I can count on one hand the number of times Brian Kinney has called me, and one finger if we don't count the times he was drunk and meant to call someone else.

Notes:

Skype wouldn't have actually existed at this point, especially not for phones, but idk maybe when Justin lost his hearing Brian invested in it or something. Just go with it.

I can count on one hand the number of times Brian Kinney has called me, and one finger if we don't count the times he was drunk and meant to call someone else, but my phone rang one day in August and there was his name across my display. God knows why I even have his number saved. Pretty sure it would take zero fingers to count how many times I've called him. Brian just...shows up. Whether you want him to or not, there he is, like a nice little herpes flare up.

“Honeycutt!” he said, like he was surprised it was me, though I doubted even he'd be drunk at ten AM on a Tuesday. “How's life at the...I don't know what you do nowadays.”

“Charming, Kinney. Can I help you with something?”

“You can meet for lunch a the diner in...two hours. An hour and fifty minutes. Your pick.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you'll probably fucking be there anyway,” he said. “Where the fuck else do we ever eat in this town?”

Brian was antsy at lunch, pulling out the charm with Deb, ordering more food than I'll see him eat in a week, tapping his fingernails on the table. He cleared his throat when she walked away with our order and balanced the salt shaker on top of the pepper shaker before folding his hands on the table and looking at me with uncharacteristic seriousness. “I never thanked you,” he said.

I nodded. “I figured that's what this was.” 

A few weeks earlier, Justin had been in a bit of a situation at Babylon. One minute, I was dancing with Justin's adorable friend whose name I don't think I've ever been told, and the next, Todd was in my ear telling me Justin was in some trouble in the back room. I don't know what I expected to see when I got back there—honestly, I was probably thinking he'd OD'd, knowing the way he loves E—but it was definitely not Justin with his pants down, his arms flailing, some beefy motherfucker's hands around our kid's neck.

Luckily, you don't grow up gay in Mississippi without learning how to throw a punch or two. 

The guy weighed twice what I do, thank you very much, but I had the element of surprise and, by that point, a whole alleyfull of angry queers on my side, so we got Justin out of there without too much more of a fuss, and he promised me he was all right. His friend insisted on bringing him back to the loft alone, so I sat at home and...waited for a call from Brian, if I'm honest. Justin texted me the next morning—he can't call, naturally, hasn't been able to hear a thing for almost two years now—but nary a word from Brian.

Brian stacked the coffee creamers. “Honestly? It felt...feels...I don't know, gauche?” He rolled his eyes a little. “To thank you for saving him, like he's something expensive I dropped that you caught before it hit the ground.”

“Well, you have pumped plenty of money into the boy,” I said. 

He gave me a look.

“I understand,” I said. “It's not your place to thank me. He's not yours.”

Brian nodded shortly.

“I'm still going to assume you're paying for this lunch.”

“And here I thought the party planning was going swimmingly,” he said. Ha! I knew he knew what I did. 

“And the first rule of a good business is, you never say no to a free lunch.”

“Fair enough.” Brian sipped his coffee, made a face, set it aside. “Anyway, that's not why I asked you here. I have a proposition for you.”

I batted my eyelashes. “Why, Mr. Kinney.”

He held his hand up. “Don't start.”

“Please. They'd have to clear every queer out of Pennsylvania before I'd come near that thing. With a pair of rubber gloves.”

“Kinky,” Brian said pleasantly. “Listen. I have to go out of town for three nights next week...it's business, it's out in LA, and Justin found out the hard way he gets extremely airsick now with his condition...something with his equilibrium or whatever, but he's not interested in coming.” He looked up at me expectantly.

I said, “So, you want me to...what, give him a ride somewhere?”

“He can drive.”

“Pick up his groceries?”

“He can shop.”

“Fine, what can't he do, suck his cock?”

Brian stuck his tongue in his cheek. “Actually...”

“Huh.”

“Indeed.”

“I assume you don't want me to suck your husband's cock,” I said.

Brian made a face, waved me away. “Why the fuck do people keep calling him my husband?”

“Because you marrying him is the worst kept secret in Pittsburgh. It's worse than Ryan Major's nose job.”

“Hmm,” Brian said, considering. “That's a bad nose job.”

“I'm saying.”

“Regardless,” Brian said, “I don't want you to suck anyone's cock.”

“Well,” I scoffed. “Just for that—” 

He laughed, actually laughed! “I want you to stay at the loft with him while I'm gone,” he said. “He's still a little shaky about being on his own at night, and we haven't gotten lights for the alarm system yet, and...and frankly, I'd feel better too if there were someone there.”

Huh. Stay at Brian's loft.

Speaking of counting things on one hand...how many times had I even been inside that loft? Never mind sleeping there...

“Not in my bed,” Brian said firmly. 

“Please. My body's not touching any of your sheets without—” 

“—rubber gloves. I know.”

I hesitated. “You know my signing's not fantastic.”

“It's not bad,” Brian said, which is high praise, from him.

“Michael's is better.”

Brian shrugged.

“And Michael's your best friend.”

Another shrug.

“And Michael would be champing at the bit to role play as you for a few nights.”

“Justin,” Brian said simply. “Didn't ask for Michael.”

Well.

Huh.

**

The loft smelled like oil paints and popcorn when I showed up on Thursday night. Justin burst out laughing when he saw me. “What are you wearing?”

“It's my onesie!” I said. I fingerspelled it for him. 

“Onesie,” Justin repeated.

“We're having a sleepover,” I said. “I had to dress the part.” 

