BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

CHAPTER 41-UNEARTHED

BRIAN'S POV
reach out and touch someone

At a little after three in the morning, you awoke to find yourself alone in bed. Your eyes scanned the room, remembering first where you were and then why you were there, and then they landed on Justin's nude form in a chair by the window, his feet propped on a chair in front of him, his cigarette dangling from his hand and pointing toward the floor, the orange dot vibrating in the darkness, his hand shaking.

You shifted on the mattress to see if he'd turn his head and see you, but he didn't, so you lay there--still and silent--and watched him for a while.

There was nothing on the table in front of him but an empty glass he was using an ashtray and his wedding ring--the tip of his left index finger was inside it, moving it along the top of the table--away from him and then back--repeatedly. You watched as he brought the cigarette up to the lip of the glass and tapped it and then let his arm extend again; he wasn't smoking it; it was merely a prop. Eventually, his left hand abandoned his ring on the table and moved to his face, and then you saw the shimmer of moisture on his face before he made it disappear.

You started to get up...

but stopped yourself.

......

......

Seven minutes ticked by.

......

......

And then his legs bent, aiming his feet for the floor; his cigarette died in the glass; his wedding ring slid back on his finger, and you closed your eyes when he stood, kept them closed as you felt his weight on your bed, opened them only when you felt him touching you, gently trying to move your arm.

You obliged him, 'waking up,' "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he said, pushing up on your arm with more force that time.

You raised your arm so he could slide underneath it and asked, "You okay?"

"No."

You tucked your hand underneath him, let it run up and down his back, "Tell me."

He offered no response.

.....

.....

.....

"Justin."

"I can't.... I just need you right now, okay?"

......

......

Minutes passed and perhaps he felt the impulse rising inside you, perhaps he knew you were about to say something because he essentially pre-empted you, pressing his hand against your chest like he was holding you back or something, and then he whispered, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"I don't know, for everything, I guess."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," you told him. "Not one fucking thing."

"Then why do I feel so horrible?"

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT'S POV
can you hear me now?

You'd argued with Emma from the very beginning, "Emma, no healthy nine-year-old boy spends his free time reading the encyclopedia."

"He's extremely intelligent," she immediately countered, "He takes after me."

"He takes after you, all right; he's wired way too tight."

She wouldn't fuck you for three weeks after that particular argument, so you took it upon yourself to re-orient your only child to the world. It would've been easier to climb Mt. Everest with one leg...blindfolded.

......

Daniel was a beautiful baby boy, 'Gerber baby beautiful' everyone said; he rarely cried, and if he did, all you had to do was include him in the conversation, and he settled right down. By age two, he had every one of Emma's mannerisms completely down pat, so you fought her tooth and nail to put him in some kind of mother's morning out just to get him around other people.

He hated it.

Emma somehow 'forgot' how to perform fellatio after that, so you'd 'forget' to come home from work on time for dinner, and the dance of passive aggressive marital neglect went on for years until you came home late on particular Wednesday evening when Daniel was seven, and he met you at the door instead of Emma...

He took your coat just like she always did; his shirt still tucked into his little khaki pants, "You're late."

"I know...I'm sorry."

"Your dinner's in the refrigerator," he informed you, "Microwave it covered for five minutes on fifty percent power, uncover it, stir the mashed potatoes, recover and heat on full power for one and half minutes. Mom thinks the milk is sour, drink water."

"Um...okay. Thanks."

"Did you have a good day?" he asked you and you knew that just like Emma, he didn't give a shit.

You gave him your standard answer, "Pretty much. How was school?"

"Boring as usual. I finished all my class work before every one else, so I got to go help the first graders again." The argument of when you were going to make enough money to put Daniel in private school was a monthly event with you and Emma; it was only a matter of time.

"With math or writing?" you asked him as you put your briefcase down, still trapped in the foyer.

"Just the alphabet; they're still pretty dumb."

"It's the first month of school, Daniel. Cut them a little slack," you said, reclaiming your coat so you could hang it in the closet.

"I'm going to work on my project. Have a nice night."

"Okay, thanks. You, too."

And you watched your son walk down the hall, go into his bedroom and shut the door. You had dinner by yourself in the kitchen; Emma never even appeared. At precisely eight fifteen, Daniel opened his bedroom door, walked down the hall to the bathroom, started his bath, closing the bathroom door behind him. He emerged exactly twenty-five minutes later in his pajamas, walked up to you in the living room where you were watching TV, and said, "Good night, Dad."

"How's your project going?" you asked him.

"I need some more magazines."

"I brought you all the ones I had from the waiting rooms."

"I still need some more."

He had three shoe boxes full of pictures he'd been cutting out--every picture--that had absolutely no writing on it whatsoever--out of every magazine he could get his hand on. 'He needed them,' he told you. 'For what?' you'd ask. He didn't know.

"Want to stay up and watch a little TV with me?" you asked him, suddenly feeling all alone.

"No, it's time for me to go to bed."

"No magazines in bed, no scissors, no cutting."

"I know that."

You pulled him close and kissed him goodnight, "Good night, son," before he suffered through it and pulled away.

"Good night." He got halfway down the hall and turned around, "Dad, did you put your dirty dishes in the dishwasher?"

"Yes."

"Just checking."

"The milk's not sour; I tasted it."

"I know that, Dad."

"Sleep tight, Danny boy."

"Don't call me that; that's completely nonsensical," he scolded you.

"Did the first graders teach you that word?"

"No, Mom did."

Of course she did.

*********************
the right way to invest

You redoubled your efforts after that night; if your relationship with Emma was going down the drain, you weren't going to let your relationship with your son go with it, so despite his constant protestations, you became an intrusive presence in Daniel's life, coming home from work on time or even early, pulling him out of his room and his own little world, taking him anywhere and everywhere--museums and the zoo because he wanted to go, baseball games because you wanted to go, hiking, biking, bowling, fishing--not that you were particularly talented at any of those things, anything you could think of and never the same thing over and over, determined to break his habit of forming habits.

