25.

Justin’s focus was absolute as he shoved his clothes into his bag.  Against Alex’s advice, he had checked himself out of the unit.  When he had told Alex that he was going home, the other man had looked at him like he had grown a second head before he had reminded Justin that it hadn’t even been a week since he had come out of the dissociative state he had been in.  Justin had been ready for that, and his resulting argument had been well thought out and articulated.  He had voluntarily entered the unit – they couldn’t keep him there.  He was going home.

It was time that he took his life back; he had been floundering for too long.  And while he had zero recollection of the time he had lost, he had a more precise picture in his head than he had possessed before he had lost those three days.  He knew who he was; Justin Taylor.  Nineteen years old.  An art student at PIFA.  Gay.  The rest of the working images he had were still scattered in pieces – the people in his life and everything that went with them.  But the foundation was rock solid.  He could rebuild his life on that.

Justin smiled grimly as he shoved a pair of dirty socks into his bag.  Part of taking his life back had included calling his mother and telling her that he was okay.  Before Jennifer could draw breath to speak, Justin had continued to talk.  While he was okay, he was majorly pissed off.  Not so much at her – but at his father.  Craig had tried visiting him at the unit the day after he had resurfaced from the depths of his mind, only to have his way barred by the staff after Justin had made his wishes known. 

Justin had told his mom that his father hadn’t had a legal leg to stand on when he had threatened Justin, and indirectly Jennifer and Molly, with a court order; but Justin did have a legal leg to stand on.  Two of them, actually, and they looked awesome when they were clad in dove gray, pinstriped pants.  Two days after he had woken up, a single phone call resulted in Mel coming to see him.  She had been all business as she laid out his options for him in terms that he could understand; if his father continued to push him, she’d wrap him up in legal tape and choke the life out of the bastard.

That meeting had taken place in Alex’s office; after explaining his legal options to him and saying that she would look into things further with a work colleague, she had slipped her paperwork into her briefcase.  But when she went to stand up, Justin had taken a deep breath and asked her if she had a little more time to talk.  Mel hadn’t used words; she had merely set her briefcase down, unbuttoned the suit jacket she wore, and settled herself back down onto the couch with an open look on her face.   Unprepared for it, Justin’s mouth had opened and closed several times before Mel took pity on him and started to speak herself. 

She told Justin about everything that had happened from her point of view; from learning about his suicide attempt, right up to this very second in time.  How she had reacted, and how Lindsay had responded.  What that attempt had done to their relationship, and the talks they had had; the fears they had put to rest.  Mel had shifted her weight slightly before shrugging, revealing that Brian had spent more time in their house with Gus over the last two and a half months than he had during the previous two years.

In her unflinchingly honest way, Mel had spoken about the new Brian Kinney.  And when Justin had remained silent, she had hesitantly told him about Brian’s reaction to his attempt.  About the half-truths and lies that had come to light after Brian had been told what had happened, and his relentless pursuit of the answers he needed to make sense of it all.  About the distance he maintained, from both Michael and Lindsay, in the face of their part in the downfall of his relationship with Justin, and the friendship that had developed between Brian, Emmett, and Ted.

Mel had looked down at her hands in the end, and then she spoke about the fact that she had somehow been shifted into Lindsay’s role; the role of the only female that Brian Kinney seemed to trust when it came to Justin.  She had already known about what Craig had tried to do, because Brian had come to see her the day that Justin had disassociated himself with the world.  He had knocked on their door at nine o’clock at night, looking shell-shocked.  Seated in the front of the jeep together, Brian had told her what had happened.

Mel had kept her eyes on her lap as she described how Brian had maintained a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel the entire time he had explained what was going on.  It was after that painful conversation that he had asked her what Justin’s legal options were.  Brian had never considered that Justin might remain locked in his head; he had told Mel that he wanted to be able to present him with solid choices regarding his father when he came back.  Not if.  When. 

