Chapter 26 - You Just Never Knew.

“Come on, Brian! That’s bullshit,” the perturbed little blond ghost crossed his arms stubbornly. “You can’t seriously tell me you‘re okay with fucking a murderer!”

“Why not? You haven’t seemed to mind it much, and we’ve been fucking now for ages . . .” Brian stated, then leaned in to kiss away his ghost’s adorably confused frown.

“What?” Justin asked when Brian finally let him escape from the kiss.

“I said, you haven’t minded fucking a murderer, so why should I?” Brian answered nonchalantly.

“But . . . But . . . But . . .”

“Yes, the fucking did involve your butt, although I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Brian intentionally misunderstood his ghost, enjoying the consternation his comments elicited. 

“Brian! Stop being an ass and explain what the fuck you meant by that, right now.”

“Well, I told you, I had my very own homophobic bigot of a father .  .  .” Brian let the phrase hang in the air just like that, waiting to see what his ghost would do about it.

It took at least a full minute before Justin seemed to have wrapped his head around this revelation. “You? You killed YOUR father too? But, how? Why? You . . .”

“Yes, me,” Brian asserted firmly. “Trust me, Ghost, Craig Taylor had nothing on Jack Kinney in the abusive drunk category. The two of them would have been great pals if they’d met in real life.”

“But, how, Brian?”

“It was pretty much the same thing that you say happened to you. I’d just finally had enough and, when I saw the opportunity to do something about it, I took it,” Brian answered succinctly but, since he could tell Justin still had questions, he relented and launched into the full story. “Pops smoked like a chimney from the time he was fifteen on, so it really wasn’t any surprise that he ended up with terminal lung cancer, I guess. He came by my loft a couple months after Gus was born and announced it like it was some kind of royal proclamation. I don’t know what he expected me to say. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of telling Debbie about it and she convinced me - I still have no idea how - that the time was right to come out to the old bastard. She said I owed it to myself to ‘show him who I really was’ before he died. Well, you can guess how THAT turned out.”

Justin scooted closer to Brian on the couch, snuggling up against him with his head resting on Brian’s chest. Brian accepted the tacit offer of comfort and wrapped his arms around the pliant body, reassured by the feel of another person’s warmth against his skin. It was a good move too - sitting in that position, where they were touching but positioned so he didn’t have to make eye contact, Brian found it much easier to talk. 

“I went over to my parents’ house that night. Found the old man moving shit around in the garage and, for once, he seemed almost approachable. So, I told him - I just blurted it out; ‘Pops, I’m gay!’ Just like some rube . . . I don’t know what the fuck I expected. That he’d give me a hug and tell me he loved me just the way I was? Hah! Like that was EVER going to happen, right?” 

Brian sighed, the expansion and release of air lifting Justin along with his own chest. 

“Predictably, he didn’t take the news well. Instead of hugging me and telling me how everything was going to be all right, the fucking bastard balled up his fist and took a swing at me. Luckily, I was in a lot better shape than he was at the time, especially considering he was halfway to dying from cancer, so it wasn’t that difficult to duck the punch. But, even though I should’ve known what to expect, his reaction still pissed me off. I don’t know why. I left there so angry I could barely see straight and, if I’m being honest here, it fucking hurt like a bitch, too. I was being honest with him for once. I was being open. And he fucking attacked me for it.”

Brian paused for a moment and Justin could feel him swallowing hard, obviously trying to contain the emotion that was still, even after all these years, hiding just below the surface. Neither of them said anything for a few moments until Brian had recollected himself. Then he launched back into the story.

“Anyway, he only lasted another six or seven weeks after that. I got a call from my sister one day when I was at work, bawling her head off, telling me pop had collapsed after his chemo treatment that morning and was in the hospital. She begged me to go visit him, saying it was probably my last chance to say goodbye. I don’t know why I went. I couldn’t care less about him dying or saying goodbye, but . . . Fuck. I guess I felt I had to go just because he was my dad? Who knows? When I got there, he was just lying there in that big hospital bed, hooked up to a half a dozen fucking machines, looking like death warmed over. He could barely breathe and they had him on some kind of oxygen, with a tube up his nose. He looked completely pathetic. And when he looked up at me, I guess I expected some deathbed change of heart or something. So I sat down and asked him how he was doing, you know, the whole sympathetic deathbed thing . . .”

