Chapter One - Shock To The System.

“Brian, will you please put your damn phone away? You’re supposed to be here to see me, not to conduct business by smartphone from four hundred miles away,” I complained as my partner shuffled down the sidewalk while scrolling through his messages. 

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, Sunshine,” Brian drawled, still not looking up from the damn phone. “I promise, I’m not working. I told you I wouldn’t touch anything to do with Kinnetik this weekend. You have my entire attention until Wednesday night, and can drag me to all your New York art crap, just as soon as I deal with whatever bug Lindsey has up her ass this time.” 

I paused my steps and impatiently waited for him to catch up to me as he typed a message one-handedly into his phone. 

“You’re the one who wanted me to come to New York to do all the art scene ‘crap’, Brian. The least you could do is pretend to think the pursuit I’ve spent the past two years of my life struggling with is more than just ‘crap’. Remind me again why you maintain that I should keep slogging away at this art scene ‘crap’ if even you don’t think it’s going anywhere?” 

Brian sighed and finally looked up at me with that same exasperated look he got when he was about to comment on me still being a brat at the ripe old age of twenty-four. I couldn’t help being a little annoyed at him, though. I know we’d said all that stuff about ‘it’s only time’ back when Brian first sent me off to New York City, but after two years here it was starting to feel like time was up. I missed Brian and the rest of the family and even, fuck me, Pittsburgh itself. It wasn’t easy to keep up a long-distance relationship with a closed-off curmudgeon like Brian Kinney, you know, despite the fact that he’d been resolutely coming up to the City at least once a month to see me. But you get why I didn’t appreciate it when any of the precious time we have together was stolen away by work shit.

“I don’t think it’s ‘crap’. That was just a turn of phrase,” he responded tersely as he went back to his perusal of whatever was so compelling on his phone. “And we’ve been over this multiple times, Justin. We agreed that you need to give New York a fair shot. If you give up too soon, you’ll resent it - and me - later. Besides, you just got that new job at the Biont Gallery, right? Didn’t the owner say he’d be open to displaying a couple of your pieces after the next show? That’s promising, right?”

It was true that my art had been coming along, but only because Brian insisted on renting me studio space and subsidizing my rent so I only had to work two jobs to survive. So, I guess things have been going okay, but I still hadn’t had that ‘big break’ Lindsey and everyone else promised I’d have as soon as I hit the art scene, and I was getting tired of waiting. I had to remind myself on a daily basis why I was still slogging away here, all alone, instead of moving home so that I could spend more than the random weekend every month or so with the man I love. It didn’t feel like the possibility of being ‘discovered’ was worth all the hassle. 

Basically, I was ready to call it quits and was only waiting until I could convince Brian of that fact.

But that was a discussion we’d already had too many times to count and apparently it didn’t merit Brian’s continued attention right then. Instead, he scowled at his phone and tapped at the device’s screen with sharp, staccato motions, his finger moving so fast I could barely follow its movements. He paused for a second - presumably waiting for Lindsey’s response - but was tapping away frantically a moment later, the scowl turning into a determined frown.

“What is it that Lindsey wants?” I asked when I could no longer contain my curiosity.

“Lindz wants me to pay for Gus to go to sleep-away camp this summer,” he answered, stopping again, right in the middle of the busy sidewalk. “He’s not even seven. Isn’t that too young for that kind of shit? He’d be there for a full month . . .” The disgust on his face revealed his opinion on the matter.

“I was going to summer camps at that age,” I replied matter-of-factly. “Camp Lackawanna. Six weeks every summer from first grade on until I finally put my foot down and refused to go the summer after my freshman year.” Brian turned his scowl on me as if this admission was a betrayal of him personally. So I added, “it’s a WASP thing. It’s something to brag about to the other parents. There’s a whole hierarchy of which camps are the most prestigious.”

“Fuck that. I don’t want the girls turning my son into some social-climbing breeder. And I’m not paying to send my son away to some mosquito-ridden forest just so Lindsey can have six weeks off and bragging rights,” Brian grumbled, tapping viciously at his phone again. “I don’t trust those places. What if Gus needs us? Isn’t there some program he can go to, closer to home, that’s just during the day?”

“There is, but I think the camp Lindz is pushing for is some special soccer camp that Gus is dying to go to. His best friend went there last year and it’s pretty much all he can talk about. He was telling me everything about it the last time I FaceTimed him,” I explained, looping my arm through Brian’s in order to get him ambulatory again. I wanted to hurry and get to The Met so we’d have time to see the new Nineteenth Century Impressionists exhibit Brian had promised to go to with me. “Besides, the camp isn’t off in some forest; if it’s the one Gus was telling me about, it’s located just outside Pittsburgh.”

I could tell by the way his frown softened that he was at least slightly reassured hearing that. Plus, if Gus really wanted something, Brian was usually a pretty easy sell. He was no longer grumbling as he typed out a new message on his phone with the arm I wasn’t holding onto. 