Mel had fallen silent after that, and when she eventually asked Justin if he had any questions that he wanted to ask, he had been unable to help himself.  He had asked her why she had turned away from him that ill-fated morning in the diner.  She had sighed before saying that she had thought long and hard about the answer to that question.  Unlike the others he had spoken to, she didn’t use not knowing about Sam as an excuse; she had simply wanted to give Justin a chance with Ethan – she had wanted him to know what it felt like to be loved openly by someone outside of their fucked up little family. 

Mel had managed to smile before speaking again; she had missed meeting up with Justin at the diner by mere minutes the second day after he had left Babylon.  The third day she had been in court all day and had been unable to get away.  The fourth day?  She had arrived at the diner, only to learn that Justin had quit mid-shift and that he had walked out.  She had tried calling him then, only to get his voicemail.  She had left him several messages, and then his cell had been disconnected.  Mere minutes… she had wanted to talk to him face-to-face, rather than over the phone.

To see the tears that rolled silently down her face had hurt him; hurt him enough that when Mel shifted on the couch to wipe those crystal drops away with an impatient hand, Justin had been helpless to do anything but cross the room and slide into the arms that she held open to him.  They had remained that way for some time; Mel had eventually lifted her head from Justin’s shoulder and had looked him in the eye before she apologized and asked him to forgive her. 

Justin had lost the battle with his own tears then; he had cried silently on her shoulder as Mel asked him that didn’t he know how special he was to her?  Didn’t he know that he was the one man she loved without reservation, and would do anything for without question?  She would be the first one standing there with a shovel if he needed help hiding his father’s body; she would have to offer him legal counsel as they dug a grave rather than in the comfort of her office, however.  That whispered confession had teased startled laughter out of Justin, and Mel had smiled up at him as she gently wiped away that tears that dampened his skin. 

She left that impromptu therapy session with Justin’s new cell number stored in her phone, and the feeling of his lips whispering his own hesitant apologies against her cheek.  The look she had shot him had told Justin that his apologies were unneeded, as did the gentle press of her lips against his forehead.  But when she whispered, ‘I love you,’ something that had been churning deep inside of him since she had entered Alex’s office stilled.  Mel had tilted her head back slightly so that they could look into each other’s eyes before she had repeated it firmly, in a voice that broke no argument.    

After Mel had left, he had thought long and hard about his options.  A few days later, he promised Alex that he would resume his therapy sessions, both those on his own, and those in the group, but he was going home.  He would see his nutritionist once a week for his weigh-ins, and he would continue to heal his body along with his mind.  But to heal his mind, he had to take back his life, and try to reassemble it on his own. 

He had to return to school and he had to look for a new job; working nights lined his pockets, but they also left him with too much time on his hands between customers, and that was dangerous to the life he was trying to rebuild.  It left him alone with his thoughts, and while those thoughts were a lot more stable due to the cocktail of drugs he was on, he didn’t want to risk backsliding into the pit he had clawed his way out of.  

Alex had made him promise that he would call him every day, and Justin had shown sheer fortitude when he had said that he would do him one better – if Alex was willing to work around his hours, he’d continue his daily therapy for the next month to prove that he was getting better.  He would check in with the man by phone if they were unable to meet up, and he would start writing the daily log about his emotions that Alex had been asking him to write for at least the past six months.

Justin paused as that stray thought ran though his mind like a strung-out crystal addict.  Six months… he had been living with this for nearly six months.  He had been living without… Justin shook his head to clear it, but the thought still slithered across his brain.  He’d been living without Brian for six months.  And the pain of leaving him was still as fresh as it had been all those months ago.  It was like someone had dragged a blunt knife through his heart, and it had left behind a jagged wound that continued to bleed.               

Shaking his head as he came out of his memories, Justin headed into the bathroom to collect his toiletries.  He picked up his deodorant and then paused; looking at himself in the mirror, Justin took a steadying breath.  While he had no recollection of the time he had lost, what he did have was friends.  Ethan and Daphne had told him what Brian had done while he had been lost in the darkness of his mind.  The man had fed him and washed him; had read aloud to him nightly before putting him to bed.  Justin didn’t like how that knowledge made him feel – while Brian hadn’t treated him like he was a child who needed looking after, Justin was left feeling like one, and that wasn’t a feeling he appreciated. 