Brian’s words tapered off. Justin probably thought that would be the end of it. That Brian really couldn’t tell the whole story. But, slowly, the man gathered himself together and finished the tale.

“Anyway, here I am saying all the right shit, but he couldn’t do even that one thing with any kind of compassion. He couldn’t even die without being a total asshole and trying to drag me down with him. The bastard cocked his finger at me, gesturing that I should move closer so he could say something, and when I had my head bent over, inches away from his foul, old man’s maw, he whispered, ‘you should be the one lying in this bed dying, you god damned fucking fairy’.”

“After that it was just like you said - something inside me snapped. I looked down on him, this small, bitter, horrible old man, and I had just had enough . . . So I pulled the little tube out of his nose, took the pillow out from behind his head, pressed it over his face and held it there for about - I don’t know, maybe three minutes - until the beeping machines started going haywire. He hadn’t really struggled that much at all, so it didn't take long. By the time the nurses got there to figure out what the problem was, he was long gone and I had rearranged the bed to make it look like nothing happened. Of course, nobody thought that there was anything at all suspicious about a man who was dying of lung cancer going into respiratory arrest. While all the hospital folks were fussing around, I just got up, walked out of the room, and never turned back.”

Brian gave a dry huff of unamused laughter and then sat up a little straighter, his arms still around his anchoring ghost.

“And I haven’t regretted it for even one nanosecond in all the years since then.“

Brian gave the small blond body in his arms a tight squeeze and let his head drop down so his chin was resting against Justin‘s shoulders, indicating he was done talking. The two of them sat there in silence for quite a few minutes. Eventually though, they were forced to move on to the next important topic in the conversation they’d been having.

“Okay. So I guess you really wouldn’t have any ethical or moral objections to continuing to fuck a fellow murderer,” Justin stated with a hint of amusement. “But that doesn’t solve the other issue, namely, that I can’t stay here with you without risking being caught. My crime wasn’t quite as undetectable as your’s was, I’m afraid. I’m going to have to leave. Or stay hidden in your basement for the rest of my life.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, ghost,” Brian stated with conviction. “I don’t see this as being an insurmountable problem. I mean, nobody knows that you’re even here, let alone what you did. All we have to do is come up with a credible cover story to explain where you’ve been for the last few years, which will give you an alibi for the time when Craig died, and then we can reintroduce you to the world, telling everyone you just heard the news that your father was dead and came home to see what needed to be done about it. Which is when you met ME and, inevitably, fell for my many charms. Piece of cake.”

“No, it’s not a piece a cake, Brian,” Justin countered, squirming around - out of his comfy spot where he’d been snuggled against Brian‘s chest - so he could look at his lover face to face. “There will always be the risk that someone will check my story, no matter how good it sounds. People will ask questions about where I was and who I was staying with. If I tell them some made up place or person, someone could check that and my story would immediately fall apart. I would always be living with that fear hanging over my head. I’d always be worried that someone would find me out. I’m sorry, Brian, I just don’t think I could live like that.”

“I don’t accept that, ghost,” Brian insisted adamantly. “I’m not going to let you go without at least trying to fix this. There’s got to be some way we can work it. All we really need is someone who will back up whatever story we come up with. Right?”

“Yeah, but who? I don’t trust anyone enough for that. Do you?”

“Well . . .” 

Brian didn’t get any further in his speculations, as he was interrupted right then by the chiming of his phone indicating he had a FaceTime call coming in. Normally, Brian would’ve ignored the call, coming as it did at such a critical time. However, since he really didn’t have any answer to the quandary they were mulling over, he figured he might as well take the call. Maybe he’d be inspired and the perfect solution would miraculously come to him?

Brian pulled the phone out of his jeans pocket, noting in the process that his caller was one Theodore Schmidt. Which was strange, because Ted never called him. Never. And the only time Brian ever called Ted was when he needed to talk to him about his taxes every year in February. But, since it was still several months till tax time, that couldn’t possibly be what this call was about.

