I wake up to the sound of an alarm clock for the first time in a long time. I groan and pull the duvet over my head, attempting to drown out the sound. I hear Brian’s amused chuckle as he leans over me to shut the alarm off. I sigh my thanks when the annoying buzzing ceases and remove the duvet from my head to see Brian standing beside the bed pulling on a pair of black Armani pants.

“Where are you going?” I ask, still groggy from waking up way too fucking early.

“Work,” he answers simply.

I lift my head from the pillow. “Really?” I ask.

“Yep.”

“Are you sure you’re ready to do that?” I ask him.

“Of course I am,” he says as he shrugs on a crisp white button-up shirt. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m not sick anymore, so there’s no reason for me to be sitting on my ass at home all day while Theodore runs my business.”

“Not – sick anymore?”

“Yeah,” he answers and walks into the bathroom. “Didn’t I tell you?” he calls out. “The doctor called yesterday. They can’t find any cancer cells in my body – the KS is gone.”

I jump out of bed and hurry into the bathroom, where Brian is standing in front of the sink, toothbrush halfway to his mouth. I interrupt him by throwing my arms around his body from behind. “Holy shit, Brian, that’s amazing!” I nearly yell. I smile widely when his eyes meet mine in the mirror in front of us. “What else did he say?”

“My t-cell count is up to 400 and seems to be slowly rising,” Brian tells me with a smirk.

I grip him tighter. “Oh my God. This is – it’s – oh my God,” I stammer, too excited to speak clearly.

“Ever articulate, aren’t we, Sunshine?” he laughs. He turns around so I can give him a proper hug, toothbrush officially forgotten on the sink. I squeeze him tighter than necessary and suggest we celebrate his good news in the shower. He quickly agrees.

After Brian leaves for work, I’m left alone in the loft with nothing but my thoughts. Brian is better – he’s really better, and I can’t fucking believe it. I feel like running up and down the streets of Pittsburgh telling everyone I see the news. As I bask in my happiness, I can’t help but think back on last night. Unfortunately, no news – no matter how amazingly unbelievable and great it is – could keep those thoughts from my overactive mind.

Heroin. I still can’t imagine Brian ever doing something like that. What could’ve possibly been going on in his head, in his life, for him to go that far? I wonder – I sigh and pick up Brian’s house phone, making my way through a few numbers on the caller ID before finding the one I’m looking for. I press ‘send’ and listen to two rings before someone picks up.

“Hello?” he says into the phone.

“Hey, it’s Justin,” I reply.

“Oh, hey,” he hesitates, obviously confused as to why I’m calling him.

I clear my throat. “I was wondering if we could meet somewhere,” I tell him. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

He pauses for a moment before answering. “Uh, yeah, sure,” he says. “You want to just come over here – to the store?”

“Yeah, that’d be fine,” I answer, relieved. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Ok. Bye,” he responds.

“Bye.”

I grab my keys and head for my car, making sure to set the alarm before I leave. As I approach the building, I take a deep breath before finally opening the door.

I see him sitting behind the counter as soon as I walk in. “Hey,” I greet him.

He looks up from his computer screen. “Hi. Come in, have a seat,” he tells me, motioning to a stool on the other side of the counter. The store is empty right now, probably due to the time of day.

“Thanks.” I walk over to the offered stool and take a seat. We just look at each other for a few seconds.

“So – you wanted to talk to me,” he says, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah,” I answer. “It’s about Brian.”

He nods. “I figured that much,” he tells me. “Go ahead – talk.”

“Okay,” I say. I sigh before I begin. “Last night, he told me how he got infected,” I begin.

“Yeah –“ he drawls, silently asking me to continue. I know Michael knows what happened to Brian. He has to. Brian says their problems didn’t start until he got diagnosed with AIDS. Before that, I’m positive Michael knew a hell of a lot more than Brian has told me. I’m just hoping he’ll tell me what I need to know.

“He told me about it like he was telling me about something that happened to someone else. Like it didn’t even matter,” I tell him.

Michael shrugs a little. “Well – I mean, he’s been positive for over five years,” he tells me like I don’t know. “He’s not going to cry about it now.”