Turning away from the bathroom with an unhappy sound, Justin crossed the room to tuck his things into his bag.  That was part of the reason he needed to take back the control of his life; he had never felt like an equal when he was living with Brian, and the shift in what remained of whatever the fuck they had unsettled him.  Brian had said many times that he wanted to be friends with him, but you don’t fuck your friends.  You don’t kiss them, or hold them, even though that was what he did with Daphne, Ethan, and Sam.  Honesty… he had promised Alex honesty.  So how was he supposed to be friends with Brian when he was still in love with him?

It hurt to be around him; to look at the man he loved with every fiber of his being and know that Brian didn’t want that type of relationship with him.  Oh, Brian wanted his ass; he just didn’t want the love that Justin had so freely offered him.  Zipping his bag shut, he took another deep breath.  As he slowly exhaled, Justin nodded slightly.  To get better – to really get better – he would have to try to reconstruct the rest of his life.  If that meant being friends with Brian, then he would take the love he felt for the man, and he would bury it the way he had buried his pain.  He would hide it away until it faded.  It was the only way he would survive watching Brian get on with his life, while he was still reeling from the pain of what he had lost.

Justin had known they were ending long before Babylon and Rage.  He had told Alex that he had no longer been able to make Brian happy, and that was the truth.  Finding wet cum stains on the sheets had told him all he’d needed to know; he couldn’t keep Brian satisfied.  It was why he had taken to facing away from Brian during sex in the last few weeks he had lived with him.  His face had been an open book, and he had had to learn how to hide the love that Brian had so openly scorned.

Brian had said that he hadn’t known about Sam, but all that did was tell him that Brian had been looking for any kind of excuse to end their… whatever it was, and Michael had cheerfully handed it to him on a silver platter when he had seen him with Ethan.  Brian hadn’t respected him enough to ask him what was going on – he had taken Michael’s word over any defense that he might have launched, and that had it been it.  They were done.  Over.  And from what Justin had heard, he had barely walked out of Babylon before Brian had gone back to the way things had been before he had met him. 

He couldn’t have torn Justin’s heart out any more effectively than he did when he had fucked Rage.  If the multiple tricks weren’t message enough; if pissing all over his art wasn’t message enough… if stomping all over any offer of love that Justin had once offered him wasn’t message enough, then Justin didn’t know what else was.  It was his own fault; everyone had warned him, Brian included, that the man didn’t do love or relationships.  He believed in fucking.  He hadn’t believed in Justin.  He might have cared about Justin on some level, but he hadn’t loved him.   

Picking his jacket up, Justin slowly pulled it on as he chewed the edge of his lip.  He’d become an expert at hiding the love he felt for Brian, and he would continue to do so as he sorted his life out.  Sam had been right; perhaps leaving Pittsburgh was something that he should do.  He could start over somewhere else; he could be Justin Taylor, instead of the twink who lived.  He could learn who Justin Taylor was, without the stigma of being Brian Kinney’s fuck toy following him around. 

He would learn to live again.  Maybe one day he would find a man who would give him respect; he wouldn’t ask for that man’s love, not when he knew that he’d love Brian for the rest of his life.  But maybe he could learn to be content.  Happy, even.  He would never give his heart away again, however.  That useless organ would be tucked away behind an impenetrable wall, because one thing being with Brian had taught him was that love didn’t exist.  Not the type of love Justin had dreamed about when he was a kid.  Not the kind of love he had wished for every night before he closed his eyes.  Not the kind of love he had wanted from Brian.   

It wasn’t Brian’s fault that he had been such a dreamy-eyed schoolboy; that boy, however, was dead now.  He had been dying since the whisper of a bat swinging through the air had foretold his demise in that darkened garage.  He had taken his last gasping breaths when Justin had swallowed the sleeping pills in his hand after realizing that he would never be enough to make Brian happy.  He had finally died, when Justin had opened his eyes in this very room and realized that he had failed in trying to make his pain stop, just like he had failed in so many other areas of his life.