At first, it was overwhelming to him; every experience had to come with brochures and programs and anything with pictures that he could keep and cut out and stow away under his bed, but after several months of his incredibly inefficient leisure time, he needed fewer and fewer pictures and less time to organize and then he didn't have to cut them out; he might just stash the brochure under the bed and not even in a protective sleeve!

Progress felt like a drug in your veins. (Sometimes after that, Emma didn't stop you when you touched her; it was her way of thanking you for doing what she could've never done--rescued her only son from becoming her clone.)

Daniel was smiling, developing his own point of view, and sometimes even getting in trouble at school for not paying attention. The day he forgot about a homework assignment was the proudest day of your life; you took him out for ice cream for ostensibly no reason and teased him about being a slacker.

"Yeah, really, me, a slacker, Dad."

"Maybe that's what you should be for Halloween," you suggested to him; he was thirteen at the time.

He looked at you with a very quizzical, yet thoughtful, expression on his face, "How do you dress like a slacker?"

"You don't; that's the point."

......

......

"Dad?"

"What?"

"That's the funniest joke you've ever made."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Nah, it's just the funniest one you've heard me make."

......

......

......

"Then you must make them at work, Dad, because Mom doesn't have a funny bone in her body."

"Danny boy?"

"What?"

"Have I ever told you that you're a genius?"

"You don't have to tell me," he informed you, "It's well-documented."

*********************
have you met life today?

That January, during his first year in private school, Daniel made the debate team. He didn't show up for his first debate because you weren't there.

Your absence was unavoidable.

The debate was to begin at seven p.m; you died--suddenly and alone in your office- after a crappy lunch in the hospital's cafeteria from undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

It was one twenty-three in the afternoon; Daniel would've been sitting in fourth period no doubt staring at the clock and his constantly calibrated Timex to see if the bell was going to ring on time that day.

His didn't, but yours did. You were thirty-four.

*********************
JUSTIN'S POV
right here, right now

Brian was obliging you, but it wasn't helping at all. After ruling out going back to sleep, you figured you ultimately had two choices:

fuck or talk.

And when he felt you move, felt you touching him, his hands awakened on your body, one of them moving up your back and threading through your hair, tightening the knot your bodies had made. "What?" he whispered.

"I don't think I can go to the funeral," you said.

He tried to pull back, to look at you, but you wouldn't let him, so he stopped trying, asking, "Why?"

"I don't know," you said, your face pressed against his chest as you listened to his heartbeat.

He offered the standard platitudes about closure and your friends and blah, blah, blah, and what about Alan--

"That's why I can't go, I think; I can't feel Alan in any of this. It's so fucked up, but this funeral, I feel like it has nothing to do with him."

You'd accidentally kicked the door open, so Brian stuck his foot in it, "Then what does it have to do with?"

......

Experiencing all of this, talking about it all tied up with Brian was different than lying next to him on the floor; he felt your response before you offered it, reacted to it before you'd even decided if you were going to answer his question, "It's okay, Justin. Whatever it is, it's okay."

But still, there was a reluctance inside you that initially baffled even you, but you forced yourself to yank off the emotional band-aid unaware at that moment of how deep--much less how neglected--the wound was underneath...

"Something inside of me is dying," you admitted, letting it go and not even wanting to claim it once it was outside of you.

"Okay."

It had oozed out and settled between you, as comfortable in the sheets as your bodies were; the unspoken, infected member of your unplanned threesome.

......

And the infection was not without consequences; it was making you sick; Brian was driving you crazy with his newfound 'okayness' with everything. Why the hell after eleven years was he suddenly okay with everything? "Don't you want to know what?" you asked him, meaning this dying thing inside you, meaning this dying thing that was outside of you now festering between you.

"I want to know what you want me to know," he said.

You stopped, untying the knot a bit and looked at him, at the expression on his face and realized that he was serious, that that was all he wanted.

So you told him what you wanted him to know, and saying it...well, it felt like you were sort of peeling off your skin right in front of him, but as you spoke, you felt the infection slowly soaking into the mattress, leaving you; your pores tightening, refusing to let it back in.

"This is really hard for me to say, hard to explain," you began, "But I want you to know...

"And I guess I've been afraid to tell you anything for so long that it just became this enormous thing...

"I want you to know that a part of me is dying; I mean, I don't know what else to call it, and that if I walk in that church...in that fucking funeral...with you, or for that matter, even without you,...that part of me..." your voice trailed off.

"Part of you what?" he asked

.......

"Part of me is not coming...back out."

Brian rested his face on the top of your head, "Okay," trying to hold you tighter so you wouldn't shake so badly. It wasn't until he made the gesture... only then did you become aware of the exorcism taking place inside you. Whatever was inside of you; the rest of it was coming out--no matter what. It had found an unlikely escape route--through Brian--who'd suddenly become more like a sponge and less like a battering ram. You held on tighter.

"There's a part of me, I somehow realized, that wants to move on from that night, Brian…

"...and that part of me...loves you so much that I didn't even know it existed."

"I know," he said quietly, "It's all right"

"It really...doesn't...feel...all right...at...all," you said.

"Just be quiet for a minute," he said, "There's no rush."

.....

......

.....

By the time you were ready to start again, his chest was so wet, he looked like he'd been on the treadmill for over an hour...

He kissed the side of your face, and eventually your teeth stopped banging against each other, so you tried to start again...

"After it happened, after I got hurt, it was like we took every step together, you know? We shared the pain of all of this." He was touching you, soothing you; it made it easier, "I mean that literally, Brian, I couldn't walk across...the...fucking...street...

"...and I feel like if I go in there, in that church, I'm going to be a different man when I come out, and I don't want to do that to...you...

