Justin sat solemnly in one of the motel quality armchairs placed in front of the desk of Dr. Alice McCarthy. His nerves were raw, his throat dry. He wanted to run. Away. Somewhere - anywhere but here. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to remove the burn behind them, and gulped in great lungs full of air. His jaw hanging slack, he felt the bubble rise up from his lips with an exhaled breath, and knew he was sorely failing in his promise not to panic. ‘Turn it outward,' he commanded himself. ‘Get out of your fucking head. Be. Here. Now.' With a heavy sigh, he tried to focus.  

He felt a roughness of worn, nubby upholstery beneath his fingers. He took in the almost obsessively ordered condition to the doctor's desk, the glaring cleanliness to the deskpad. Not a single coffee ring on the thing. Not a loose paperclip in sight. He counted and re-counted the four file folders, neatly tucked into a gray metal tray at the far right corner of the desktop. He noted a faint odor of lavender - incense? - and detected the soft plop of water pooling at the foot of a plastic rock fall. All choreographed for calm. For relaxation. For throwing one off one's anxiety game.     

Bad choreography. There was no dancing around this fucking elephant.

Justin had not spoken a word - not a single syllable - since that agonizing look he shared with Trick. There had definitely beensomething in that single gaze. And Trick's conveniently fitting song lyrics? ‘Go ask Alice.' Convenient, coincidental? Or was the whole fucking exchange some kind of cryptic message torn out of Brian's/Trick's psyche? ‘I think she'll know.'

Jesus.

"Jesus!"

"Justin?"  

The young man sighed heavily and covered his face with his hands. "So?"

"So... now we at least have an idea of...?"

"An idea? An idea?" Justin interrupted, raggedly. "That was not an ‘idea', Dr. McCarthy. That was fucking terrifying! He's... he's..."

"Terrified, Justin. He's terrified. Much more so than you are right now. And not just of what is happening to him presently. I'm not even sure of how much of ‘now' he is actually aware of. He is terrified of facing himself, life, his reality."

"So he created an alternate one? One that isn't even him?"

"Not one. Plural. To date we have evidence of at least four dissociative personalities. We commonly refer to these as alters." Dr. McCarthy opened a drawer in her desk and retrieved a manila folder, handing it to Justin. "I've gathered some reference material for you to look over - some general, some more specific and detailed. There are many misconceptions about DID. A lot of that will be explained in the papers I've given you, but a couple of things I'd like to address with you now."

Justin stiffened his back, clenched and unclenched his hands. He nodded for the doctor to go on.

"First... this condition is unique in and of itself, however, Mr. Kinney's... presentation... is even more unique..."

"Well, Brian is nothing if not unique among the unique." A smile played at the corners of Justin's lips. He was surprised - and the doctor was a little relieved - that he could find a sliver of humor, of normalcy in the moment.  

"That I'm beginning to discover," Dr. McCarthy responded, returning her own small, genuine smile before continuing. "Following a normal pattern, Mr. Kinney... Brian... would have had at least some history of psychiatric involvement. If nothing else, the erratic behavior that is a major component of this condition is usually noticed by friends and family or co-workers, as well as corollary depression and anxiety... and that itself is often the impetus for the patient to get treatment, voluntarily or otherwise. You've described Brian's distrust and total disregard for the psychiatric field, and that could explain some of this. I don't understand, however, how his family and friends could not see the suffering he was going through."

"They saw it. We all saw it."

"Can you elaborate a bit on that?"

Justin rose from the chair and appeared to be inspecting various items in the room, touching this book and that figurine, running his fingers through the flow of water from the miniature rock fall, while trying to explain the complicated dynamics that existed in Brian's circle of friends. Brian's alienation from his family and the bits and pieces Justin knew of the abusive environment in which Brian existed as a child. The strong co-dependency that permeated the relationship with Michael, with Lindsey, with Debbie. The way Brian's image as the stud, the asshole, the loner was constantly reinforced, even encouraged, by his so-called friends. How they seemed to need him to be erratic, to be the lost boy in order to cement their own identities.

"He loves them. They use him. Yeah, they love him, too, I suppose. But not for who he is, really. For who they see him as, who they need him to be. They kept him alive, but they never let him live. Brian was always so much...more... than they ever allowed him to be." Justin raised his eyes and Dr. McCarthy could see the love and pain the young man held inside.

"And you? You've told me you tried to get him to seek help."

"Yeah. I guess I just didn't try hard enough." Justin pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and snuffed. "I was just a fucking kid in love with him. One minute he'd be so... sweet. We'd make dinner together, laugh, make love... The next day I'd come home and he'd be fucking someone in our bed. He'd tell me I was strong or brave or beautiful, then he'd rent me a hooker as a birthday present. It was like living in one of those circus fun houses. You know, the ones with all the mirrors? You never knew when you were looking at the real Brian Kinney or a reasonable facsimile, an image. He'd pull me close and in a heartbeat he'd push me away."

"Or a reasonable facsimile would push you away?" The doctor stared at Justin with a knowing look.

"Will the real Brian Kinney please stand up?"