Justin picked his bag up and glanced around the room before he nodded again.  That was what he would do; he would get better.  Stronger.  He would find out about a transfer while he finished out his final months at school, and then he would leave.  New York.  California.  Fucking Timbuktu.  Anywhere had to be better than here, where he was haunted by just how fucked up his life was.  He would be, God help him, Brian’s friend; he owed the man that much.  But when Brian learned that he didn’t have anything else to offer him… when he realized that Justin was no longer the pretty, little twink who bent over for him like a trained fucking monkey – then maybe Brian would finally give up the notion that they could be friends and let him go.           

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Brian leaned against the hood of the jeep and balanced a cigarette between his teeth; he patted his pockets as he searched for his lighter, grunting when he finally found it and was able to light his cigarette.  It was amazing what could be carried out in three hours.  Alex’s first phone call had been to Daphne.  His second had been to Brian.  And within twenty minutes of Justin declaring that he was checking himself out of the unit, an emergency meeting of the people in his life had taken place at the diner.  Roles were handed out in quick succession by Alex via phone; while he couldn’t keep Justin in the hospital, he could and did micromanage everything about the boy’s release down to the minute.

Plans were put in place, with contingencies should any of those plans fail.  Brian smiled grimly as the memory of telling an unconscious Justin in Alex’s office that he didn’t know what stalking was rose in his mind; the blond wouldn’t be able to turn around without tripping over one of them.  His smile faded slightly, though, as he recalled Daphne asking him for a lift home at the end of that meeting and the look that had passed between her and Ethan before the musician had slid into his boyfriend’s car with a grin and a shake of his curly head. 

The conversation they had had on the trip to Daphne’s had reminded Brian that he was still very much on Daphne’s shit list and would remain there, despite her willingness to work with him.  While she hadn’t raised her voice, the ice that had spilled from her lips had damn near frozen his balls off.  She had spoken plainly; she didn’t trust him, and she wished that Justin had never met him.  But if working with him meant that Justin got better, then she was willing to play nicely with him.

Brian had snarled when he had asked her when she had become Justin’s warden, and Daphne had smiled sweetly before saying that it was the day that Justin had tried killing himself.  It was when she had been forced to make the decision to have Justin locked in the unit for three weeks, and had had to sign the paperwork, while hoping that he would fucking survive trying to kill himself.  It was while she had sat there and listened as Justin tore himself apart and blamed himself for everything that had gone so wrong in his relationship with Brian.  It was as she searched the eyes of the boy she knew better than anyone and found herself staring into the eyes of a stranger.

That had caused any rebuttal that Brian might have tried to make wither under the truth of her words.  Daphne had smiled coldly, before she spoke again. 

“I’m not the sweet, little schoolgirl who you told was hot at her Prom, Brian.  I’m the one who had to pick up the pieces when you threw Justin off your stupid fucking cliff, because you were too scared to tell him that you cared about him.  I know you… I was there, remember?  And unless you can be the man that you showed to Justin that night, don’t bother trying to work things out with him.  You’ve already broken his heart once.  I don’t trust that you won’t break it again.”

Inhaling deeply, Brian blew out a steady stream of smoke as he recalled what Daphne had said to him.  Everyone else had said that thy didn’t blame him, but Brian knew, deep inside, that Daphne did blame him, at least partially, for what Justin had tried to do.  Jennifer had told him that Justin had grown up with a lack of indifference shown to him by his father; when he had mentioned it to Alex, he had murmured that things were suddenly a lot clearer to him now. 

When Brian had asked what he meant, Alex had shrugged slightly before saying that Justin wasn’t only suffering from touch deprivation.  He had also been deprived of love for most of his life, and it was no wonder he now questioned why his friends wanted to be there for him.  At the puzzled look Brian gave him, Alex had explained that psychological abuse left deeper scars than the ones left behind by fists, and that it was no wonder Justin needed actual words when his father’s actions had shown him nothing but disinterest.