“Theodore, this is not a good time,” Brian warned as soon as he accepted the call. “If you’re just calling to tell me about the latest scandal at Woody’s, or some shit like that, it’s going to have to wait.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Brian,” Ted rushed into his explanation before Brian had a chance to hang up. “But I just wanted to mention one quick thing, and then I’ll let you go.”

“Fine. Make it EXTRA quick, though,” Brian replied tersely. 

“Did I ever tell you about my cousin, Mark, who lives up in Alaska?” Ted began with a seeming non sequitur.

“Huh?”

“Yeah, he’s practically a hermit. He lives in this ridiculously remote little fishing village, about a hundred miles northeast of Juneau. There’s, like, nothing else around there. The entire town, I think, has maybe three buildings. Mark’s little cabin isn’t even in the town itself - it’s, like, way up the coast next to some tiny ocean inlet that doesn’t even have a name. There are no phones, no roads in or out, and the only way to get there is by boat or, if you’re lucky, by bush plane.”

“No, Theodore, you never told me about your cousin Mark, and I don’t want to hear about it now. Justin and I are busy dealing with some serious shit right now. Can you please tell me your stories of Hermit Mark some other time?” 

“Bear with me a sec here, Brian. There IS a point to all this,” Ted insisted. Since Brian didn’t say anything, merely shaking his head and shrugging at the screen of his phone, Ted continued. “So, like I was saying, this village Mark lives in is so remote they don’t even get mail, except maybe once or twice a year. It’s that fucking isolated. And it always struck me that, if I ever needed to disappear for some reason, the best plan I could come up with would be to go visit cousin Mark, because the chances of anybody finding you up there were basically nil . . . Conversely, it also occurred to me tonight that Mark’s place would work pretty well if I ever needed to explain why I HAD previously disappeared for a long period of time - I could always say I’d been staying with Mark for a couple years and that’s why no one could find me. Or get a hold of me. Or even send me word if, say, my dad were to have died . . .”

That little hook, gave both Brian and Justin pause. “You don’t say, Theodore. That’s . . . interesting. I guess,” Brian eventually muttered.

“It’s true,” Ted reiterated. “This place is so remote, nobody would even know where to find it if they tried. And my cousin Mark is a really great guy. He’s kind of a conspiracy nut, though, and he really hates law enforcement types. So, if I ever needed an alibi, I’m sure he would be fine with backing me up, no matter what story it was I asked him to tell. In fact, he’d probably get a kick out of the idea of pulling the wool over some nosy cop’s eyes.”

Brian looked away from his phone for a moment and caught Justin‘s eye. The boy looked really worried. Brian, though, was starting to feel much more reassured about the future for him and his little ghost.

“I see . . . So, Theodore, why exactly are you telling us this?”

“No reason, really. I just thought you and your ghost might be interested . . . ” Ted replied, giving Brian an intense, knowing look. 

Then it struck Brian - Ted had used the word ‘ghost’ to refer to Justin. Brian thought back, but didn’t remember ever using his favorite endearment for the boy while they’d been at the dinner. He’d been really careful about that, knowing that it would only encourage comments and questions that Justin wouldn’t want to answer. So how had Ted known to use that term?

“If you’ve got something to say, Theodore, I think you better just spit it out,” Brian demanded, noting at the same time that Justin‘s hands were clenching fearfully at his arm.

Ted, who realized the jig was up, shrugged and prepared to come clean. “It’s just that, I’m really good with faces, you know?” Brian nodded, but didn’t say anything. “Well, after you guys left Debbie’s, the rest of us headed off to Woody’s for some drinks like usual. Michael, of course, spent most of the evening going on and on about how he just couldn’t believe Brian Kinney had a boyfriend. He kept saying how out of character it was for you. Then he said something about how you’d seemed different ever since you moved out to the haunted house in West Virginia. He even jokingly suggested that maybe you’ve been possessed.” That at least got a grin out of both Brian and Justin, but they didn’t otherwise interrupt, so Ted continued. “Then Em jokingly suggested that maybe you, Justin and your ghost could have a threesome - pretty typical Emmett, right? - which was all it took to jog my memory. All of a sudden, I remembered where it was I’d seen Justin before . . . Don’t you remember, Brian? You showed us that article in the newspaper all about the missing boy and his drunken father who ended up committing suicide. The article that had a huge picture, right on the front page, of the boy that everyone thought might have been killed . . .”