"...I mean...I don't even...know...if I can."

......

......

"You have to," Brian finally said.

And that broke the ever-loving hell out of the proverbial dam.

*********************
BRIAN'S POV
you've come a long way, baby

You ended up wrapping him in a cum-stained sheet and propping him up against the headboard with a box of tissues in his lap and a double shot of whiskey in the hand that wasn't shaking. You offered him a cigarette before you lay down in front of him, your head propped on your hand, but he refused, afraid that he might set the bed on fire. "I don't think you're going to cry at the funeral," you said to him, "I don't think there are any tears left in your body after the last few days."

"No shit. I pro-ba-bly won't piss for a week." His was practically stuttering.

"I want you to listen to me for a few minutes, try to calm down, okay?" His entire body was heaving with every breath.

"O-kay," he agreed.

......

Seeing him in that much pain; it felt like a knife turning and turning inside your heart. But everything made sense to you at that point; you knew the years of separation were somehow necessary and inevitable, you just couldn't articulate exactly why, but this was why. You rested your free hand on his knee, "Look, it's okay for you to go into that church as one man and come out another; you're a different man, Justin. You're not some fossilized moth trapped in amber, okay? You're growing up." He reached down and held your hand where it was propped on his leg, held it because he wanted you to hold his, and you did; your hands switched places; he wanted you to ground him, to stop what was happening inside him, or at least, to make it more bearable. "I mean, you basically have two choices when you're close to thirty; either become a raging, arrogant asshole or begin to deal with the skeletons in your closet. I wouldn't recommend option one; it basically takes twice as long to accomplish the same thing." He leaned back against the headboard, stared at the ceiling and took a deep breath. You felt--once again--like you were back in his studio with him the night he stole his painting back, only this time he was actually coming clean or trying to, at least. "Is this why you went completely postal on me when you saw that mural in my office?" you asked him.

"I don't...know...what...you mean."

"I was fucking with your timetable?"

"I guess so," he said. "I mean, sort of. I guess.... It's just.... I don't …. It’s really complicated, Brian.”

"There’s nothing wrong with complicated, Justin." He sighed in disbelief at your response. "What?” you asked.

"You just don’t understand."

"Well, make me understand."

He looked at you then after a few moments had passed, “I’m going to hurt you if I do that; I think."

"As long as you’re telling me the truth, you’re not going to hurt me," you told him.

He got up out of bed, went over to the table by the window, picked up your laptop and got back into bed; you watched his face as he turned it on, the blue light cooling his features, maturing him in a way the blue light in your bedroom never seemed to. He started surfing the web, and then he spoke without even looking at you,

“You know, what you just said to me? That’s the only time you’ve ever lied to me.”

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT'S POV
you'll never roam alone

The last thing you 'remember' from the day you died was your secretary running into your office, screaming because there was blood running down your face. When you'd fallen, when your heart decided it was done for good, your knees buckled and you hit your head on the corner of your desk. "Somebody get a doctor!" she yelled.

......

The next thing you knew you were back in your office but all alone, and you'd been there ever since, no more pain in your chest or your head, but it was still bleeding, still dripping into the palm of your hand; time must've passed, you presumed, but there was no way to know. Your thoughts ran in chronological order from the beginning of your life to the moment it 'ended,' and then started over time after time after time...

Until you looked up because you saw something beyond the door of your office, something that had never been there before; your secretary's office was back preceding the entrance to yours and you could see through it to a hallway--something else you remembered. The temperature in the room began to rise; you hadn't even noticed the temperature before; it was never hot or cold in that place, but now it was warming steadily, the sun was in a different place in the sky--sky, of all things!--because there was an actual view out your window but not one you recognized, and then you began to sweat, the humidity uncomfortable. You got up and walked to the window trying to ascertain where you were and when you couldn't and turned around to go back to your desk, you were no longer alone; there was a little girl sitting in your desk chair. She had huge, bright brown eyes, light brown curly hair, and short little legs that stuck out of the bottom of her dress, her white-laced bobby socks inside her little black shoes. She was holding a pair of white wings in her lap.

"You stopped bweeding," she said. You looked down at your hand, and it was clean; wiped your forehead and there was nothing on your hand. "I grow-ded too big, and my wings felled off," she told you, holding them up for your perusal.

"I see that."

"Yeah."

"Where'd you come from?" you asked her.

"I dunno," she shrugged.

"Where's your mommy? She must be very worried about you."

"Yeah, she's on Earf," she said with a huge sigh.

You walked closer to her, and she leaned forward in her chair imitating your interest in her as you asked, "What's your name?"

"'PeanutbutIdonlikeit," she said.

"Did you say 'Peanut?'" you asked her.

"I was bery, bery small," she said, "But I growed now. I not a peanut anymore."

"What's your real name?" you asked her stepping back because she was growing right in front of your face, her hair was anyway. It had grown half an inch just during your conversation.

She tossed her wings on the floor, jumped out of your chair, and began some very ecstatic footwork, "Maddie, Baddy, Bo, Baddy, Fee, Fi, Mo, Maddie, Maddie!"

You laughed at her little production, "Your name is Maddie then?"

Your question was answered by a deep voice from the doorway, "Her name is Madeline." Your heart that had been dormant for quite some time thumped like a gigantic jack rabbit's tail in your chest. There was a large black woman standing in your doorway in an old nurse's uniform, complete with one of those ridiculous hats, and she was not happy. Madeline saw her and ran and hid under your desk.

"I see you, Peanut," the intruder said.

"Nuh uh," the little girl said, "I'm inbisible."

"No, you aren't, Peanut."

"DON'T CALL ME 'PEANUT!'"

You stood in front of your desk, fencing Madeline in, feeling protective of this strange little creature all of a sudden as you questioned the intruder in your doorway, "Who are you?"

"First, I need to know who you are," she said.

