me, fucker!”
“Pittsburgh 911, what is your emergency?”
He gives information to the dispatcher almost calmly, coherent. He knows what just happened, but that’s not possible, that can’t be real. This blood on his hand, that’s wrong, it can’t belong to the only man Justin has-- Justin is going to serve his sentence and they will start… he will start life anew, doesn’t matter who he’ll become, but he’ll keep wrangling Brian into sleeping with him again and again even though Brian will insist he doesn’t do repeats. Brian is going to keep his toothbrush and a bottle of his shampoo in Justin’s bathroom, and a change of clothes, even though every time he swears it’s the last time he stays the night. And one day he will stop denying and just accept that they are…
“Brian,” Justin wails. “Open your eyes.” He gathers Brian in his arms, the body heavy and pliant. Justin kisses his forehead, muttering, “Look at me. The ambulance is coming. Look at me.”
“Justin…” Brian wheezes. “Justin.” He pulls Justin’s head down for a kiss and they hear the siren as their lips touch. “Justin… I don’t--”
Justin kisses him again, gently and urgently. The ambulance is close, he can hear the engine.
“Justin, I d-don’t want you to--”
“Shhh… we’re going to the hospital together. You’ll be alright.” He speaks against Brian’s temple, fingers clamped around his arm and waist.
“Over here!” Two paramedics round the corner.
“Yeah…” Brian rasps and his hand drops from Justin’s face.
The paramedics pull him away. Justin wants to keep his hands on him, not sure if it's for Brian's comfort or his own; but they won’t let him, telling him to step away and let them do their job. They stop the bleeding, move him to a gurney. Somewhere in the middle of all that, Brian’s eyes fall shut and Justin feels his throat, his lungs, constrict painfully.
“Brian!” He moves to his side, but the EMT pushes him away gently.
“Calm down, sir. He’s alive, just lost some blood.”
The paramedics exchange curt commands and wheel away. Justin follows, moving his legs by the sheer power of will. They stop him by the ambulance doors.
“I’m sorry, you can’t go with us.”
“What? Why!?”
“Sorry, that’s the procedure.”
“But I-- please, I have to go with him.”
“You have to take a cab, we can’t break the rules, it’s for his safety.”
“Alright. Alright. Where are you taking him?”
“Allegheny General.”
“Okay… Brian!” He tries to touch him, but they stop him.
“He’s unconscious.”
Justin stares until the doors thump shut and the ambulance drives away, until the sound of siren is just a distant noise.
The cab number is programmed into the top position of his cell’s contact book and Justin would smash the phone on the pavement if he didn’t need it to get to Brian.
When he exits the taxi and squints at the nurse at the brightly illuminated reception desk, she says there weren’t any shooting calls or victims in the last two hours. He asks her to check again, maybe they were sent to, or from other hospitals. It takes her thirty five minutes to call the dispatch center and the nearest hospitals and she only does it because Justin looks like he’s about to fall apart in the middle of the foyer.
There were no shooting emergencies tonight.
Chapter 1
Red Herring
New York City, October 2008
“He’s here.” She’s smiling excitedly as she takes his hand, pulling him to the central section of the gallery, where a tall man is standing, studying Justin’s abstract triptych - the first of his pieces that was ever featured in an art magazine, the one that paved his road to recognition.
Red Herring. He hates that painting. It reminds him of the worst states his mind has ever been. Being homeless, the humiliation he felt as he stood on Laura’s doorstep asking if he could sleep on her couch until he finds a job. Losing absolutely everything that he spent nine years working for. Having sacrificed his dreams for the future that was eventually stolen from him. Being a nameless, disgraced nobody, one of the thousands who thought they could make some living as artists in this city that never sleeps. And anger, so much anger it could fill this huge canvas, and after he was finished, it still dripped off his brush, waiting to taint more space.
Laura guides him to the dark-haired man in a simple, well-tailored jacket, and says, “Brian, this is Justin Taylor, my best friend.” She looks at the man with such affection, like he's a brother she hasn’t seen in a decade, and squeezes Justin’s hand with both of her hands.
The man turns around and Justin feels as if he was thrown into a deep, cold sea. The sounds disappear, there’s only a tinny ringing in his ears. He can’t breathe.
The man holds out his hand and Justin hears his voice like it comes from behind a wall.
“Brian Kinney.” The bland smile jars his vision and makes everything red around the edges.
The bones of that beautiful face leave a sharp pain in Justin’s knuckles when he breaks out of his stupor. He keeps watching with sick satisfaction as the man recoils from the blow and his stance, and his smile waver. It all feels like watching a movie.
“Justin!” Laura shouts, looking at him, looking at Brian, moving to his side. She looks at Justin like the world just cracked open and something terrible and foreign is oozing out of him.
Brian straightens up. His eyes twinkle with hidden amusement and he says,
“Pleasure to meet you.”
Justin whips around and walks out of the opening of his first solo show.
*
When Laura knocks at his door the next morning, Justin puts on a calm face. He lets her in and makes coffee.
“Brian won't tell me anything,” she says, sitting down in the kitchen and waiting for him to do the same.
He sets a plate of toasts on the table and they eat in silence. Finally, “He’s someone who… hurt me some time ago,” he says, dabbing his finger in the coffee circles on his saucer. “It was really long ago, practically another lifetime.” He laughs breathlessly. It was another lifetime for him.
“Did he scam you?” She looks at the empty plate for a moment before she meets his startled eyes. “Justin, I know what Brian does for a living.”