“Shit. I forgot about that,” Brian muttered unhappily. “You don’t think Mikey or Emmett remember that article, do you?”

“Nah. Michael's never been the most observant of guys - unless whatever it is you’re talking about has to do with comic books - and Emmett is terrible with names and faces. He once fucked a guy for three months and still couldn't get his name right. I was always having to remind him it was ‘Chad’, not ‘Brad’. So I don’t think you have to worry about them,” Ted reassured, sounding confident in his friends’ lack of perception. 

“Thank fuck. Those two couldn’t keep a secret if their dicks depended on it,” Brian commented with relief, and then returned his focus to the man on the other end of the call. “So, you figured out who Justin was, but what does that have to do with your cousin in Alaska?’

“Well, I got to thinking about WHY you didn’t introduce Justin as the kid who used to live in your house. I mean, there had to be some reason you were being all cagey about exactly who your new boyfriend was, right? Otherwise you would have just come right out and told everyone about how Justin was the missing boy from the article and it had all been a big mistake and here he was finally,” Ted walked them all through the logic behind his conclusions. “That still wouldn’t have explained exactly what had been going on in your house, though. Of course I never believed all Michael’s bullshit about a ghost in your house - I knew there had to be some rational explanation. So, it wasn’t actually that tough to add it all together: Missing boy, mysterious stuff happening at your house, then you go off the grid for a while and reappear with the missing boy now found and no more mention of your former haunting . . . I’m not wrong, am I?” Ted asked, looking proud of his deductive skills.

“No, you’re not,” Justin interrupted, turning to Brian with a despondent look. “This is why I can’t stay, Brian. If Ted can figure it out, and he doesn’t even really know me, it will be way too easy for your Quilting Ladies and the rest of the locals. They know me. They know about Craig - or at least enough about him to work the rest out. Fuck! What the hell am I going to do?”

“I believe that’s where Cousin Mark comes in, Ghost,” Brian suggested, looking back at his phone. “Right, Theodore?”

“Exactly!” Ted smiled at them both. “Listen, Justin . . . I’m not judging you or anything. You seem like a great guy. And, strangely enough, I actually trust Brian - he wouldn’t be with you if you weren’t. I don’t know what happened to you and, frankly, I don’t really even WANT to know the whole story. But . . . There were enough insinuations about your dad in that article to make me think you probably have a good reason for having been in hiding for all this time AND for not wanting that fact known.” Ted smiled at the little ghost again and Brian noticed that the accountant really wasn’t all that bad looking when he wasn’t being totally boring. “Which is why I thought you might want to talk to Mark. I can give you his super-secret email address - it’s the only way to actually contact him. I’m pretty sure he’ll be happy to help you guys out.”

“What do you think, Brian?” Justin asked, still unsure.

“It’s not a bad plan.” Brian nodded with grudging approval. “Provided that Cousin Mark is on board, we can just say you were incommunicado in the Great White North when Craig died, and you only just recently heard the news. Then you came back here to the house, met me, immediately realized you can’t live without me and agreed to be my sex slave for the rest of your life. As long as Mark will back us up, there’s no way anyone could disprove your story, even if they managed to track him down. Right, Theodore?”

Ted had cracked up at the ‘sex slave’ comment, but readily agreed with his friend’s summation nonetheless. “Yep. That’s what I was thinking too, Brian.”

“Thank you, Ted. I don’t know what else to say. This is . . .  Well, it’s really, really amazing of you to not only help me out like this, but well . . .” Justin didn’t have to go on, both Brian and Ted knew where he was going with the statement.

“Don’t mention it, Justin. I’m happy to help. Besides, if you stay around and it gets Brian off the market, it’ll be better for all the rest of our chances with the available tricks.” They all laughed at that. “Well, I’ll let you two get back to whatever it was you were going to do next.”

“Thanks, Theodore. We owe you one,” Brian admitted. 

