12.
Author’s note – Candy, thanks for your line, hon. Told you I’d slip it in there somewhere. ;)
Lindsay huddled deeper into her jacket against the fresh wind and checked the time on her watch again. It had been three weeks since the night Deb had called the family together to let them in on the secret that she had been keeping, and they were all still in a state of shock. Public personas had been destroyed within the few sentences that Debbie had uttered that night, and none of them had been the same since.
Emmett had all but lost his sparkle, and he and Ted had both quietly admitted that they were deeply ashamed of how they had been so flippant about Justin’s feelings. Whether it had been about his relationship with Brian or his feelings regarding the bashing, both men felt like they had let Justin down, and were at a loss as to how to move past it so they could possibly help the boy. Worse than that, they both felt they were partially to blame for how little faith Brian had in his own abilities to grow up and become the partner that Justin had once wanted.
Lindsay had been both hurt and embarrassed to learn that Justin didn’t trust her; she couldn’t help recognizing the irony. The only good thing to have come from that family meeting was that it had forced her and Mel to address several issues within their own relationship. Lindsay had spent several hours putting Mel’s uncertainties to rest, and for the first time since she had met him, Mel no longer looked at Brian and feared the unspoken.
The other issue they had addressed had been why Lindsay had insisted that Brian father Gus, despite the way Mel felt about him. Lindsay had admitted that it was because she had known how bad Brian’s childhood had been, and that she knew that Brian would do anything within his power to ensure that Gus grew up happy and loved should anything happen to either her or Mel. Mel had felt like an utter asshole afterward, and had made a heartfelt vow to put aside her fears and grow the hell up.
Lindsay had also admitted that she relied too heavily on Brian. Not only financially, even after she and Mel had forced him to sign over his rights, but emotionally, too. She confessed that she had been slightly jealous when Brian and Justin continued to see each other, and had feared that Brian would ignore Gus in favor of the boy. Those feelings had caused her to turn a blind eye to the shitty way Brian had behaved towards Justin when he felt like he had been backed into a corner.
She hadn’t taken into account how poorly that had reflected upon her. While telling Brian to indulge Justin’s need for reassurance, she had been saying to Justin that Brian would never change and that he shouldn’t expect him to. Justin’s birthday had probably been the last straw when she had encouraged him to pursue Ethan, only to then turn around and ignore him when he left Babylon with the other boy. In Justin’s eyes, Lindsay’s betrayal in regard to Ethan had cut far too severely for the boy to forgive.
Lindsay sighed as she thought about Brian – he was the one whose image had been altered the most. He still wasn’t talking to Michael, and could barely bring himself to speak to her, let alone confide in her the way he had once done. Yet he spent several nights a week at the home she shared with Mel, closeted in Gus’s room as he held his son and breathed in the sweet scent of talc and innocence while silently mourning the loss of his other boy.
Brian had admitted that he had seen Justin in Boytoy; had seen him, and touched him, and heard the pain the boy had successfully hidden from him for so long in his voice. The Brian Kinney who had walked into Boytoy that night was not the same man who walked out. Forced to face the pain that he had helped cause had changed Brian on a level that made Lindsay uncomfortable.
She had always wished that Brian would grow up a bit, but seeing firsthand the effects it had had on the man, Lindsay regretted the way she had handled things. He was still sarcastic, and could always make you feel an inch tall with nothing more than a cold look. But there was palpable heartache that he couldn’t hide in those eyes now. The second change had come when Brian had abruptly stopped going to Babylon.
The rumors had run rampage up and down Liberty Avenue; Brian had stalked into Babylon and had been seen talking to Gary near the bar. But when Brian had suddenly reared back and punched Gary out? That was when many a man had all told the same story – Brian had been overheard shouting that if Gary ever tried laying his hands on Justin again, Brian would personally burn Babylon to the ground. He had called Gary a rapist, and warned those within earshot that any of the go-go boys who went to his private parties were at risk of being drugged and gang-raped.
