Chapter 28

“Thank you for doing this, Mother Taylor,” Brian said sincerely as he moved towards the front door, ready to leave. He had just delivered Gus and Luke to Jennifer's house where they would spend the afternoon with her. Following Dr. Heyman's instructions, Brian had arranged for Jennifer to spend a couple of hours with Gus and he would be at Kinnetik, close enough to quickly come over if this didn't work and Gus would throw a tantrum. So far it didn't look like it though, Gus seemed happy enough to spend a couple of hours with Jennifer and when Brian had told him earlier that he needed to go to Kinnetik since there had been an emergency the boy had asked at first if he could come as well, but when Brian had explained that unfortunately, it was a serious emergency and no place for a kid, he had just nodded quickly.

As soon as Brian had mentioned that Grandma Jennifer had offered to watch Gus and his smaller brother, Gus had cheered up however. He liked his grandma and he liked her place. She always had fresh cookies and cakes and she always told funny stories about his daddy. He liked spending time with her.

Brian had promised that he wouldn't be gone longer than three hours and that he would be back in time for all of them to have dinner together, a prospect which had also cheered up the small boy. In the end Gus had just hugged Brian tight and had whispered. “3 hours, Daddy?”

“Yes, I'll be back in three hours. I promise!”

The boy had then nodded bravely and moved away to join Luke who was busily playing with one of his toys on Jennifer's living-room floor.

“You're welcome, Brian. And don't worry. He'll be fine. It's only three hours,” she said, giving him a gentle look. She wondered if maybe Brian didn't have a harder time than Gus at that moment.

“You'll call if...,” Brian was interrupted by her gentle, yet amused smile.

“I'll call if he's not okay, Brian. I promise. But I am sure he'll be fine. We'll paint a bit and then we'll start dinner preparations. We'll be so busy, he'll have no time to miss you.”

“If you say so,” Brian said doubtfully and once again Jennifer was amazed by how much he looked like Gus and how much Gus looked like him.

“You go or this whole exercise will be pointless anyway,” Jennifer gently pushed him out the door and closed the door firmly when she saw that he didn't make a move to get to his car. Yes, Brian definitely had the harder time here, she smiled to herself as she saw Gus and Luke happily playing together on her living-room floor.

Three hours later Brian appeared back at Jennifer's place, arriving right on the dot at the time they had agreed on. Brian would never admit to her that in the end Ted had kicked him out of Kinnetik, claiming that Brian was driving him and everyone else crazy and that if he wasn't about to get any work done, he should better leave than annoy the hell out of his staff. Surprised by Ted's braveness, Brian had in the end followed his friend's advice and had tried to get some shopping done. He had gone to his favourite menswear store in Pittsburgh and had spent a fortune on the new Armani collection, which he was happy to notice fit like a glove. Thankfully running after two young kids had made him lose all his weight from his pregnancy and the strict training regiment that he kept at home made sure he stayed as lean and fit as he had always been.

Now, several thousand dollars poorer and his car filled with about seven shopping bags, he was ready to see how his son had fared in his absence.

“Daddy!” A happy voice exclaimed in obvious excitement when the door was opened by Gus, who was followed by an equally happy and excited Luke, who was calling out for his “Dada” as well as loudly as he could.

“Hey there, sonny boys. Did you miss me?” Brian smiled at the loud welcome and hugged both his sons close, before he picked up Luke and blew a raspberry on his cheek and then ruffled Gus' hair who leaned happily into him.

“Yes, Daddy,” Gus replied, smiling up at his father.

“Are you alright, sonny boy?” Brian asked, looking at his son for any signs of discomfort.

“We made dinner. Grandma Jen said she selected something extra healthy for you, so you would eat as well and wouldn't complain the whole time about our food,” he happily informed his father and when Brian saw that there was nothing amiss with his son and he really seemed fine, a weight was lifted from his shoulders.

He chuckled at that, not having any doubt that Mother Taylor would say something like that. She had been on his case for years now claiming he was too thin and needed to eat more. If only she knew how much hard work it was to keep his body in the shape it was. Unfortunately he had had to accept that he was just like any men and aged like any of them and that any unhealthy food he consumed now took twice as long to get rid off as it did five years ago.

“What are you having then?”