Action vs words.  Cause and effect.  Brian sighed softly as he finished his cigarette and flicked the butt away; maybe if he swallowed a fucking thesaurus he’d be better equipped to learn how to express his own feelings, let alone the multitude of emotions that Justin evoked within him.  He didn’t like the fact that Justin had checked himself out of the unit; fear and doubt had sent his boy fleeing before he was truly ready, but unlike before, Brian now knew where to find him.  That was the only good thing to come out of that meeting; at least he now knew where Justin lived. 

And as he caught sight of the familiar head of blond hair threading his way through the cars towards the main road so he could catch the bus, Brian called out his name.  Justin stopped when he saw Brian; bewilderment spread across his face, and Brian forced his lips to curve into a small smile as he strolled towards the blond.  Plucking Justin’s bag out of his fingers, Brian peered at him over the top of his glasses briefly before he turned back towards the jeep.  He had taken a few steps before he glanced over his shoulder.  Justin was still standing where Brian had left him; uncertainty played across his face in crystal clarity, and Brian moistened his lips before he spoke lightly.

“Are you coming?”

Justin shook his head slightly before he finally followed Brian towards the jeep.  Placing the bag in the backseat, Brian waited until Justin had closed the door before he looked over at him.  Justin’s eyes were trained on his lap, and when Brian cleared his throat, Justin hesitantly looked towards him.

“Seatbelt, Sunshine,” Brian said gently, and Justin nodded as he tugged the belt into place.

Brian allowed the silence to linger between them as he pulled out of the parking lot and merged with the traffic.  Justin was picking at a hole on the inner thigh of his jeans, and Brian shifted in his seat when he continued to receive tantalizing glimpses of creamy skin.

“How…?”

Justin fell silent and his lips pressed together as Brian glanced towards him, and Brian laughed softly.

“How’d I know you were planning on a jailbreak?” he surmised wryly, and when Justin nodded, Brian revealed, “I believe you got all of three steps out of Alex’s office before he rang Daphne.”  Brian did a quick head check before changing lanes.  “Then he rang me.”

Justin snorted as he looked out the passenger window, but Brian could see the tension in his fingers as he continued to tug at the worn strands of denim that were stretched across his thigh.  Sighing softly, Brian dropped his cheerful attitude and spoke plainly.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this, Justin?” he asked quietly, and Justin shrugged.

“I’ll never know unless I try,” he mumbled as he raised his thumb to his mouth, and Brian fell silent.

Justin chewing on his thumbnail was a clear indicator that he was upset and unwilling to talk.  They completed the journey in silence, but when Brian pulled up outside Justin’s apartment building, he glanced at Brian with a raised eyebrow.  Brian felt the edge of his mouth lift into a crooked smile and he shrugged before he climbed out of the car and reached into the backseat for Justin’s bag.  But when Justin held his hand out, Brian merely lifted his own eyebrow before gesturing towards the front door of the apartment.

Justin took a few steps and then faltered as he looked back towards Brian, who felt his heart clench tightly when he realized why Justin was hesitating.  This was Justin’s home; the first place he had felt was his since his father had kicked him out of their home.  His safe place.  Walking towards him, Brian slipped his hand around the back of Justin’s neck and squeezed lightly.  Justin nibbled on the corner of his lip slightly before he finally turned and walked into the building without comment.

Brian kept his face carefully neutral as he followed Justin up to the fourth floor and down the dimly lit hallway.  He never commented on the fact that the color of the walls looked like cottage cheese, nor did he screw his face up as the smell of mildew teased his nose.  He was barely able to bite back the snarl that wanted to escape, however, when Justin took his keys out and he had to unlock three separate locks before the door to Apartment 4B opened. 

But his jaw did drop when he walked into the place Justin called home, and he swallowed as a fresh wave of pain washed over him when he recalled Jennifer telling him that Justin had never been allowed to display his art while he was living with Craig.  Justin had never shown his art at the loft, either; it had always been on his desk, or tucked safely into his portfolio.  Brian winced as he stared at the room.  The one time Justin had displayed his art, Brian had pissed all over it in a fit of jealousy and rage.