Those rumors had spread like wildfire, and Babylon had suddenly become a ghost town. Brian didn’t need to threaten Gary’s business; he just needed to make it known what Gary had done to the young men that had suddenly stopped working for him after attending his private parties, and were quickly replaced with fresh faces. Dancers, like Justin. Gay men could be bitchy, but they hated being victimized even more than they hated the appearance of wrinkles – from what Lindsay had heard, Babylon was sinking fast, no matter how much money Gary threw at it.
Then there was the family, who as a whole were still upset with Michael; the man had personally gone to Jennifer’s house to apologize to her, and had had his face slapped for the effort. Michael had since kept his head down and his mouth shut; he had gone to his mother after his fight with Brian, and she had smacked the side of his head in an attempt to instill some ‘think before you speak’ sense into him. Ben had said that Michael should wait until Brian approached him; he finally understood the damage his words and actions had caused – not only to Justin but to Brian as well.
Alex had told Michael that his relationship with Brian was unhealthy and that they depended upon each other far too much. They needed to learn to be independent of each other so that their personal relationships had a chance of actually working. Lindsay had thought that Michael would have a fit over that, but for once the man had actually listened. Michael was apparently thinking about talking to Alex on his own, so that if Justin did come back into their lives, Michael would know how to apologize correctly and be the friend that he should have been all along.
Lindsay sighed softly as she squinted into the weak sunlight; Alex wasn’t pleased with any of them. After Michael had approached him at school, and then upon seeing Brian with Alex at Boytoy, Justin had stopped going to his therapy sessions. From what Lindsay understood, Daphne had only just managed to prevent Justin from going on a pain management binge; but in the following days, he had taken several steps backward. He had locked himself away after seeing Brian; had curled up in bed and refused to even look at Alex, let alone speak to him. His aversion to touch was back in full swing. And Justin’s friends had circled the wagons accordingly.
Daphne had stalked into the Diner on Thursday, and when she had found Alex sitting with Brian, the resulting confrontation had escalated into a full-blown screaming match. Daphne had laid it out from between gritted teeth in terms even a simpleton could understand – that considering that she was the one who was currently spoon-feeding an almost comatose Justin, the rest of the family could go and fuck themselves. They had wanted Justin out – he was out. The family wasn’t getting back in; so she demanded that they stay the hell away.
Then Daphne’s eyes had come to rest upon Brian, and the girl had spoken in a controlled voice as she called him an outright coward. Daphne had told him he was so fucking scared of what everyone else thought about him that he had pushed the best thing that could have ever happened to him away. She hoped that it haunted him, that it kept him awake at night, the way that it did Justin. She hoped that he dreamed about it, and woke up screaming the way that Justin did.
She hoped that Brian would learn what it felt like to be considered not enough for someone, the way he had taught Justin that he hadn’t been enough for him. She hoped with all that she was that someday Brian would meet someone that he loved so much that he would twist himself into someone unrecognizable, only to be thrown away like yesterday’s garbage. Just like he had done to Justin.
Daphne had paused to take a breath as Brian had stared at her woodenly before she had turned on her heel and walked out without another word. And Brian? Brian had spent the following three days drunk out of his mind. The Brian Kinney who eventually turned up on their doorstep asking to spend some time with his son, had looked like he had been dragged backward through hell and was still feeling the afterburn.
It had been Brian’s idea for what she was doing today; misery had coated the man as he had laid it out for Lindsay and Mel. Mel and Emmett were the only ones he felt he could trust when it came to Justin, and in Mel and Lindsay, he had a bargaining chip that he was sure would bring Justin a step closer to the family, and in turn, to Brian himself. Mel hadn’t liked the idea, but the naked desperation in Brian’s eyes had finally swayed her.
Lindsay tucked her hair behind her ear as she thought back to the night Brian had said that. In all the years that they had been friends, never had she felt that she would lose Brian’s trust. It was her own fault; after saying that there could be no more secrets, Brian had asked her if there were any conversations that had occurred between her and Justin that he should know about. Conversations that he should have been made aware of that might have changed how things turned out.