“Lasagna,” Gus announced happily and Brian couldn't help but inwardly groan. At times he wondered if Gus even knew that there were also other foods besides Lasagna and Chicken Nuggets. If his son had his way, he would eat Lasagna every day of the week, maybe alternating with Chicken Nuggets every once in a while. Gus clearly hadn't gotten his taste from Brian, that much was obvious to the man.

“Lalana,” Luke babbled and Brian turned to the toddler in his arms with a warm smile.

“So you're excited about the Lasagna as well? You're all traitors,” Brian laughed when both his sons laughed at his antics.

Together they moved into the kitchen where Jennifer had just gotten the Lasagna out of the oven and Brian was happy to see that Gus had been right and there was also a Chicken Breast salad for him.

“Were you able to take care of the emergency at Kinnetik?” Jennifer asked with a smirk and Brian just groaned when he realised someone had to have told her of his behaviour at Kinnetik.

“Who?” he just asked, his voice resigned.

“Ted,” she said quietly, as they all sat down. “He wanted to warn me that you might not last till the appointed time.”

“Of course I did, what do you think of me?” Brian asked indignantly and only blushed slightly when Jennifer asked him how expensive it had been to fix the 'mistake' at Kinnetik.

“Too expensive,” he sighed, in the end accepting that maybe his friends and Jennifer knew him too well and knew him better than he'd like to admit.

They all enjoyed dinner and conversation flowed freely with Gus and Luke entertaining the adults with their tales of what they had done that afternoon at their grandma's house.

“So, I can see that you all had a good time, huh?” Brian asked, feeling happy that Gus had fared better than he had expected.

“Yes, Daddy, we had lots of fun,” Gus nodded, happily eating his dessert.

“Yeah, Dada,” Luke agreed as well, smearing his dessert all over his face instead of eating it or at least it seemed that way to Brian.

“I enjoyed our afternoon as well,” Jennifer announced, smiling at the happy faces around her dining table. “And I was actually thinking, maybe we could make this into a kind of regular thing,” she suggested quietly, trying to gauge Brian's reaction.

“A regular thing?”

She wasn't surprised that his voice sounded more than doubtful. “Well, we all had a lot of fun and it always takes me quite some time to drive out to Britin. I was thinking maybe we could make this like a weekly thing where you boys come and visit me and spend some time here, while Daddy does some work at the office, making sure no more mistakes and emergencies like today happen,” she suggested to everyone at the table.

“Can we, Daddy?” Gus asked from wide eyes.

“Would you want to, sonny boy?” Brian asked, eyeing his son closely.

“We had lots of fun and I would like to do this again. If you have to go and work, I'd like to spend time with Grandma Jen,” the boy said seriously.

“What about you, sonny boy? Would you love to visit your grandma more often?” Brian asked Luke, who was still smearing his dessert all over his face.

The small boy looked at his father from big, blue eyes and frowned. “Gamma Jen?”

“Yeah, would you like and come visit Grandma Jen more often?”

“Luv Gamma Jen,” Luke announced happily, clapping his dessert covered hands together in obvious glee.

“Well, I guess you got yourself some guests for next week as well, Mother Taylor,” Brian announced finally, happy that Gus seemed to be that open to the idea. He wondered what Dr. Heyman would say if he found out that Gus had so eagerly agreed to repeat his stay with his grandmother.

“Maybe next week we can go to the park together and collect some sticks for our little art project,” Jennifer said to the boys at her table, who both looked excited.

“Art project?” Brian dared to ask.

“We were talking earlier and noticed that there is a distinct lack of Christmas decorations at my place. So Gus suggested that we make some ourselves and when we did some research online, we got some ideas involving sticks that have fallen from trees. That should keep us quite busy next week.”

Brian only nodded, wondering if Jennifer really felt half as excited about this art project as she sounded or if she just pretended to for the sake of Gus and Luke. He only knew too well about the things he would do to keep those two boys happy and he had no doubt that it was the same for Jennifer. He couldn't wait to see her pristine home covered in self-made art involving sticks from the park. That was for sure.

***

Within just a couple of weeks the weekly visit to Jennifer's place had become a regular thing for the Kinney family and every Tuesday the boys would spend a couple of hours with their grandmother, giving Brian some time to focus on Kinnetik and work.