“I would,” I tell him. I honestly can’t imagine something like that happening to me. I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to go on with my life as if nothing was wrong. Sure, medicine has come a long way and being positive is far from a death sentence anymore, but it’s still scary as hell.

“Yeah, me too,” he sighs, his eyes sad. I know he’s thinking about Ben and Hunter as well as Brian. Michael has been through a lot with this fucking disease, and he doesn’t even have it. I can’t help but sympathize with him a bit. I’m still angry that he could just leave Brian alone like that – he’d just lost his lover and found out he might die sometime soon, the thought alone saddens me more than I can say – but a part of me can only imagine how hard this all must’ve been for him.

I take a deep breath and continue. “All I got were the basic facts,” I tell him. “I don’t want to ask him for more than that. If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he shouldn’t have to. But still, I need some answers.”

“Like what?” he asks me.

“Like – how the hell could this have happened?” I ask, shaking my head. “Heroin? It’s fucking crazy. I never thought Brian would –“ I trail off.

“I know,” he says quietly. “That’s what I thought, too.”

“So, was it a one- time thing or –,” I start, but before I can continue I see him shaking his head. “No?” I ask incredulously. What the hell does that mean?

“I don’t know if I should be telling you this,” he says, standing up from his stool. “Brian obviously doesn’t want you knowing all the details, right?”

I lean over the counter toward him. “Michael, please,” I pleaded desperately. “I need to know.”

“Why?” he asks. “Why does it matter now? It happened – you can’t go back and fix it.”

“I know that,” I tell him, leaning back into my chair with a heavy sigh. “I know.”

He looks at me for a moment, as if contemplating something. Finally, he sits back down. “Brian was – in a bad place after you left,” he starts, his voice low. “It started off fine while you were still talking to each other. When you stopped answering his calls –“ he trails off.

“Tell me,” I insist. I don’t want him to try to spare my feelings so I don’t feel guilty. It’s way too late for that shit.

“I don’t know,” he says. “At first, he didn’t seem any different. He was his usual self – brushing it off like it was no big deal. Fucking a different guy every night – you know, typical Brian,” he pauses. “But then something changed. He stopped going out with the guys, Ted said he started showing up late to work, if he even showed up at all. We hardly ever saw him, and when we did he acted like a complete asshole – and he looked like shit; like he’d been up for days,” he continues. He’s not looking at me now, but beyond me with this sad faraway look in his eyes, as if remembering something painful. “We figured it was just pain management, so we didn’t say anything. We thought it would pass eventually, but it didn’t. It just got worse, and it lasted a long time. He was hanging out with this drug dealer asshole,” he says with a sneer.

“How did you know he was a drug dealer?” I ask curiously.

Michael shrugs. “Ted knew him,” he says and I automatically know what that means. It was a hell of a long time ago, but I remember what Ted’s drug of choice was for awhile.

“So – he was doing crystal?” I ask.

“Later I found out he was doing a little bit of everything,” he tells me. “He wouldn’t talk to me about anything, and I didn’t know what to do. He was fucking killing himself. But before I could do anything about it – it had already happened,” he finishes, his voice breaking at the end.

“So he came to you and told you?”

“Yeah -- I was the one that drove him to rehab,” he admits and I nod, urging him to continue. “When he got out, he was kind of – out of it for awhile. Eventually, things went back to normal, though. As normal as it could be after finding out you’re positive,” he says, shaking his head. “He’d accepted it, I guess. And then –“ he starts hesitantly, looking back at me.

“What?” I ask.

“Well, Kevin came along,” he says and I nod again. I knew that was coming. “After that, things got even more normal. He showed up at work every day – they even started coming out with us again. It was pretty good until he got diagnosed with AIDS,” he sounds like he’s having trouble talking about it now. He sighs. “I can’t tell you anything about after that. I haven’t seen him much since then.”

“Yeah, I know,” I reply. “What happened?”