They had talked late into the night; half-remembered conversations and troubling thoughts came flooding out in her kitchen, and Lindsay had watched Brian pale when she had told him that yes, Justin had asked her to talk with him about the bashing once, only to be turned down. Mel said that Justin had never approached her about it, but then they had spoken about the law and what Justin’s options were for a civil case, so she figured that Justin had thought her feelings about the bashing would probably match Lindsay’s.
But when it came to light that it had been Lindsay who had encouraged Justin in regard to Ethan, the look that had crossed Brian’s face told her that he would never forgive her. Oh, he’d move on. He’d never mention it. But he would never forgive her for her hand in the destruction that had fallen down upon his and Justin’s heads. Lindsay hadn’t been able to apologize enough, but as Mel said, the damage had already been done months ago. It had left her with the bitter taste of shame in her mouth, and the burning need to make things right.
Lindsay pushed all thoughts of Brian away and blew out an unsteady breath when she caught sight of Justin walking towards her in the distance. His shoulders were rounded, and he seemed to be hunched in on himself. While the wind was brisk, it wasn’t all that cold. No, this was something else entirely. The need to wrap her arms around him became a physical ache when Lindsay saw how thin Justin had become; how pale his skin appeared, and how shadowed his eyes were.
She knew that she was taking a significant risk coming here, but the driving need to reach out to him could no longer be ignored. She knew the exact moment that Justin spotted her, because he stopped dead in his tracks. Lindsay felt her eyes flutter slightly when Justin looked both left and right for a possible escape route. And when he looked back towards her with anxiety clearly stamped across his pale features, Lindsay bent down to the stroller and picked Gus up.
The look that crossed Justin’s face when he caught sight of Gus broke Lindsay’s heart; sheer longing shone in his eyes. She continued to sit at the picnic table, and Justin took a few hesitant steps towards her before he stopped again. His eyes darted around the area surrounding Lindsay, and she hissed out a breath when she realized that Justin was apparently checking to see if he was about to be ambushed. A few more steps, and then his shoulders slumped, and his chin dropped to his chest in defeat as his demons overtook the courage he had shown.
Looking at him, loving him like he was her own flesh and blood, Lindsay carefully settled Gus back into the stroller as Justin peeked up at her. She could see that he was literally fighting to stay where he was when Gus was mere meters away from him; his hands clenched and relaxed several times as he shifted from foot to foot, and his eyes continued to dart from Gus to the surrounding area. And when Justin finally locked eyes with her, Lindsay smiled at him gently, before she picked up her handbag and taking a deep breath, she turned and walked away.
She had barely taken a dozen steps when she heard the soft thud of running feet, and glancing over her shoulder, she watched as Justin skidded to his knees beside the stroller she had left Gus in. She saw Gus look up as Justin wrenched the beanie he was wearing off, and as all that blond hair swung around his face, she heard Gus break into happy baby prattle as his hands rose into the air and made clenching motions. Tears swam in her eyes as she watched Justin pick Gus up and fold him into his arms. Justin sat back on his feet and buried his face in Gus’s neck, and those tears fell when Gus raised his hands, clutching handfuls of Justin’s hair in his hands before he buried his own face in Justin’s shoulder.
Walking to the picnic table that was a few more feet away, Lindsay sat down on the solid seat and settled her bag beside her as she continued to watch Justin and her son. When Justin eventually lifted his face from Gus’s neck, the look on his tear-streaked face was one of pure love. A genuinely happy smile teased his lips as he peppered kisses all over Gus’s cheeks that had the little boy squealing happily, and reciprocating with sloppy kisses of his own; as each of those slobbery kisses landed, Justin’s smile grew, until his own laughter mingled and echoed with Gus’s.
Justin eventually rose to his feet with Gus clutched securely in his arms; Gus showed how happy he was with the situation by laying his head on Justin’s shoulder, while retaining a firm grip on the collar of Justin’s hoodie. And when Justin looked towards Lindsay, she smiled again and pointed to the stroller Justin was standing beside. His eyebrows drew together, but when he glanced down at the seat of the stroller, he saw the folded sheet of paper with his name on it.