After two visits, it had become obvious that the boys were fine with Jennifer and were kept so busy by their grandma that they hardly had time to miss Brian. A couple of Tuesday's into their visits, Jennifer had suggested that she could keep her Tuesday's free completely and would be able to watch Luke all day long. If Brian wanted, he could take Gus to school and could then head into Pittsburgh. Jennifer would watch Luke for the day while Brian was able to spend a whole day at Kinnetik taking care of his businesses. Jennifer would then pick up Gus from school and spend the rest of the day with her grandsons before Brian joined them for dinner in the evening.

At first Brian had been reluctant to agree and it had needed a good talking to from Jennifer as well as Ted to make Brian see that he wouldn't be a bad father just because he allowed his sons to spend one day a week with their grandmother so he could focus on his businesses. Ted even pointed out that it might be good for both boys as well as Brian to be able to spend some time apart. Ted reminded him that many children grew up with working parents and weren't as lucky as Gus and Luke had been where one parent could stay at home all week and he also pointed out that it might be nice for Brian to actually spend some time with adults every once in a while instead of just spending all his time with his boys.

Brian hadn't been convinced of either Jennifer's or Ted's arguments, but in the end agreed to try out for a week or two if Jennifer's proposal was working. Kinnetik was in the middle of the post-holiday season, preparing for all the big spring and Super Bowl adverts and Brian knew that it would be good of he could focus on work for a couple of hours on end without any interruptions and rationally he knew that it didn't make him a bad parent if he went into the office for one day a week, yet emotionally it was a lot harder for him to accept that he was leaving his sons in someone else's care, even if it was their grandmother, instead of taking care of them himself. And why? So he could work? No, that didn't seem like a good enough reason, but well... what choice did he have if Jennifer and Ted and in the end Cynthia as well were all on his case?

After the first two weeks, Brian had to admit to himself that Jennifer, Ted and Cynthia had been right. He had missed his work and he had missed the atmosphere of being in Kinnetik's busy offices, seeing the creative minds of his staff work together, bringing ideas to life and seeing the finished result. It had been a good feeling to sit behind his desk again, to be present for the staff meeting instead of just joining via video call and after the first two weeks Brian had realised that he had also missed spending time with adults. As much as he loved being with Gus and Luke and as much as he adored his sons, it felt good to have professional, adult conversations at least for a while.

Gus and Luke had been quite happy about the change as well. Both boys adored their grandmother and loved going to her house on Tuesday's. Jennifer always prepared something special for them to do and actually did all the things with the boys that Brian had no patience for, like making decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas or helping the boys prepare Christmas presents for their Uncles Teddy and Blake.

In the end the weekly Tuesday visits had turned out to be a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Dr. Heyman had been more than happy about the progress Gus had made in recent weeks and by now it had almost been three months since Gus had last wet his bed. He had told Brian that he was pretty sure that now that Gus had made it through the Christmas season alright, they would be able to cut down his sessions to twice a month instead of weekly as they were now. Brian had been happy to hear that and had been ecstatic for his son.

The Tuesday visits had also helped him himself in more ways than one. They allowed Brian to take care of some personal business as well. Knowing that he would be at Kinnetik every week on the same day, Brian had been able to set up an appointment with his favourite escort service and got a nice lunch break visit once a week that took care of some of his more pressing matters. He would never trick at home or with his boys present, but at work, he knew that his staff was used to way worse from him and sometimes an executive bathroom came in really handy.

Tuesdays had also turned into a special day for Brian for another reason. After his conversation with Dr. Heyman about seeing a therapist himself, Brian had been quite reluctant at first. He had no patience for therapists and he didn't believe in talking about his feelings with a stranger. Or so he had thought. But the more he had thought about what Dr. Heyman had said, the more he had known that the man was right. And hadn't Brian seen himself how much good the sessions had done Gus? How Gus had improved so much in just a few short months?