“How can you know and…”
She gives a short nervous laugh.
“It’s a long story. He and I have known each other for years. And how could you know and be with him? At least my relationship is just an arrangement.”
Justin stands up, his chair creaking loudly on the tiles. He starts pacing. Two steps and turn around, and again; his kitchen is small.
“You did know about his profession, right?”
“Yes,” Justin answers, weighing every bit of information, his mind playing out many variants of this conversation depending on what he says, working in overtime.
“Was that why you broke up?”
“No. It didn’t make things easier, but no, that wasn’t why.”
“So he isn’t the one who stole that half million three years ago?” she asks when his back is to her, so he answers then, settling down on the kitchen cupboard:
“No, it was someone else.” It was, actually. The money was stolen by someone Justin never saw, even though it wouldn't have happened without Brian's involvement. But ‘no’ is the only answer Laura will get.
“Wow. Your luck really sucks, Justin.”
They laugh again. It really is the truth, even if they know two different stories.
“What did he do?” she asks.
He sighs, reading the Chinese cookie fortunes he’s got composed into a collage over the table. He steels himself, focused on keeping his voice neutral and convincing.
“He just, I had these expectations…” He snorts. “You know. And he wasn’t really straightforward about how far he was willing to… meet them.”
“What? He didn’t want to… what?”
Justin shrugs.
“Move in with you? Meet your parents? Be monogamous?” He nods. “That’s why you punched his face, after all those years?” She’s staring intently at his face, trying to read from it.
“That only sounds so simple… Believe me, it was pretty dramatic.”
“I don’t doubt that. You two are the biggest drama queens in modern history.”
“Fuck you! Don’t mock my pain.” He nearly tips over, reaching out to smack her arm.
She laughs, getting up to hug him and kiss his forehead.
“Eww. Girl cooties.” He grimaces, shifting away and she laughs. She rests her chin on his shoulder, can’t see his face that he’s barely keeping under control, because he’s a cheap liar and he’s nervous. So he keeps asking, “How come you’re with him? Why didn’t you get engaged to someone who doesn’t have half of the U.S. on his tail?”
“Brian doesn’t. He’s really good at this job, you know? He’s practically untraceable.”
“That’s nonsense! How many people has he scammed? Someone is bound to have put him on some hit list.”
“Don’t worry about it. My dad has everything figured out.”
“Psh. Your dad.”
“Yes. Daddy has taken quite a shine to Brian.”
“This is fucking insane, Laura. You want to have a baby with him? What if he disappears again? What if he gets himself killed? Your kid will have no father and you will only have your fucking inheritance to wipe away his tears.”
“He won’t disappear. He’s staying with me for as long as needed.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t take his word for that.”
“You’re prejudiced.”
“That’s a hell of a euphemism.”
“Well, I’m not going to marry any of the annoying drones my father keeps pushing at me, so it’s either Brian or nobody.”
“Jesus, Laura. You’d be better off marrying me.”
“Well, are you proposing?”
“Shut up.” He snorts into his second cup of coffee. “Your father would have me killed the moment I thought about snagging any of your grandma's millions. He probably pops a vein every time I see you.”
“Truth is, Brian is the furthest from a husband I’ll ever find, you know? That’s the husband I need. Total freedom, no concealed expectations. He wants to get married as much as I do. Which is, you know... not at all. We're in this for the exact same reason and he won't complicate anything with some emotional stuff because, duh, I'm not his type. Neither is he mine. And I know I can trust him not to pull a dirty move during divorce. And my father adores him.”
“Yeah, because Brian is everyone’s idea of the perfect breeder… What is George gonna do when he finds out Brian’s gay?” She shrugs. Justin balks at how half-baked is this plan. “Did you even think this stuff over or did you just jump on the first chance to have Brian’s babies? Jesus, Laura. Don’t you have any normal friends to do this with?”
“I don’t like my normal friends.” She stands up, making it clear she’s had enough of discussing the topic. She was never one to listen to reason. “I've gotta run. I’ll see you around?”
Justin walks her to the door, not calling her on the evasion only because he's glad he avoided further questions about Brian. And that she didn't get vindictive about Justin punching him, which he was somehow anticipating.
“Just think this stupid plan over, please.” He catches her by her sleeve. “You can easily find someone less risky. You’re getting caught up in the whole romanticism of this thing and it’s just fucking idiotic.”
*
Hours after she leaves, Justin lights a cigarette and sits in the armchair by the open window, wearing a jacket and a scarf against the chilly autumn air. He smokes one cigarette and then sits there till the sky becomes smoky blue.
Thinking about Brian makes his hands shake and chest constrict.
It took him about a month after he washed the blood off his hands to stop looking for Brian. The trace got cold and when the police haven't found anything except for the hijacked ambulance, everything leading up to that moment, all the small coincidences and uncanny timing, made perfect sense.
And yet, three years later nobody's ever heard of Brian Dilworth and his probable involvement in the embezzlement of five hundred thousand dollars from Harper and Hopkins. Not the judge who convicted Justin, not his lawyer, not the police; nobody.
Justin puts the second cigarette that he’s only been toying with back in the box. He takes the phone instead and dials with fingers cold and aching.
He hangs up on the second ring and his heart is pounding.
» chapter two
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Gimme love? Yes, please! I'm nervous here.
P.S. I've got two wallpapers to go with this fic.
Head over here to grab them