“It’s nothing, Bri. You can pay me back by continuing to annoy Michael with your BOYFRIEND comments. It’s pretty amusing, actually,” Ted chuckled quietly.

“I plan to - I promise,” Brian said, chuckling now too. “And if this works out, you can be the flower girl at our wedding someday.”

“Damn! You even just hinting at a wedding will REALLY get Michael going. I can’t wait to see that,” Ted replied and then waved at his phone before ending the call. 

“Excellent!” Brian stated as he set his phone aside and then turned back to his ghost. “So, we’ll just wait to get that email address for Cousin Mark and then I’ll call Penny and tell her the good news that you’re back. Hell, we can even have Sue Ann and the rest of my Quilting Ladies over for a big ‘Welcome Home’ party for you once we get the house done. That way you can make your reappearance with a splash. We’ll get it catered - maybe even hire Emmett to do the honors - and invite all of Liberty Avenue. You’ll be just like a debutante, Ghost.”

“Only you would even consider throwing a big, gay, Gala for your straight West Virginia neighbors, Brian,” Justin snorted with laughter at the scene he was picturing in his head. “You seem to like living dangerously. Should I be worried.”

“Nah. It’ll be great. We’ll make sure Debbie’s here and she can educate any of the more recalcitrant rednecks. Besides, if you’re coming back out into circulation, we’re damn well going to do it right. I won’t have you hiding for any reason - not for what you went through with your father and definitely not because you think you’re ‘bad’ just for being gay,” Brian asserted, getting up off the couch and pulling Justin along with him. “The real bad guys - Jack Kinney and Craig Taylor - are gone and good riddance to them. Things are going to be different around here from now on. We’re going to bring this little corner of the country into the modern day, kicking and screaming if necessary. But I think you and I are just the men to make it happen, Ghost.”

“Thank you, Brian. You don’t know how . . .” Justin started to speak, probably intending to say something lesbianically emotional or to heap gratitude on Brian.

Brian, however, had already had more than enough emotional soul baring for one night. He’d never been much of a talker and this evening, with all its momentous disclosures, had pretty much used up his whole year’s worth of sentimentality. Besides, he hated people thanking him. To hell with that. He’d rather go celebrate the permanent eradication of ‘Bad Justin’ and the triumphant resurrection of his GhostBoy from the darkness he’d been hiding in for so long. And what better place to stage such celebrations than Brian’s bed?

Taking matters into hand, Brian leaned in and captured the ghost’s lips for a long, tasty kiss in order to squelch any further protestations of gratitude or pangs of worry. Justin must have been just as ready to give over the angst of the evening because he threw himself into the kiss with all his little blond might. Before long, Brian was backing away, aiming for the stairs, pulling his ghost along by the lips. They didn’t even part for breath until they almost stumbled over the first riser. Then, with radiant, matching smiles, they clasped hands and started up the stairs together. 

“So, if we're going to do this cover story thing,” Brian mentioned as they climbed the steps together, “we’re gonna have to completely rewrite that whole plot line in the novel, you know. We can’t be giving away clues about you by way of our mysterious, fictitious victim. In fact, we might just have to start over from scratch. Hell, I might need a second sabbatical year. You don’t mind sticking around here in West Virginia for a while longer, do you, Ghost?” Brian asked, as they traversed up the newly renovated stairs, through the freshly painted halls and into the soon to be refurbished master bedroom. 

‘Not bad for a big, lonely, isolated old house in the country, huh?’ Brian thought to himself, surveying his handiwork. 

The house WAS coming along nicely. It was going to be gorgeous when it was done. So gorgeous that he wasn’t sure he wanted to just flip it when it was done. He’d actually come to like living in the place. It had started to feel like home to him. And it certainly had come through in the mystery and romance departments. In fact, Brian thought he rather liked haunted houses these days. Provided they were haunted by beautiful, mysterious, blond ghosts who were dynamos in bed. 

Who knew, maybe they’d stick around for a lot longer than he’d planned and see what other mysterious mischief he and his GhostBoy could get up to out here in the Wilds of West Virginia. 

Because you just never knew what you’d find in a place like this . . .