Brian would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that he had issues. Damn, with the way he had been raised it was no surprise that he was plagued by issues. He had always known it, but had rather chosen to ignore those issues and to hide behind the walls and image he had created for himself. The fact that he had lost the love of his life and his two best friends as well as the person who he had thought of as a second mother over the course of the last year hadn't really helped to improve his mental state a lot. In true Brian Kinney fashion, Brian had tried to ignore the feelings of pain and hurt that gnawed at his heart, but now, with Gus and Luke he couldn't go back to his normal methods with which he normally dealt with pain. He just couldn't drink himself into a stupor with two small boys depending on him, just like he couldn't take drugs to forget all the shit going on. That would only make him like his father and if there was one person Brian never wanted to be like, it was Jack Kinney.

Running out of ways to cope with his pain, Brian knew that he was only left with very few options, most of which included dealing with his pain and facing it, something he normally avoided to do at all costs.

He had thought long and hard about what to do and how to cope with all the things going on in his life if he couldn't fall back into his old coping mechanisms and in the end he had known that he owed it to the two small boys sleeping upstairs in their room that he found a way to work through his pain. It didn't seem fair that one day they might suffer for something that wasn't their fault at all.

So in the end Brian had done the unthinkable. Brian Kinney had gotten an appointment with a therapist to actually work through his feelings.

At first Brian had hated every second of every session, but slowly he had seen how talking about his problems and the going ons in his life helped him. Just like he had seen with Gus, he could see with himself how he became calmer and more at peace with his life and the decisions he had made for his life.

The therapy sessions had made him see and understand a lot of things about himself, a lot of things Justin had always said to him, but he had always pushed aside because he hadn't been ready to admit the truth to himself. The sessions had helped him see how much damage his parents had really done to him and how they had destroyed his whole belief in love and commitment. How he had built up walls around his heart to protect himself from any pain he was sure would be coming his way and how he would rather push people away than let them into his heart to avoid giving them a chance to hurt him like his parents had hurt him. A lot of those realisations had been pretty painful, but once Brian had seen the truth for what it was, it had given him some inner peace and clarity and he had been able to look at his life differently.

So now his Tuesdays consisted of taking Gus to school, then dropping off Luke at Jennifer's house, before he went to his weekly appointment with his therapist. He would then go to Kinnetik for a couple of hours of work before his lunch time visitor would show up. In the afternoon he would do some more work before he went to Jennifer's to have dinner with his sons and their grandmother. For the last six weeks that had been his usual Tuesday itinerary and Brian was surprised by how well it seemed to work out for everyone involved. Jennifer was happy to get to spend more time with her grandsons, Ted and Cynthia were happy to have Brian at the office to take care of some things directly, Gus and Luke were happy to spend time with their grandmother and to do all the nice things she prepared for them on a weekly basis and Brian was happy to spend some hours at work as well as having his weekly lunch delight. At this point he didn't even mind the therapy sessions anymore, as he could see how they helped him and made him feel better about himself.

In true Kinney fashion, Brian hadn't told anyone about going to therapy himself though. As far as he was concerned that was his business and nobody else's and he didn't feel like sharing the news with anyone. Not even Ted or Jennifer. Though he had known from the very beginning of course that it would only be a matter of time before Ted would find out. After all Ted was his personal accountant and would see the bills for the therapy sessions. Brian had just trusted that Ted would keep his mouth shut and wouldn't make that knowledge widely known and Ted's reaction when he had found out had surprised Brian in more ways than one.

“Brian, do you have a minute?” Ted asked as he came into Brian's office with a frown on his face.

“What is it, Ted? I am getting ready for my lunch break,” Brian said in a slightly bored voice.

“And I know better than to interrupt that, so that's why I decided to come in now.”

“Out with it, Schmidt. What is it?”

“I have just gone over your latest account statements and there are some weird bills I can't place,” Ted announced as he handed Brian the spreadsheet he had been holding.

Brian sighed, having known that this moment would come. He didn't need to look at the spreadsheet to know that Ted was talking about the payments to his therapist. Ted knew the name of Gus' therapist and would definitely know that this payment went to another therapist.

“What do you want me to say, Theodore?” Brian asked, his voice only slightly annoyed.

“I just want you to confirm that these payments are correct. That's it,” Ted replied matter-of-factly as he looked at Brian.

“They are,” Brian affirmed, then handed Ted the spreadsheet back.

“Good, that's all I needed to know. Enjoy your lunch break, boss,” Ted winked as he made his way to the door of Brian's office.

“Wait a moment, Schmidt,” Brian drawled. “That's it?”