"Dan Cartwright," you admitted as if you'd been caught robbing a bank. Honest to god, your hands went up.

"Oh, for the love of god," the woman said as she walked into your office and plopped down on your sofa, "This is one post-mortem cosmic cluster fuck."

"YOU SAID A BAD WORD, TATE!" Madeline screamed from under your desk.

"Pipe down, Peanut!"

"DON'T CALL ME 'PEANUT!'"

"What'd you do? Shoot yourself in the head?" the woman asked you.

"Huh?"

"Your Emma's son, aren't you? You got a big wound in your head, and you're up here."

"You know Emma?"

"Yeah, unfortunately."

"EMMA, EMMA, BO, BEMMA, FEE, FI, MO, MEMMA, EMMA!" The black woman kicked your desk and said, "Hush!"

"I'm her husband," you said, "Her late husband, not her son."

The woman looked at you with a critical eye, scanned your entire body, the room, got up and looked out the window, and then walked over to your desk and nudged you out of the way, "Get out here, Madeline."

Madeline emerged from under your desk with a huge smile on her face and even longer hair. She'd taken her shoes off and she handed them to her babysitter, "Too tight." You looked down and there were already new ones on her feet, same style, less shine.

"My name's Tate," the woman said to you as she walked over to the window and through the shoes out.

"Nice to meet you," you said.

And then Tate turned her attention to the little girl she'd been warring with the entire time, her demeanor suddenly different, "This one's yours, Madeline."

"Yeah," the little girl said climbing into your desk chair and then onto your desk chair, standing so she could be almost eye level with you, "I already knowed that."

*********************
JONATHON MASSEY'S POV
maybe she's born with it

Sam was thrilled to see you outside his door that morning as was Amelia, both for different reasons. "You're 'upposed to ring the doorbell, Dr. Jon," Amelia admonished you first.

"You don't have a doorbell," you reminded her, "I had to knock."

"You're 'upposed to betend," she insisted.

"Oh sorry; ding dong."

Your participation thrilled her, sending a wave of joy through her entire body before she got serious again, "Yeah, you can come in, Dr. Jon 'cause you're not strange."

"He's not a strang-er," Sam corrected her.

"I'm the strang-est," you told her, being very sure Harper was out of earshot before you did.

"You have perfect timing," Sam said, and then he leaned forward and whispered the rest into your ear, "We were having a WWF throw down about wearing her new dress during breakfast."

"I thought you'd stopped cross-dressing," you told him, sitting down at the table with them.

"Not bad for this hour of the morning,” Sam shot back.

"Not bad, Dr. Jon,” Amelia said, "'Cause it's the hour morning...'cause...I knowed that." You watched as Amelia climbed into her booster chair and yelled at her father as he took Cheerios out of the cupboard, "No, Apple Jacks, Daddy!"

"We don't have any Apple Jacks."

"Lucky Charms! Pinkheartslellomoonsbwuediamonds!”

"We don't have those either."

"Honeybunchesofoats?"

"Not enough left."

"Mix it wif the Cheerios please."

"Okay."

Sam brought two boxes of cereal to the table and as he was closing the cabinet, you saw a box of Lucky Charms way in the back. He sat the boxes on the table along with the milk. Amelia was already armed with her bowl and spoon. What transpired next belonged on the other side of a two-way mirror...

You watched as Sam opened both boxes of cereal and asked Amelia, "Who's going first?"

"Hmmm..." she said.

"One, two,...three," he counted to spur her along.

"Honeybunchesofoats!"

"Okay." He opened the box, tipped it toward her bowl, and as the cereal started to fall, he began, "No, no, please, not me; I don't want to be in the bottom of the bowl, nooooooooo..."

Amelia cracked up. "Too bad Honeybunchesofoats; I hafta eat you in a minute." When the box was empty, Amelia stuck her face in the bowl, "Stop that crying, Honeybunchesofoats!"

"Time for Cheerios," Sam said.

"Yay!" Amelia said, and then she began to cheer, "Herewego, Cheewios, herewego," and clapped her hands twice, and on the second clap, Sam tapped the box and some cereal fell in the bowl. "Do it, Dr. Jon," she ordered you, "Herewego, Cheewios, herewego," and then you clapped your hands twice and more cereal fell into the bowl. Amelia cackled like an evil witch. "Do it again," she demanded, "Herewego, Cheewios, herewego," and you clapped again and the bowl filled up. Amelia pounded her feet on her chair and threw both arms up in the air and said, "Touchdown, Cheewios!"

Sam got up immediately, so fast it freaked you out, put the boxes on the counter, and sat back down with a banana, a knife. Amelia's eyes were as big as quarters, watching him with such extreme anticipation it was starting to make you nervous. As soon as he peeled the banana, he picked up the knife, pulled her bowl a little closer to him and stopped moving--hands, knife, and banana hovering over the bowl and then he started to sing, "Few times been around that track--"

And Amelia squealed in delight, "Ainnohollabackgirl, ainnohollabackgirl.”

"What do you want in your cereal?"

"I-want-some-bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S," Amelia chanted, and Sam started slicing the banana.

"You want what?" he said.

"Bananas! B-A-N-AN-A-S!" She said, stomping and clapping along.

"And how do you spell bananas?"

"B-A-N-A-N-A-S!"

"That's my girl," he said when the banana was sliced, and then he picked up the milk, sliding her bowl back in front of her. Amelia sat all the way up and then peered down into her bowl again, "Who's ready to go fwimming?"

"Not me," said Sam in a ridiculously high voice.

"Who said that?" Amelia demanded.

"Me," Sam said, "I'm just a little banana. I don't know how to swim."

Amelia searched the bowl for the smallest slice of banana she could find and when she picked it up, Sam said in the same goofy voice, "Oh thank you, you saved me."

"No, I'm gonna eat you," Amelia said, and then she did. Sam poured milk on her cereal as she chewed as swallowed, and then said in his Baby Banana voice, "I'm just a little banana. B-A-N-A-N-A."