For a long moment, Lindsay didn’t think that Justin would pick the note up, let alone read the words she had so carefully penned. Words that were seared into her mind, like the ink on the paper, and she silently willed him to be brave enough to reach out. And when he shifted Gus to his hip and slowly reached down, Lindsay thought her heart was going to burst out of her chest as a broad grin flashed across her features in the face of his courage. Lindsay held her breath as he flipped the paper open, and she watched as his eyes moved as he read.
Hi, Cutie.
Are Mel and I still allowed to call you that, Justin? I hope so – to us, you’ll always be the cutie who loved our son so openly. I know that you don’t want to talk to me; I don’t like it, but I’ll respect your boundaries. I know that you won’t accept my apologies and that you don’t want to hear any excuses; I understand that, and won’t make it harder for you. So instead, I offer you this – I know that you have an hour or so between classes on a Monday. Can I meet you here, the way I have today so that you can spend that time with Gus? He’s missed you as much as I am sure you’ve missed him. I’ll stay right here; you can take our boy to get some lunch. The diaper bag is by the stroller; I’ll wait, and I won’t interfere. Let me know if this is something that I can do for you.
Love, Lindsay.
Justin’s eyes flew back towards hers, and Lindsay merely raised her eyebrows. She got her answer when Justin slowly slid his portfolio off his shoulder and rested it against the stroller; he picked the diaper bag up and slung it over his shoulder before rubbing his nose over Gus’s cheek as Gus’s giggles echoed lightly on the wind. Shifting Gus on his hip, Justin turned slightly to glance at Lindsay with an unreadable expression on his face, before he nodded and then turned and walked away. Lindsay waited until Justin was well out of sight before she pulled her cell phone out of her bag and dialed.
“What do you want?”
Lindsay smiled as she stretched her legs out and crossed her feet at the ankles.
“To tell you that your son is with your boy.”
Lindsay smiled faintly when she heard Brian’s breathing stutter on the other end of the phone, and she shifted slightly on the seat.
“I didn’t approach him, Brian,” she said gently when Brian didn’t say anything. “I waited for him to see me here at PIFA like we discussed before I left Gus in his stroller and walked away a few yards. I left Justin a note, telling him that I would wait for him to take Gus to lunch, and that if he were agreeable to it, I would continue this visitation for him every Monday.”
She heard the shaky breath that Brian let out, and when he finally spoke, she could hear how tightly he was holding onto his emotions.
“How… how did he…”
“He’s thin, Brian… really thin,” Lindsay said softly. “He’s hunched in on himself; his aversion to being touched wasn’t present with Gus, but I could see how much he was struggling. You called it fight or flight? He was very much in flight mode when he saw me. I honestly think that if I hadn’t had Gus here, he would have taken off in the other direction. But you were right; his love for Gus far outweighs his distrust in me.”
Lindsay heard Brian sigh before he spoke hoarsely.
“I don’t want to manipulate him, Linds, but if that’s what it takes to get him to talk to Alex again, then I’m willing to do anything.”
Lindsay licked her lips before she shook her head and gave into the burning curiosity that swam in her blood.
“Brian… did you actually tell Alex what you had asked me to do?”
Brian coughed, and she heard him mutter something unsavory under his breath.
"Yeah. Alex said it was worth trying,” Brian said finally.
Lindsay gazed off into the distance, while Brian maintained his silence on the other end of the phone. But then Brian swore softly, and Lindsay closed her eyes.
“I’m in therapy with him. Three times a week. He told me once that for someone who has enough disorders to merit my own classification in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, I was one of the most well-adjusted and high-functioning bastards he knew. He has since told me that I’m not functioning at all, and that my series of hopeless addictions will probably end up killing me.
“He said that I needed therapy even more than Justin, and if I wanted a chance in hell of getting him back I had to change some of those addictions. I asked him how the hell I was meant to change my addictions when the biggest one I had was to Justin, and he said that if I thought that my biggest addiction was to Justin, then I was well and truly fucked and that I was beyond even his help. He said my biggest addiction wasn’t fucking or drugs and drinking or Justin – it was the fact that I’m addicted to the myth of who people think Brian Kinney is, and until I learn to stop using that myth as a crutch, I will never be able to move forward.”