“I still don’t think he’s old enough to spend that long away from his parents . . .” he mumbled as he texted back and forth with Lindsey. “. . . Child safety protocols, my ass . . .”

I laughed in the face of his stubbornness. “You know you’re going to give in eventually, Brian. Why fight it?” He looked up at me long enough to shoot a death glare my way, which only made me laugh harder. “Come on, Brian. Gus is dying to go to this camp. All he ever talks about is how he’s gonna grow up to be just as good a soccer player as his dad. And a summer of learning some soccer skills isn’t gonna hurt in that regard. I’d think Brian Kinney, of all people, would approve of that kind of camp. Don’t you want your son to grow up just like you?”

Brian looked at me strangely, almost as if he didn’t understand what I was talking about, and muttered something about how, “he’s too young . . .” 

I wasn’t sure why Brian was being so uncharacteristically oppositional about this silly camp, especially when Gus was set on it. I felt like I had to take the boy’s side, so I kept arguing as we walked. “I figured you’d be thrilled to see Gus so excited about soccer. It’s your game, right? Michael told me once that you went to college on a soccer scholarship.”

Brian’s response was clipped and he looked angry for some reason that I couldn’t comprehend. “Yeah, I did, but only because there wasn’t any other way for a poor Mick from the wrong side of the tracks to get to college. Thankfully, Gus won’t have to whore himself out to a university athletic department just to go to college. I don’t want my son to have to go through all that shit.”

I don’t know why, but I got a weird feeling right then. There was something more to Brian’s reluctance about this camp than met the eye. Maybe it was the edginess I heard in his voice, or perhaps it was the nervous vibrations I felt wherever our skin touched, but I just knew I was missing something. It didn’t make any sense that he’d be this worried about something I looked on as a normal part of growing up. What was so worrisome about a kids’ summer soccer camp?

I never got the chance to ask him about it, though. 

As we continued walking down the sidewalk, enjoying the pleasant spring afternoon, Brian’s phone made that telltale swooping chime that indicated a new text message had come in. 

“Fuck, Lindsey, give it up . . .” Brian started to say but then he just stopped in his tracks. 

I’d taken a few more steps without him, not really paying that close attention, but I paused when I realized my partner was no longer by my side. When I looked over my shoulder, there was Brian, frozen in place, staring at his phone with a look of horror on his face. Confused, I retraced my steps and craned my neck around to try and see exactly what had freaked out my normally composed boyfriend. 

Before I could figure it out, Brian whispered something I could barely hear. It sounded like, “no . . . Not again. Not Buddy.” Then his phone slithered out of his hand, crashing to the sidewalk, the tinkle of breaking glass and plastic audible even over the nearby traffic. 

“Shit, Brian. What the hell?” I questioned, getting no answer at all. 

I bent down to pick up the shattered device, sort of nervously chuckling at Brian’s uncharacteristic klutziness. But when I looked up again, holding the damaged phone out, Brian had started to walk off already. He totally ignored me and the broken remnants of his phone. I called out his name but he didn’t even look back. He was already half a block away before I started trotting after him. He seemed lost in his own head. Dazed. So dazed, in fact, that he wasn’t paying attention to the traffic signals.

While I ran after him, confused as hell, calling out my partner’s name, Brian stepped off the curb and walked right into the street, against the light, into the swirling morass of midafternoon traffic. 

There was nothing I could do. 

I watched, horrified, as a motorcyclist, driving too fast while dodging through the slower car traffic, barreled into Brian. Brian was knocked to the ground and the motorcyclist was thrown into the side panel of a nearby taxi. The bike itself skidded to a halt underneath a moving van several feet further along the pavement. 

Meanwhile, Brian just lay there, looking up at me with lost little boy brown eyes. 

“Mr. Taylor?” A tall, statuesque woman adorned in the standard issue white lab coat called out my name as she approached. “I’m Dr. Prakash. I’m the resident in charge of your partner’s case.”

“Please, call me Justin,” I offered, standing up and extending my hand in greeting. “How is Brian?”

“He’s pretty beat up,” she replied, accepting my hand and offering up a calming smile. Her dark eyes, long black hair pulled back into a knot, and glowing brown skin, not to mention the slight accent, gave away her Southeast Asian descent, but her professionalism was all American. “But, other than a broken wrist - which Orthopedics is setting right now - some extensive bruising and a few cuts that I’ve already stitched up, I’d say he’s pretty lucky. He should be okay . . . Physically, at least.” 

“What does that mean?” I asked, not liking the tenor of her carefully worded statement. 

“We’ve treated all the physical damage caused by your partner’s accident but Brian is still behaving oddly,” Dr. Prakash elucidated with a worried frown. “He won’t answer any questions except to repeatedly say he ‘wants to go home’. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s in the hospital and isn’t responding to his name. It’s more than a little worrisome.” 

“Shit.” 