Amelia patted her stomach and said, "Be quiet banana; I already knowed that 'cause I already ate-d you."

And then Sam turned to you with a completely straight face, "Can I get you a cup of coffee?"

"Uh, sure."

"You take it black, right?" he asked as he sat the mug in front of you.

"Yeah, you take yours with LSD, correct?"

Sam shook his head, "Nah, I gave it up for Lent."

......

Harper walked into the kitchen, her high heels clicking on the linoleum as you took your first sip, "Now will you commit him, Jonathon?"

"I'm seriously reconsidering it."

*********************
BRIAN'S POV
your world. delivered.

Justin insisted that you sit up, so you leaned back against the headboard and he sat between your legs, leaning back against you, your laptop balanced on his knees, your hands anchoring it from either side. “What’re you doing?” you asked him.

“Showing you the truth.”

You watched over his shoulder as he surfed through a gallery’s website until he found an article about a show he’d been in, and then his cursor hovered over a link he wasn’t ready to click. “I just want you to promise me,” he said, “That when I click this, you won’t shut me out; that we’ll keep talking okay?”

“Okay.”

"You asked me the other night about Alan’s painting in the tunnel, about what I thought it meant, and I wouldn’t answer you, remember?”

“Only too well; I think all of New York knows it now.”

“Well, I thought by not talking to you about it that I was somehow protecting you from it; obviously, I was wrong.”

“Just show me.”

“This is what Alan was recreating in the tunnels, albeit in his own way,” he said, and then he clicked the link and you no longer had to wonder about the source of Alan’s inspiration…

......

......

......

......

You stared at it--at yourself, at him, at the circumstances--for several minutes, hardly registering that Justin had released your laptop, that you were the only one holding it, that he’d turned away from it, that he’d practically curled himself into a ball inside the cage your body had made around him, wrapped his arms around you…and he wasn’t trying to comfort you or waiting for you to comfort him; he was waiting for you to finally understand that he was half of this fucking mess and you were the other. That since the moment he woke up in the hospital, he'd been trying to bang this into your hard head, that'd he'd never seen the two of you as two separate people; you were as one to him, and when half of you was broken and sick, the other half didn’t stand a chance.

Indeed, as you rose from the ground in his painting, there was--initially--no physical distinction between the two of you. And upon further inspection, you realized that Justin had captured the essence of regret in your life in his painting because while you’d spent ten years loving him in your own oh-so-noble way, he was more tethered to a tombstone than to you. And had you viewed that painting before that week, you would’ve taken it personally, been offended that Justin’s brush portrayed you so harshly and overbearing, so deeply chiseled with the scars of life, but that night you saw something completely different—

He was shielding you.

He was there in more detail, in more color; he was the man, the soul, closer to the tombstone, the only one whose feet were touching the ground despite what it was costing him.

You’d spent a decade amassing millions while Justin was spending everything he had on you.

.....

Several minutes had passed, and your laptop went on standby, coating the room in darkness.

*********************
JUSTIN’S POV
the human element

Brian was dead quiet in the darkness, and you remember that the only sounds for several minutes were his hands on your skin and his feet moving around in the sheets as he got comfortable. He pulled the sheet up over you, keeping one hand underneath it, and you lay there against him, more and more convinced that you’d done the wrong thing as the minutes ticked by. And his breathing was weird after awhile and out of some kind of intuition or something, you slid your hand up his chest to his face, and he grabbed it, and you thought he was going to push it away, but he didn’t; he laid his face in it, and you scrambled to get up because he never reached out for you like that. "I’m sorry,” you said, straddling him so you could hold him, so his emotions could bleed out on your shoulder, “I’m so, so sorry.”

At least I understand it now,” he said

"Understand what?”

Why you went the fuck off on me. Why you didn’t want me to buy your paintings.”

"It’s not that, Brian; it’s just…. I don’t know; it’s not really about the painting, Brian; it’s about us.”

"About us," he repeated as if it was a death sentence......

Brian's anger had always been a frightening thing to deal with, but this, his agony...

It terrified you.

Brian Kinney is a powerful man--for better or for worse.....

The secrets that Michael had told you, the stories about Brian coming over drunk and disorderly and falling into bed with him and crying himself to sleep, this wasn't the same thing because he wasn't drunk; he would remember this; this was for real; it wasn't something that everyone at the diner would talk about and then pretend to forget when he walked in the next day looking like shit. And liquor didn't cause this, and his dad or his job didn't cause this, you did, and suddenly you felt very, very young and very, very incompetent. And it wasn't like you could say, 'I'll be right back,' and throw some clothes on and run for your life over to Debbie's and get her to come over and help him because, Jesus Christ, you were married to him now. And you thought and thought and thought and the only thing you could think of was,

"Do you want some whiskey?"

He laughed in your arms, "No...but thank you."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not right now," he said.

......

......

"Do you still love me?" you asked him.

"Justin."

"What?"

"One of these days someone will come up a new and improved kind of love, one that will work a lot quicker and last a lot longer and be a lot cheaper and come in a brighter box, and you know what?"

"What?"

"I'll still love you the old way."

You squeezed him really tight. "Will it come with one of those little test strips that you can pee on and it will automatically tell you if you're in love?"

"The starter kit comes with a dozen."

"That's a lot."

"It is," he said, "Because the old-timey kit that I had, it only came with one."

......

After you were done kissing him, you asked him, "What color did it turn when you peed on it?"

He smiled at you, "Blond."

*********************
and I don't know
is this the part where you let go?

But nothing in life is ever that simple, no mountain is ever climbed without a lot of practice and pain...