Brian laughed bitterly, and Lindsay sighed softly.
“Going to therapy, Brian, even though Justin doesn’t want anything to do with us? It’s not a weakness,” Lindsay said softly. “If anything, it shows just how much you love him, that you are willing to do this.”
The silence from the other end of the phone was so thick that Lindsay could all but taste it.
“Brian,” Lindsay said finally. “Talk to me.”
Brian hissed out an unhappy breath, but remained silent as Lindsay shook her head.
“I know that you don’t…trust me right now,” Lindsay said finally. “But I swear, Brian, I just want you to be happy. I want you both to be happy.”
Brian swore softly but finally began to speak.
“I was happy being the asshole,” Brian said tentatively. “I was happy living my life the way I did. I didn’t care what anyone thought. I had you, and I had Mikey, and I was happy not having to answer to anyone.”
Brian fell silent, and Lindsay shifted her weight on the seat as she scanned the surrounding area to make sure that Justin wasn’t on his way back.
“But then you met Justin,” she prompted when Brian remained silent, and Brian cursed her angrily.
“But then I met Justin,” he mimicked sarcastically. “Alex said that I used my childhood as an excuse to not let people get close to me, but that is all it was, Lindsay. A pathetic, fucking excuse. Alex asked me why I allow my childhood to dictate the man I had become, and when I asked him what he meant, he told me that he had grown up in the foster system. He was shuttled around from home to home; abused and beaten and ignored. He refused to allow it to shape how he turned out like a man – so why was I letting my own parents ruin my life the way they did my childhood?
“I asked him what the hell he meant by that, and he said that my relationship with Justin had been an unstable power play between a man and a boy on the cusp of adulthood. That what I had perceived as weaknesses in Justin were things that were beyond his control – where he lived, the money he was able to earn at seventeen, what he had accomplished in his life versus what I had done at the age of thirty. How could I celebrate what Justin had accomplished, when I measured it by what I had? He was right – I had refused to celebrate Justin’s birthday, because what had he really accomplished other than being born?
“I didn’t look at the fact that if Chris Hobbs had hit him even a centimeter more to the right, he wouldn’t have even been here to celebrate his nineteenth birthday. Instead of showing Justin that I was proud of him, I showed him how little that survival actually meant to me when I refused to acknowledge his birthday. Alex said that Justin is a young man who has had to fight for too long and too hard for so little return, and in the end, he basically gave up. Who can blame him, Linds? I had so many chances to change how he perceived himself. Daphne was right; I was too much of a fucking coward to even try.”
Lindsay blew out a deep breath when Brian fell silent, and when the dial tone abruptly sounded in her ear, she knew she had pushed Brian too far for comfort. Closing her phone, she slipped it back into her bag and removed the book she had brought with her. Settling down, she began to read not only to pass the time, but to keep her ass on the seat the way she had promised Justin she would. She had barely read two pages, however, when a black leather studded boot came down onto the seat beside her from behind. Lindsay jumped to her feet in fright as the matching boot came down on her other side, and she spun around.
The young man who sat on the table top was toying with the piercing in his lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and he dragged belligerent green eyes over her form. Lindsay lifted her chin in icy anger as she stared at him, and he chuckled softly as he raked his hands through tousled dark hair, before he casually rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands dangle loosely between them.
“Justin was right – you do exude a ‘mother earth’ vibe,” he said finally, and then offered Lindsay his hand.
Even as manners had her reaching out, Lindsay was desperately trying to figure out who the young man was. He cleared that up quickly enough as their hands touched, and he offered her a small smile.
“Sam Whitney.”
“Ethan’s boyfriend,” Lindsay breathed, and Sam hummed softly as he let Lindsay’s hand go and tilted his head slightly.
“It’s a pretty sad state of affair that you’ll use your kid to get to Justin,” Sam said finally, and Lindsay flinched as he assessed her with a frank gaze. “Justin was too happy to be with Gus again to figure it out, but Ethan and I were all over that shit like white on rice,” he continued, and Lindsay lowered her eyes and exhaled heavily.