I dropped back into my seat. It felt like the bottom had dropped out of my world. Brian wasn’t supposed to be the one to get hurt or sick. He was the strong one. Hell, he’d barely been slowed down by fucking cancer; he wasn’t supposed to lose it over a minor accident. 

The doctor had continued to speak even as I silently melted down, trying to alleviate my concerns to whatever extent she could “. . . the CT scan didn’t show any evidence of head trauma, so we’re not sure what’s causing this. Has Brian ever exhibited this kind of dissociation before?”

‘Dissociation’ sounded bad. “No. Not that I know of.”

“Well, we can run a few more tests and hopefully we’ll figure out what’s going on with his mental state. In the meantime, I’m not going to release him until we’ve resolved what’s going on. I’ve already ordered a psych eval, in case the problem isn’t solely physical.” She gestured with one hand towards the hallway leading off to her right. “In the meantime, I can show you back to where your partner is waiting.”

Now I was the one that was walking around in a daze as I followed the doctor down a labyrinth of corridors until she stopped at a cubicle concealed behind a drawn curtain. Through the gap between where that met the wall, I could see a figure curled up on the hospital exam table inside. He was lying on his side, facing away from me, looking somehow smaller than he should amid the clinical gadgetry and ER equipment. Dr. Prakash gave my shoulder a squeeze, with a bit of a push as if to urge me forward, before leaving to do whatever a busy doctor in a busy hospital needed to do next. Left with no other option, I nudged past the curtain and joined my boyfriend in the small cubicle.

“Brian? It’s me,” I announced myself, getting no response from the lump on the exam table. “How are you feeling?”

Going around to the far side of the bed so I could see his face, I approached slowly; it felt like I was approaching a wounded animal and needed to move carefully to avoid spooking him. His hazel eyes were clouded when they flickered up to meet mine, briefly, before he looked down again. He was cradling his injured wrist to his chest, the left hand hooked around the bulky cast, which was wrapped in tasteful royal blue medical tape which contrasted nicely with the white cotton batting underneath. Leave it to Brian to make sure even his cast was fashionable, right? Of course, it had to be his right hand that got injured, though, meaning he’d be unable to write or type or do anything he needed his dominant hand for. That was going to be a bitch.

“Hey?” I tried again, still getting no response, so I moved closer and laid what I thought would be a reassuring hand on the knee that was drawn up closest to me.

Brian flinched away from my touch and gasped with a sharp intake of panicky breath. I could see fear in the darting glance that was scanning me and the room around us. He was clearly disoriented. He didn’t seem to recognize where he was. Worse still, he didn’t seem to recognize ME at first. There were major alarm bells going off in my head. 

“It’s okay, Brian. It’s me. Justin. You’re going to be fine. You just got a little banged up, is all. But you’re going to be just fine,” I explained, moving my hand up to rub soothingly along the shoulder of his injured arm until he finally calmed down a bit. 

“Justin?” he asked, looking right in my eyes with evident confusion. 

“Yeah, it’s me, Big Guy,” I replied, my hand drifting up so I could softly stroke along the scratchily stubbled cheek. “I’m here.”

I was reassured by the way he sighed and leaned into my touch, closing his eyes as if he was too exhausted to keep the lids open. 

“I want to go home now,” he mumbled in this little-boy voice that didn’t sound at all like the Brian Kinney I knew. 

“Soon, Brian. Soon,” I responded, stroking his hair, more to relieve my own fears by that point than Brian’s.

He nestled into my hand and repeated, “I want to go home,” as a tear began to trickle down from the corner of his eye, wetting the pillow under his left cheek. 

“Shhh. You’re okay, Brian. You’re okay,” I crooned, not sure what else to do or say as my heart sort of broke. “We have to stay a little while longer. Just until the doctors figure out what’s wrong with you.”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. 

Brian completely broke down at that point and began sobbing like a child. I was more freaked out by that than I had been watching the accident itself. I’d never actually seen Brian cry before. I mean, he’d comforted me through many a crying jag after the prom incident, but he’d always held back his own tears. He insisted on putting on that brave, manly front. He always had to be the strong one, even when he was aching inside. Even at the worst of times, when he was practically a fall-down mess, Brian staunchly refused to admit to his pain. Which meant whatever he was going through now was deadly serious. So, yeah, it’s no wonder I was totally freaking out, right?

“Brian. Shhhh.” I bent down, wrapping the sobbing man in my arms, and moving him over so I could perch on the edge of the padded exam table. I could feel his body shaking uncontrollably as he literally convulsed with sobs. “It’s going to be okay, Brian. The doctors are going to take care of you . . .”

That only engendered a more violent burst of inconsolable wailing as he clung to me with a desperation that terrified me in turn. “No. Please. I don’t like ‘playing doctor’,” he whimpered in that same tiny voice, sounding more like a child than a thirty-five year old man, making goosebumps rise all over my body. 

But all I could do was hold on and wait and hope that whatever was haunting Brian wouldn’t break him completely.