But here in this room, Justin’s art covered nearly every wall.  Two large paintings dominated the space, with sketches clustered together to depict vastly different scenes from those in the paintings.  The loft had always been a showcase of Brian’s expensive taste; a direct reflection of the man who lived there.  But the only time the loft had felt like a home was when Justin’s laughter had reverberated across the space.  Now it felt like a tomb; a place that echoed with memories and ghosts.   

Brian could see Justin in every inch of this room, however.  From the comfortable-looking couch, to the textured throw pillows and scented candles.  The room was an explosion of color and a melding of personalities; it was warm and inviting, and as Brian took in differences between here and the loft, he watched Justin kick his shoes off and then shrug out of his coat.  Tossing it over the end of the couch, Brian had to force himself to keep breathing upon hearing the simple, absolute truth in Justin’s next words:

“Daph?  I’m home.”

A squeal echoed down the corridor that ran off the living room, and Brian watched as Daphne bounced down the hallway and straight into Justin’s open arms.  Justin’s low laughter echoed as Daphne scattered kisses across his face before she glared at him mockingly, cupping his face in her hands in such a way that Justin’s lips pursed outwards into a pout.

“Give a girl a little more warning, okay?” she demanded as she dropped another kiss on his lips before slipping out of his arms and peering over at Brian.  He could see the doubt in her eyes until she took a deep breath and her expression softened as she nodded at him in greeting.

“Do you want a coffee?” she finally asked, and Brian managed to push his thoughts away and nod as he handed Justin’s bag to him when he reached for it.

Justin took it from him without comment, and then headed down the hallway that Daphne had come from.  Looking towards her, Brian watched as she opened a cupboard and took out a jar of coffee before he turned and followed the path that Justin had taken.  Stopping in front of an open door, Brian had to bite his tongue to stop the moan that wanted to spill from his lips.  Justin had dropped his bag onto the double bed that was shoved against one wall, and as Brian watched him he tossed his keys and wallet into a glazed bowl that sat on top of the stacked milk crates that served as his bedside table.

Justin unzipped his bag and started sorting through his clothes, and Brian bit his lip as Justin pulled clean socks out of his bag and tucked them into one of the crates.  His underwear went into the other one, and Brian managed to silently applaud the ingenuity of turning the two stacked crates into functioning furniture with nothing more than a piece of plywood sitting on top.  It was either applaud or scream.  And as Justin continued to unpack, Brian quickly ran his eyes over the rest of the cramped space.  A chest of drawers was pushed up against another wall, and Justin’s books for school were stacked haphazardly on top of the shabby surface.  His portfolio was resting against the wall near the window, which was covered with a thick blanket hung over a tension rod at the top. 

There was another stack of milk crates along the remaining wall; five crates high, and three crates wide, Justin had turned the gray plastic squares into a storage unit for his shoes and his art supplies.  The room was spartan; not a single Italian line in sight.  Yet everything in the room said that Justin had gotten the item by himself.  That when he had had nothing more to his name other than the clothes in his bag, he had taken the room and had turned it into his sanctuary.  A place that was just his; a place from which no one could banish him.

Backing away from the room silently, Brian returned to the main room; he took the mug that Daphne held out to him without comment and drifted towards the paintings.  Staring up at one of Daphne silently, Brian took in the details that Justin had worked into the painting; from the stethoscope that was tucked into her coat pocket, to the diploma that she grasped in her hand.  But when Daphne came to stand beside him, Brian tensed; her voice had warmed slightly, however, since the last time they had spoken as she sipped her own coffee and then gestured with the mug. 

“It took Justin nearly two months to paint that; he gave it to me for my birthday and told me that it was how he saw me.  The child he had known, and the adult that I would eventually become.  I told him that I was already an adult, but he disagreed.  He said that we were both a work in progress.  That nothing was set in stone, and that he was grateful for that, because the reality he currently found himself in sucked.  I asked him what he meant by that, and he said that he had grown up wanting nothing more than to be a computer animator.  Yet here he was in college, suffering through a painting class that he hated, because the adults in his life had decided that they knew what was best for him. 