You wanted to get out of that misery-infested bed, so you climbed out of his lap and out of bed, extending your hand to him, "Come on. Shower." And he got up and followed you and in the very dim dome light of your luxury shower at The Regency, you leaned against him as he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed and ran your soapy hand over his entire body while his hand rested snugly on your shoulder. He rinsed off, washed his hair, and then leaned back again, waiting patiently as you cleaned up, and when you'd finished and rinsed off--even though his eyes were closed, he knew when you were done--he extended his arms, and you walked into them, overcome with sadness--albeit fresh and clean sadness--when they closed around you.

.....

Brian was so quiet that when he finally spoke, it startled you, "You don't have any faith in me."

"What?"

"Jon said that I have to stand on my own two feet about this stuff, not burden you with my bullshit, but then I see that painting, and, hell, you didn't even give me any feet."

"That's not true, Brian."

"Don't lie to me."

"Okay, fine; you're right. I don't have any faith in you," you retorted, arguing with him was pointless.

He turned off the water, opened the shower door, and snapped a towel off the heated bar.

......

You dried off in silence, the two of you, and then he walked out of the bathroom, out of your bedroom, through the living room and kept going, and when you saw his hand wrapping around the doorknob of the untouched spare bedroom in your suite you asked, "What the fuck? You want to sleep by yourself or something?"

"It's darker in here, the curtains are heavier; the sun won't wake us up," he said.

"Oh." And you followed him, watching as he pulled the bedspread back in the dark room, revealing the pristine white sheets beneath it. He lay down on them and you sat down next to him. You felt his hand low on your back.

"Lie down," he said, a quiet order.

You turned and looked over your shoulder at his face, and he raised his eyebrows at you like get on with it or something, so you acquiesced and laid down, your head resting on his chest. "I told you this was going to hurt you, Brian."

"You did."

"And I was right."

"You were."

"I'm not trying to hurt you; it's not fair; it's--"

"Why you stay away; I know."

"No, it's how I express myself, Brian. You fucked half the free world working out your demons, and I had to deal with that."

He smiled; you could feel it. "At least you try to get as far away from me as possible while you work your shit out."

"See, I'm considerate. I don't rub it in your fucking face."

"You are."

"You should be thanking me," you pointed out.

"I am."

......

"You are?"

"For the gesture, yes."

"It's not that I don't have faith in you; it's that I love you, Brian. No offense, but I'm not like you; I can't hurt someone on purpose--just because it's better for them five years from now."

"You think you can't, but you can. You just can't do it in person."

You raised your head up and put your hand on his chin, "Fuck you, and that is bullshit."

He pushed your fingers back down on your chest, "You did the right thing, Justin. Sometimes you need to do it; if you'd stayed, the way I was treating you; we wouldn't be together today. I can promise you that."

You lay back down on his chest, "Sometimes I fucking hate you, especially when I realize how much I love you."

"Yeah, well, welcome to the flip-side of almost-thirty."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you asked.

"It means welcome to the point in your life when you start having your first wave of realizations--you know, like, 'I'm thirty years old, and I'm insatiably attracted to a kid who's still in high school--'"

"Brian."

"'No, wait, I'm more than attracted to him; I care about him, care about him a lot....'" he stopped; his voice wasn't cooperating anymore.

"Just stop; it's okay," you said quietly, smoothing your hand over his chest, but in true Brian Kinney fashion, he completely ignored you.

"In fact, I care about him so much that I decide to show up at his prom--"

You popped up off his chest and grabbed his gesturing hand out of the air, pressing it down on his body, "Please don't do this; please," but he employed his sheer physical strength and put you back where you were; you sighed, held onto him, and tried to ignore the fact that your body was starting to shake again.

"And I think I want to go," he continued, "Because I'm going to make his night when I show up there, like I'm nursing some fantasy that he's having some horrible evening without me, and I'm going to just walk in there and sweep him off his feet--"

"You did."

"But that's not what happened."

"Yes, it is, Brian."

"No, it's not. See that's what you don't know."

"Then tell me what I don't know."

......

......

......

"He made my night," Brian said.

......

And in the moments that followed, things began to shift between you--the tangible, your bodies moving again, Brian rolling on his side and looking at you, at the mess you'd once again become, and the intangible, the hushed realization as he held you and kept talking of what happened to him that night; his painting, brush stroke by brush stroke...

"And for once, I'd done something that had made him happy; he was smiling, and for the first time, I knew that he could feel how I felt about him, even though I couldn't admit it out loud. He knew, and I knew, and I'd never felt anything that good or that weird before, and then some asshole decides that he's going to kill him, to take him away from me, the one thing I feel like I need in my life that needs me back, and to do it right in front of me, and I don't stop it from happening. I mean, Jesus Christ, two kids; I'm a grown man."

"How can you say that I have no faith in you...when I'm here right now...listening to this?" you asked him.

"I don't know," he admitted.

You moved up and put your face next to his on the pillow, the back of your hand brushing his cheek, "Listen, I think you're a little fucked up about this emotionally, Brian."

"There's a newsflash."

"Your guilt about that night, Brian, you feel like you weren't honest with me before Chris attacked me."

"About what?"

"About how you felt about me. You're a man of action, not a man of words, right?"

"Yeah," he breathed.

"Your actions, they meant something to you." He nodded. "They meant something to me. I speak Brian Kinney."

"You speak it better than I do; that's what's so fucked up."

"You thought I was going to die, that I was never going to know."

"I did," he said.

"But I didn't."

"I can't even count how many times you died in my head."

"In your heart, you mean. I died in your heart."

He nodded, tears screaming down his face as if his eyes has yelled, 'Fire, everybody out!'

"You need to stop living like I did and let that go,” you told him, stroking the back of his head as he lay against you; your hand passing over the bump he'd gotten earlier that day, the one you'd all but forgotten about, “I knew you cared about me; everybody knew, Brian. You were only fooling yourself."

"God, I'm really good at that."

"You're a consumate professional, trust me."

“Well, of course, I'm Brian Kinney for fuck's sake.”