"Justin... they are all part and parcel of the real Brian Kinney. This is not a possession, not another personality taking over your partner. All of these alters, however many there may be, are parts of his own psyche, his identity. Each alter has a function, they serve a purpose, a protective purpose. The real Brian Kinney has always been there. My job - our job - is to help him find a way to integrate these aspects of his identity. This is... this is not going to be simple or easy. For Brian or for you, Justin. I have to ask... how committed... how strong... is your relationship with your partner?"

"How committed?" Justin chuffed out a small, humorless laugh and ran one hand through his disheveled hair. "Dr. McCarthy, he is my life. I owe him my life. Literally. I'll be with him through this. I'll do whatever he needs, be whatever he needs."

I would do anything, I'd be anything, to make him happy.

*******

He paced around the unfamiliar room, his bare feet slapping rhythmically on cold, gray tiles. He stopped and ran his forehead across the small window in the door, drawing a peculiar comfort from the slight chill of the glass. He snorted at the irony in that since the rest of him was fucking cold. The thin white tee-shirt and faded green sleep shorts provided little defense against the cool air of the hospital. "At least," Brian thought, "I have fucking clothes on in here."

He hated this room, this floor of the hospital and all the extra eyes that were watching. It was like being in the damned zoo. On exhibit. Fucking doctors. And they weren't taking his blood pressure or checking his IV the way they had done in the other room. They were just... watching. Expectant. Waiting.

He knew he should have walked away from the other room when he had the chance and wasn't quite sure why he actually hadn't done that. He had been tired, confused, afraid. Afraid? Afraid of leaving a room? No. No. Of something... else. Something other. Other.

Passionate looks and sapphires and smooth flat chests straining against his hands and painted red lips and the soft swollen breasts exposed by an unbuttoned blouse.

Goddamnit! It just didn't fucking make sense.

He had listened to the doctors...to Justin. And that was all for shit!

And he kept pacing. And pacing. And pacing. Around, around in circles. In circles. And he just couldn't fucking think or remember. Or breathe... Inhale. Exhale.

He knew who the fuck he was! Brian. Fucking. Kinney. Just Brian Fucking Kinney. And he lay on the floor in the middle of the circle he had paced off and took an imaginary drag on the imaginary joint, pulling the sweet imaginary smoke deep inside of him, and offered himself up to the imaginary high. Because imaginary was oh so fucking much better than real. Because the imaginary Brian Kinney didn't cry.  

*******

"I had him committed today."

That's all he said. Not another word had been spoken since he had opened the door and let Cynthia into the loft. Cynthia froze. Her hand holding the cup of tea halfway to her mouth, her lips already parted to receive it. She wasn't even quite sure she had heard Justin speak, the words had fallen so quietly.

"Committed?" She choked out the word as she replaced the cup back onto the obscenely expensive coffee table. She couldn't quite make eye contact with Justin yet.

"In the psychiatric unit. He's in deep shit, Cynthia."

Oh, god.

"God... Justin... but he's... I know something's wrong... but..." There just wasn't coherent thought to be had. Brian? Committed? Shit... Shit.

"He's not insane, Cynthia, but he's... there's a problem." Justin had leaned back, sinking himself into the corner of the sofa, hiding his face behind both hands and wondered just when the hell he himself was going to feel sane again. "And he's going through some serious shit right now. He just can't be... on his own right now."

Cynthia suspiciously scanned over the sheaf of printouts Justin had given her, the words all swimming together into one big run-on life sentence.

"Holy fucking mother of god."

"Yeah," Justin sighed as the woman reached out and covered his hand with hers. "They can't know, Cynthia...The family... They cannot know about this."

"God, no! Can you even imagine..."

"Actually, yeah, I can. That's why they can't know." A shudder ran through both of them.

"Are you going to be okay? What can I do now?"

Before Justin had a chance to respond Cynthia squeezed his hand and hesitantly continued. "Ted has to know, Justin. At least something. I won't be able to hide the paperwork from him...the medical invoices. That's part of his job. He's been close with Brian since the cancer. Brian trusts him, Jus. We have to trust him on this."

"Jesus, Cynthia!"

"Ted owes Brian everything, Justin. He gave him a chance when no one else would touch him. Gave him his life back. He kept Brian's confidence about the cancer. He will protect Brian. You know that." She stood and, handing the file folder back to Justin, said, "I'll tell Ted only what he needs to know."

Justin nodded. The exhaustion and pure anguish poured out from every cell of the young man's being. Cynthia could see the extent of the toll the last several days had taken on Justin. The dark circles under his eyes. The dejection written on his face. The lack of that glorious smile.  But she also saw a determination she had never seen before - in the set of his shoulders, the squaring of his jaw. God, he seemed so young to be dealing with this kind of shit! But Cynthia knew he really wasn't a kid. Hadn't been for a very long time, it seemed. And she knew Justin would be strong enough for Brian through all of this.

And she hoped with every fiber of her being that she was right.

Much later that night, as he lay in the bed he had shared with his lover - where they had fucked and laughed and played and made love - as he touched the empty space beside him where Brian should be - Justin wondered if he would ever feel strong again.