“Painting like this?  It hurts him, trying to control the tremors in his hand long enough to add in the fine detail.  He wouldn’t get those tremors if he was working on a computer, but you can’t produce a physical painting on canvas that way.  He said that when he changed classes at the end of this year, he wouldn’t listen to the people in his life who lacked the talent to do what he does.  He told me he would stick to his convictions and focus on animation.”

Daphne took another sip of coffee and then glanced at Brian.

“The thing that I’ve always admired the most about Justin is that he knows who he is.  He’s not some empty-headed toy, who needs a man in his life to fulfill him.  What he needs is a partner who supports him unquestioningly.  One that won’t look at what they perceived to be the bigger picture, and then make decisions about his life based on what they think is best for him.  A partner that would tell him that he looked fucking fabulous, even if he decided that running around in a pink tutu meant furthering his education and career.”

“I DO support his art, Daphne,” Brian said in a low voice, trying not to take offense at her words.  

Daphne took another sip of her coffee before responding.  “I know; but tell me, Brian – what would you do if an article appeared in some art magazine, claiming that Justin could be the next Andy Warhol?  Would you respect him enough to decide what to do with that proclamation?  Or would you force his hand?”

Looking down at her, Brian’s confusion must have been clear, because Daphne smiled thinly.

“If he said that staying in the Pitts, surrounded by his family and friends was what he wanted, would you respect his opinion and his wishes?  Or would you force him out of your life and onto the first bus to New York, because you had decided that was the only place for talented artists to succeed?”

Brian’s lips parted slightly with a wheeze, and Daphne shook her head.

“Justin doesn’t need much, Brian.  What he does need, more than anything else, is respect.  Respect that he knows his own mind and can make his own decisions based on what he feels is best for him.  Be it his art or checking out of the unit…it must be his decision, Brian.  Not a manipulation or a humiliation designed to leave him with no choice.”

Daphne turned away from the painting, pausing slightly before she peered up at Brian.

“I don’t trust people easily when it comes to Justin, Brian; don’t make me regret giving you this chance.  Don’t make me regret listening to Ethan when he said you deserved another opportunity to make things right.  Because if you fuck it up again?  I’ll spend the rest of my life making sure that you regret it, too.”

Brian nodded with wide eyes as Daphne gave him a closed-lip smile and slipped into the kitchen.  Brian looked back up at the painting.  Staring at it, he almost flinched when Justin appeared by his side.  Glancing down at him, Brian licked his dry lips before he spoke.

“What now, Sunshine?”

Justin remained silent as Brian continued to look at him before he finally sighed.

“I want to look at the newspapers and online for a new job.”

A germ of an idea formed, and as Justin shoved his hand through his hair, Brian gestured back towards the painting.

“Have you thought about interning?”

When Justin glanced back up at him, Brian swallowed hard and then spoke quickly.

“I know you want to do animation; if you looked into an internship with, say… an ad agency, you could put that practical experience towards credits with your education.  The pay’s not great, but it would at least give you some form of money, and if you freelanced as well, that could cushion the monetary loss.” 

Justin nodded slowly, and when he looked back up at Brian, a small smile crossed his lips.  But even as those lips curved, Brian could see that it didn’t reach Justin’s eyes.

“So, this is you being my friend…and friends help each other…don’t they?”

Brian nodded warily, and when Justin smiled again, Brian let out an unsteady breath as Justin looked up at the painting he had done.

“That’s a clever idea, Brian.  Thanks.  I’ll look into it.”

It wouldn’t be until later that Brian realized that the idea of being friends with him had hurt Justin; and perhaps he was reading too much into it, but the thought that Justin might still want more than just his friendship gave him hope.  He would talk to Gardner; hopefully, he’d be able to show Justin that having him in his life was a good thing; that if Justin could let go of his reservations and trust him, that it was a step forward in the right direction to sorting out the tattered remains of their relationship.