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT'S POV
a little taste of heaven

Madeline held your hands.

"You don't have to touch him," her guardian said.

"I knowed that; I just want to," she said, smiling at you with the most beautiful smile you'd ever seen; you couldn't stop staring at her, her eyes looked so familiar, so young, so innocent...

Daniel?

She winked at you.

"What's going on?" you asked her, sounding like a frog, your mouth suddenly dry.

She closed her eyes and then opened them again and the familiarity was gone, "Welcome to the AfterDeaf, Danny-Banny-Bo-Banny--"

"Madeline!" the woman scolded her.

She squeezed your hands, laughed, and started over, "Welcome to the AfterDeaf, Danny. I'm 'upposed to tell you that you are dead. Yeah...sorry," and then she jumped down off your desk very proud of herself. "All done," she announced.

"You are not done," the woman said, taking the little girl's hand, "We gotta find the remote control." And then she turned to you, "My name's Tate, Danny. You need to come with us."

Madeline reached back and held her hand out for you, "Come on, Danny-Danny-Bo-Banny, we gotta find the me-mote."

You took her hand and started walking with them, out of your office, your secretary's office, and then into the hallway. You were in a hospital hallway, but not the one you ran; this one was older, more run down.

"Where are we?" you asked them.

"Holy Cross hospital," Tate said, walking straight ahead and as fast as she could like the three of you were on the run, "The pride of Georgia, and where they pay black nurses fifty cents less an hour but they'll never admit it."

"You were a nurse?"

"Yeah, psychiatric. We were the only ones that had to wear these itchy polyester uniforms, too."

"Oh."

"Guess they thought we didn't actually do any real nursing. What kind of doctor were you?" she asked.

You laughed, "I wasn't a doctor; my ego's nowhere near that big. I was a hospital administrator, ran the place behind the scenes," you explained.

"Well, you must of run some shitty-ass hospital because they let you die."

"DIE-DIE-BO-BYE-BANANA-FANA-FO-FI-FEE-FI-MO-MI-DIE!"

"Keep it down, Peanut; you're gonna wake the dead."

"That was a good one, Tate," Madeline said, and then she took off hop-scotching down the hallway.

*********************
BRIAN'S POV
they miss you

Ibiza.

The final frontier.

Hope you won't be here long. Feels like you don't have much time.

You walk, slow and belabored on the beach, pass footprints going in the other direction, glance over your shoulder and see Ethan walking away...and then in front of you again...see him in the distance...so far away, standing at the water's edge watching something yellow bob up and down in the ocean.

He can't be both places.

Scream his name, "Ethan!" Both Ethans turn and look at you.

Take off running toward the one at the water's edge. Panting like a dog when you get there, you stop in the sand, grab Ethan's shoulder, so angry for some reason; he turns and looks at you.

"Nice to finally meet you."

Alan.

"You're not Ethan."

"You're late."

"You're dead."

"Don't have time to argue with you," he says, touches your face with misplaced tenderness; you feel Justin inside him, seeping out, "I had you exactly right, such hard features; good thing I painted you on cement; that's the kind of canvas you belong on."

"You hate me."

He laughs, "You hate yourself."

You point to the yellow dot in the distance as you ask Alan, "Is he dead, too?" as he studies you, the sense of loss overwhelming; the sense of intimacy out of place.

"We're all a little dead, aren't we?"

You nod and then you feel yourself sinking into the sand with the realization, your knees buckling underneath you, and he falls even lower, wraps his arms around you and props you back up. "Listen to me? Are you listening?" he says.

You nod.

He points to the yellow dot in the ocean and it's Justin kneeling on a tiny, square raft, panicking in the water. "He's waiting for you; he needs your help."

"I don't know what to do."

"You don't need to know; just do it."

"Just do it?" you ask and hear Leo's laughter from somewhere. The yellow dot starts calling to you.

"I'm leaving now," Alan says, "Don't let him fall off that raft--"

"I know," you say, "I know; he can't swim."

......

Alan sings as he walks away, his head down, his hands shoved in his pockets; he doesn't have a care in the world, "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream...."

......

When you turn back around, there's nothing in the water. The sea is calm and glassy. You want to scream but you have no voice. Your body folds into the sand. You can do nothing but wish, so you wish for the water to come closer, to take you to him, but it won't come close enough.

“Do you want to come to my party?” a pink voice asks. You can only see the pink voice in your mind, but she's there and her feet are very tiny in the sand.

"What kind of party is it?"

"Waffle is in the toaster,” she giggles.

“Where?”

“At my party?”

“Where is your party?

“In the toaster.”

“I want some waffles, please,” and you feel yourself standing up in the sand.

"You're 'upposed to ring the door bell!" she screams all of a sudden, and you feel yourself backing up in the sand.

"Ding dong," you say in apology.

She opens a door that comes out of nowhere and hands you a plastic container, "Here's your shushi, Brime Kinney. Bye, bye," and slams it in your face.

You look down at the container and there's nothing in it; it's empty. "THERE'S NOTHING IN HERE!" you yell as if the door is a real sound barrier.

"IT'S BETEND!" the pink voice screams back, coated with sticky frosting. Strawberry.

"WELL, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH PRETEND SUSHI!" you scream at her, all of your anger focused on that squeaky pink voice.

"I ALREADY KNOWED THAT, BRIME KINNEY! YOU HAFTA BETEND!"

"I ASKED FOR WAFFLES!”

“I KNOWED THAT; I PWAYED A TWICK ON YOU!”

“YOU LITTLE PINK BITCH!”

But then you're just yelling at yourself because the pink voice is all gone.

You look down at your hand, and the sushi box isn't empty anymore; there's something in it.

So you open it.

There's a black necktie inside, folded up, covered in maple syrup. It speaks,

"Brian."

It's not a pink voice.

It's a voice...

...that loves you?