“What else were we meant to do?” she asked finally and Sam snorted.
“Not fuck him over in the first place?” he suggested dryly, and when Lindsay fluttered her hands in open distress, Sam shrugged.
“I don’t like that you resorted to this. I’ve never met the man, but this coincidentalmeeting? It has Brian Kinney written all over it. Tell him from me; grow some fucking balls and quit with the whole cloak and dagger routine. If he wants to try and see Justin, using Gus will only push Justin further away once he figures out that it’s a manipulation.”
“Brian tried talking to Justin at Boytoy,” Lindsay offered quietly, and Sam smirked.
“Uh huh… and look how well that turned out,” he drawled and then leaned closer to Lindsay. “You can’t ambush Justin; he doesn’t cope well when surprised. We figured that out the first day. And that is something that none of you have considered – we’ve been there since he woke up in the hospital; you lot have only just come into the scenario, and he’s a different kid to the one you are used to manipulating,” Sam said, ignoring the indignant squawk that Lindsay made. “You can’t come at Justin head-on anymore; you have to come at him sideways.”
“What do you mean?” Lindsay asked weakly, and Sam shrugged as he raised an eyebrow at her mockingly.
“You and I both grew up in the wasp set; stop thinking like a fucking lesbian, and start thinking like one of them - nothing pisses us off more than being challenged, especially when we are trying to handle our shit ourselves. You might wanna remind Kinney of that.”
Sam slid from the table and turned to walk away. Lindsay called out his name desperately, and when Sam glanced over his shoulder, Lindsay wrung her hands and then spoke plainly.
“Why are you helping him? Brian, I mean. I figured that you and Ethan would hate us… hate Brian… for what happened to Justin.”
“We do,” Sam said flatly as Lindsay abruptly looked away. “I speak for Ethan, too, when I say that we would prefer Justin meet someone else and never again have to deal with the people you call family. But Justin needs to confront Kinney; he might not want to, but he’s tried the whole ‘the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else’ thing - that hasn’t worked, and it is detrimental to his recovery.
“We’re desperate enough to get through to Justin that we will willingly put him in Kinney’s path if it means that he snaps out of the hold his depression currently has on him. Confronting Kinney will help with that – it’ll remind Justin that he didn’t agree to hand his balls to Kinney when the man took his cherry. If nothing else, his anger at Kinney and your family will override the fucking pit of misery he has fallen into.”
“Is he willing to speak to Alex again?” Lindsay asked as she tried to ignore the scorn she could hear in Sam’s voice whenever he referred to the family, but Sam shook his head.
“We’re working on it,” was all he said.
“What can we do to help?” Lindsay asked, and Sam snorted.
“Don’t mention our little chat for starters. And don’t take Gus away from Justin again now that you’ve pulled this move; you said weekly visits on a Monday? Stick to that plan. It doesn’t interfere with his work schedule, as he doesn’t work Monday nights. If all goes well, he also has Thursday afternoons free.”
“Where is he working?” Lindsay asked, and Sam snickered as he shook his head.
“Nuh-uh, Sweetie – you can’t out-wasp a wasp like me; there is no way in hell I’m revealing Justin’s safe places so that you can go running back to Kinney. If Justin is pissed off enough to confront the man, he’ll do it on his timetable – not yours.”
Sam turned as if to walk away, but then he glanced back at Lindsay.
“Justin is going to have to drop out of PIFA; his scholarship application was turned down, and he can’t afford to pay his school fees in the time frame they gave him. I mean, asking a student to come up with nearly eight grand in the next week is pretty steep… don’t you think? It’s such a pity, too; his work that was selected for the student art show next month is mind-blowing.”
Sam smiled slightly, and then walked away without further comment, leaving Lindsay to lunge for her handbag. Her hands shook as she waited for the call to connect to Brian, and when it did, she blurted out what Sam had told her without taking a breath. Brian hung up without comment, and Lindsay mentally crossed her fingers as she prayed that Sam’s interference would bring Justin back into their lives.