“Yes, I just wanted to confirm that these payments are correct. Otherwise I would have contacted the bank to investigate.”

“Cut the crap, Theodore. I know that you've done your research and I am sure you know where those payments are going to.”

“Of course,” Ted nodded, looking at Brian in confusion.

“So where are the biting remarks? The comments? The questions?” Brian asked, now being the confused one in the room.

“Brian,” Ted began, his voice serious as he spoke. “That is none of my business. It is your business and if you want to talk about it, I am sure you will. If you don't, it's not my place to make you talk.”

“That's it?”

“Yes, that's it,” Ted affirmed, looking at Brian closely. “Why? What do you want me to say about this?”

“It's not what I want you to say about this, more what I expected you to say about this,” Brian admitted quietly.

“Okay, what did you expect me to say about this?” Ted asked instead, moving closer to Brian's desk and looking at his friend closely.

“I don't know, something. The mighty Brian Kinney going to therapy. I am sure there's a lot you could say,” Brian snarked.

“Brian,” Ted said quietly as he sat down opposite Brian. “I am not Michael or Lindsay.”

“I know you're not,” Brian hissed, glaring at Ted for even mentioning their names.

“I am not sure you really do. I know how they defined the term friendship and how to them it meant that they needed to know about every small aspect of your life and needed to let you know whenever they thought you didn't live up to their image, but that's not me. I am your friend, Brian, but I am not a friend like they were. I'd like to consider myself a real friend. You want me to say something about this? Fine,” Ted said before he cleared his throat.

“I remember a conversation with you about three years ago in this very office where you told me about your childhood and your parents and how you had lost the two most important people in your life because you couldn't form long-term commited relationships. I have been part of the Family long enough to hear enough from Debbie and Michael to get an idea what your younger years have been like. Do I think you have issues? Absolutely! Do I think you should get help for them? Absolutely! Why do I think so? Hell, I don't know. Maybe because I have been there myself and because I know that sharing can actually help you get better. Maybe because I have learned in rehab that talking can help you move past a lot of things. Maybe because you are my friend and I want you to be okay and do fine. I really don't know, but what I know is that all these years and even now it's none of my business. It's your life, Brian. If you want to try and talk to a professional and want to try to fix your issues, I hope that you know that I am your friend and will be here whenever you need someone to talk to or whenever you feel in need of some support. But other than that, it's just not my place to tell you what to do, Brian. It's your life and you're an adult and might I say so, a damn fine specimen of a human being. I know you don't like hearing it, but you're a good man, Brian. I've seen over the years how much you've given to others, how much you've done for me. In the last year and a half I've seen you change your whole life for Gus and Luke and become a great father to them. You might not like to hear it, Brian, but you're a good person and I for one am proud to call myself your friend. So, if you feel like you want to talk to a professional, I will still be your friend and will admire you for taking that step, a step that I know myself is incredibly hard. But really? Anything else is not my business, Brian, unless you want it to be,” Ted finished seriously, before he got up from his seat and moved to the door.

“Thank you, Ted. I... I appreciate it,” Brian said in a voice hardly above a whisper, but yet Ted had heard him and nodded gently at his friend. He knew how much it had cost Brian to say those words and he didn't want to make a bigger deal out of them than necessary.

“That's what I am here for,” Ted smiled sincerely and then opened Brian's office door. “I think your lunch is here,” he winked before he stepped aside to let the young man into Brian's office and went to get his own lunch which he was sure would be slightly less exciting than Brian's lunch date.

Ever since, Ted had never mentioned anything about Brian's therapy sessions again and for that Brian had been grateful. It had taken him some time to accept that Ted's friendship worked differently from what he had been used to from Michael and Lindsay and that Ted's friendship at times reminded him of how Justin had treated him. Justin had been the same, he had allowed Brian his freedom to make his own choices and he had never made a big deal out of things he knew were making Brian uncomfortable. Maybe that was why he appreciated Ted's friendship so much, because Ted, much like Justin, always gave him the right to make his own decisions and didn't try to push Brian in one direction or the other and unlike Michael and Lindsay Ted respected boundaries and respected Brian's privacy. Whatever it was, Brian knew that he was incredibly grateful to have Ted as a friend and he wondered if he could ever pay the man back for all he had done for him over the last couple of years.