You look up, and he's standing on a giant waffle on top of the glassy ocean in the suit Gabe brought him, his shirt unbuttoned and unbuttoned and unbuttoned. Try to walk toward him but the water becomes violent the minute you touch it, slamming you back on the beach. “Where are you?” you ask him.

“In church.”

“I can't come in?”

“I don't know; do you want to?”

“I want to be with you.” He sits down on the waffle like he's thinking about it. “Please.”

He steps off the waffle and doesn't sink in the water; walks toward you on top of the water.

“Look what I can do,” he says.

“That's amazing.”

“It's not real; it's just art.”

“I know that,” you lie.

“Sometimes we'll be living inside the artwork, okay?”

"Whatever you want.”

He steps onto the sand, and relief floods your body, so warm, you feel like you wet yourself, and you put your arms out because he's walking toward you and he lays inside them, against you, and says, "My pants are too long,”

"They're just wet."

"Oh."

The waffle, his raft, it floats ashore, and within seconds sand crabs emerge all around it, devouring it; you watch it disintegrating...

......

You look up and see Daniel and Harper and Sam and Jon standing on the edge of cliff, and they're looking at you, so far away but you can see their eyes, and you follow their gaze down the rocks...

to Alan's body...

broken and bloody against them.

And you take Justin's hand and lead him off the beach in the other direction without ever saying good-bye...

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT'S POV
keep walking

"Where are we going?" you asked Tate; she had to know; she had such a determined look on her face.

"To find the others."

"The others? That sounds kind of scary to me." And Madeline was so far ahead of the two of you, you almost couldn't see her. "Should we maybe...call her back?"

"She's leading us," Tate said; she was so serious, it was making you uncomfortable. "Walk faster."

"She's leading us? How do you know?"

"She found you."

"She found me? How?"

"I don't really know. We got separated from the others when the music started playing; this loud, obnoxious music. She started to scream, and I was holding her, so I walked away from the music; she was just a baby then."

"When?"

"Maybe an hour ago. I don't know. There's no way to tell."

"No way to tell?"

"How long have you been in that office by yourself?" she asked you.

"I don't know, about an hour?"

"What year did you die?"

"Nineteen eighty-two."

"Madeline came in two thousand and eleven. That's how long you've been waiting there."

"Are you shitting me?"

"No, and I don't know why. I've never seen that happen before."

"Seen what happen?"

"I've never known anybody that had to wait on this side before."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You died before me; you died before Madeline; we shouldn't be your pickups." And then Tate stopped on a dime at an intersection in the hallways; you'd both lost sight of Madeline. "Shit," she said.

"I told you--"

"Shut up. Just listen."

So the two of you stood there in silence and then you heard a voice down the right hallway, "Tate-Tate-Bo-Bait-Banana-Fana-Fo-Fate...." Tate pointed in the direction of the tune, and the two of you found her sitting behind a custodian's cart at the end of the hallway. She'd grown again; her hair was in a pony tail; her dress was gone, and she was wearing a t-shirt, shorts, and white tennis shoes with no socks; she was tan, and she was playing with on of the bracelets on her wrist, staring at her knees...

"Why'd you stop, Peanut?" Tate asked her.

Madeline looked up at her and there were tears in her eyes, "I don't know."

Tate bent down in front of her, "Why are you crying?"

"I'm really sad."

"What's making you sad?" Tate asked as you pushed the cart out of the way so she could sit down beside her.

"My feelings," she said. All of her baby talk was gone.

"Do you still know where we're going?" Tate asked her, and Madeline nodded her head. "Is that what's making you sad?" Madeline nodded her head again. You crossed the hallway, standing on the other side, trying not to intrude, although neither of them seemed to mind your presence. "Can I tell you something, Peanut?"

"Yeah."

"You look just like your mother. She has hair--"

"Don't say 'has,' say 'had,'" Madeline said, "It makes me miss her."

"Okay, sorry. She had hair exactly the same color as yours, and it was curly like yours when she was young, and she was full of energy and spunk, and she was smart just like you are, and she had feelings just like you have."

"She had sad feelings?"

"She did; she had a lot of them, and sometimes she would paint or draw or sing or dance or just talk and they would feel better."

"I like to sing," Madeline said.

"I know you do."

"It's very hard to be eight years old, Tate."

"I know it is, but look on the bright side, you'll be at least twelve by the time we find them."

Tate's heart-to-heart with the magical little girl seemed to do the trick; she smiled, got to her feet and took off again, playing a game with herself and the squares that made up the hospital floor as she walked, and you could hear her, "'Find-'em, Find-'em, Banana, Fana, Bo, Bind-'em, Fee, Fi, Mo, Mind-'em, Find-'em!"

"You're really good with her," you told Tate as you followed Madeline's sneakers.

"I practically raised her mother; it's a long story."

"Who are these 'others' we're trying to find? I feel this weird sense of dread inside me."

"I'd tell you who they are, but then I'd have two people to chase," she told you, "And besides, it doesn't matter; you're going to meet them either way."


No lyrics this time; all subtitles are advertising slogans or related ditties, brands are as follows: AT&T, Verizon, Oppenheimer, MetLife, Kmart,Virginia Slims, Travelocity, Maybelline, AT&T again, Dow Chemical, Liberty Mutual, Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Rozerem, and Johnnie Walker.

I can't even begin to thank briannahai enough for the artwork in this chapter. She's the artist responsible for this painting as well as the one Alan did in the tunnel. I had a request for something I was looking for, and she gave me those two paintings. The one that I used in the tunnel was just one she threw in there for me, and it completely re-enhanced Alan's character for me, and the one in this chapter, well, it brought everything home. I've had these paintings for over a year, determined to use them when and only when I felt the story could do them justice. As with EAO, the artwork, at least for me, has inspired me to go places I hadn't even fleshed out, and I'm forever grateful for it. Thank you, briannahai, for everything.