“I freaked out, I guess,” he confesses, standing up to straighten out the already perfectly organized comics behind him. “I couldn’t stand seeing him so sick. All I could think about was losing him – and I kept thinking about the possibility of Ben or Hunter – I don’t know,” his voice breaks off. “It was just hard, but it’s no excuse. I’ve been really shitty.” He turns back around to face me. “So now I’m going to try to fix it,” he says, his voice determined. “I just hope he’ll forgive me.”

“I know what you mean,” I sigh again, leaning against the counter in front of me.


__________________


I head back to the loft after I leave Michael’s store. I spend the rest of the day trying to keep busy. I go downstairs and did some laundry, clean up Gus’ stuff that’s scattered across the living room, and take another shower before finally sitting down for awhile.

Brian should be home any time now, and I contemplate telling him about my visit with Michael. I decide it isn’t necessary information, and it wouldn’t be right for me to out Michael like that. I sort of begged him to tell me when he didn’t want to, and I don’t want Brian to be pissed at him for this – they have bigger problems to work out right now.

I surprise myself discovering that I’m glad Kevin was there for Brian after he was diagnosed. Yeah, he skipped out at the worst possible time, like Michael, but I’m thankful that he was able to help Brian come to terms with his HIV status and live a semi-normal life. He took the place I should have been in and wasn’t.

It’s still hard to believe how bad Brian got after I left, and I sure as hell don’t want Brian knowing that I know all of that. We all know what happens when I know too much – Brian freaks out. The guilt is overwhelming, but I know I need to let it go. All that’s important is that Brian and I are together again. That’s all that matters right now.

He finally walks through the door, briefcase in hand. He looks a little tired but smiles when he sees me sitting in the kitchen. I smile back.

“How was your day, dear?” I ask teasingly.

He chuckles and looks toward the stove before sighing dramatically. “Why the fuck isn’t dinner done?” he says in mock anger.

“I’ll give you something to eat,” I shoot back suggestively, without missing a beat.

“Mmmm,” he hums and leans in to kiss me full on the mouth. He pulls back and places his briefcase on the counter before leaning against it on his forearms. “So, I’ve been thinking,” he tells me.

“Always a dangerous sign,” I say with a grin.

“Smart ass,” he mumbles, gently nudging my side.

I laugh. “Ok, tell me what you’ve been thinking about.”

“I talked to Gus,” he starts. “I’m thinking about moving to the house.”

“The house? In West Virginia?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowed together.

“No, the house is Palm Springs, Sunshine,” he says with a scoff.

I reach over to pinch his side. “Now who’s the smart ass?” I ask with a laugh.

He shrugs and walks to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water. “Gus hasn’t had a bedroom since he moved here, and this is kind of a one person place, so it makes sense,” he rationalizes.

“Yeah. Absolutely,” I agree with a nod. “So, when is this move taking place?”

“I was thinking this weekend,” he tells me. “We’ll only need to move our clothes and shit, since the house already has furniture, and appliances, and even dishes.”

“Right.”

He puts the bottle down on the counter and looks at me. “So, what do you think?” he asks.

“I think it’s great,” I answer honestly. “I’m sure Gus will love all the extra space – and the pool, of course.”

“What about you?” he asks suddenly, a weird look on his face.

“What about me?” I ask, seriously confused. What do I have to do with Gus and Brian moving?

He raises an eyebrow. “I want you to come with us,” he tells me.

My eyes widen. “Huh?” I ask – again, so articulate.

He huffs a laugh. “Are you going to make me say it again?” he asks.

“You want me to –“

He nods. “Move in with me – with us. You’re here all the time anyway, and keeping that hotel room is fucking stupid. There’s probably nothing there, anyway. All your clothes are on the fucking bathroom floor,” he pauses and I laugh. “So do you want to –“

I give him the best Sunshine smile I can manage. “Yeah, I definitely want to,” I tell him. “Let’s do it.” I get up, walk around the counter, and grab him in a hug. Brian wants me to move in with him – what an unbelievable way to end the day.

“I look at it this way,” he mumbles into my hair. “We can fuck without worrying about Gus hearing us now.”

I laugh and pull back to capture his lips in a long kiss. When we pull back, we’re both smiling. “A definite improvement, I agree.”