Justin gave me that little smile that he absolutely does when he doesn't understand what we said but doesn't want to trouble us and ask, and I made a pledge to say more things I knew how to sign (how the fuck do you say 'sleepover?') Are you hungry? I asked. I held up my overnight bag. “I brought snacks.” 

Justin bit his lip, a smile threatening to split open those cheeks. “You just asked if I was horny.” 

“Well,” I said smoothly. “That was going to be my next question.”

We spent most of our first evening watching movies and baking brownies, laughing some but not really talking much. Justin used to the chattiest of all of us, besides me of course, and it was so damn sad that he'd lost that. He didn't usually seem depressed when he was out, but seeing him now in the loft he seemed...smaller, somehow, like he'd folded in on himself.

We'd just taken the brownies up on the oven when a Skype alert popped up over the recipe on his laptop. Justin smiled and answered the call, and there was Brian, looking fabulous for someone just off a long plane ride, signing one-handed as he traipsed through the airport. Within a second, they were signing so quickly at each other, I couldn't even believe it. I swear to God, if one of them weren't Justin, I'd think they were just making hand movements and pretending to understand each other just to fuck with me.

I started cleaning up the kitchen, so I couldn't see the screen, but every time I'd glance over at Justin...God, he was so lit up, so joyous, watching Brian with his fingers against his lips, then telling him something in a flurry in a movement. Laughing, and I could hear Brian laughing with him on the other end. 

Once the dishes were in the sink, I came around behind Justin and drummed on his shoulders and gave Brian a bit of a wave.

“You two behave yourselves,” Brian said. “Don't smoke my weed.”

They said goodnight, Justin hung up, and he and I looked at each other.

**

Two joints and half a pan of brownies later, Justin rolled onto his stomach and said abruptly, “He doesn't ever talk about it, you know.”

I'm not surprised.

“He freaked out that night when I first got home,” Justin said. “When he saw the marks on my neck. And he cried later, when we were in bed.” He paused. “I think he was really scared I was raped, and I just wasn't telling him.” 

I patted him on the knee. Still waiting to be surprised, I said.

“I guess you've got him all figured out, huh?”

I shook my head. “Not at all,” I said. I just know how I felt when I saw you.

“I haven't really dealt with it,” he said.

Yeah. I know that too.

**

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to screaming.

To be fair, Brian had warned me this might happen. To be even more fair, he had entirely undersold it. Right when we were leaving the diner, he said, like it had just occurred to him, “Oh, he's been having nightmares since he lost his hearing. Probably won't come up. He'll tell you how to handle it.”

Well, it was pitch black so he couldn't read my lips, and Justin was sobbing in the middle of his bed, but sure, he was gonna give me some tender guidance about what to do.

I went up to the bedroom, saying his name just out of habit, and reached down and put my hand on his back. He flinched away like I was on fire and whimpered somewhere in the back of his throat, and I swallowed and switched the light on. I signed my name a few times, and his, but Justin had his eyes squeezed shut, forcing tears into his pillow.

I FaceTimed Brian.

He answered after a few rings, shirtless, squinting in the light, already lighting a cigarette. “Fuck,” he said, his voice rough. “Is he sick?” He was signing while he spoke already, even though Justin wasn't in the frame.

“Nightmare,” I said.

Brian nodded like he knew and put the cigarette in his mouth. “Let me see him.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, carefully, and held the phone up so Brian could see Justin, still shivering and balled up. A sob escaped, and Brian closed his eyes and nodded a little.

“He doesn't want me to touch him...” I said.

“I know. Shake the bed a little so he knows you're there.”

I did, and gradually Justin uncurled. He looked at me, then the phone in my hand, and hesitantly reached for it. I gave it to him.

“Hey, Sunshine,” Brian said. “Always nice to see you.”

Justin laughed, or maybe cried, and ducked his head.

“Nice deep breaths, okay? Last thing we need is Emmett thinking he needs to drag you to the fucking hospital or some shit.”

I offered to take him to the hospital, after Babylon. Just about the strongest no I've ever heard, and I've seen straight guys try their luck on Dyke Night.

Justin sat up and took a deep breath.

“Good, Justin,” Brian said, softly. “Good.”

Come back Justin said, and I'm sure Brian's very, very grateful Justin couldn't hear the broken sound he made in response.

“Before you know it,” he said after a minute. “I'll be back with a new account and I'll take you out to the most fucking expensive dinner you can imagine.”

Justin shuddered.

“You are okay,” Brian said, firmly. “You will always get by. Remember what you promised me?”

Justin nodded.

“You are okay,” Brian said again. Willing it into existence. “You are okay.” His voice hardened, and he said, “Emmett, get him a fucking Klonopin, Jesus.”

**

Justin made waffles in the morning, and then I had meetings to take and he had a shift at the diner and a comic book meeting with Michael, so I didn't expect to see him until late. I was surprised when I came back at around seven, Chinese food in tow, and he and Michael were sitting on the floor in front of the couch, papers spread in every direction. I'd thought they were meeting at the shop. I kissed Michael's cheek, then Justin's, and set the egg rolls down in front of them.

Michael said, “Hey, Em, want to see what we're working on?”

I'll admit, I have absolutely no interest in their little comic book, but the loft was mine for three days which meant Michael was my guest and I'm nothing if not a good hostess, so I made all the appropriate enthusiastic noises and sat down on the floor with them. Justin was drawing, but he stopped to stretch out his hand.

“J.T. gets cornered by our new villain,” Michael said, showing me the sketches. “He tries to fight them off but he can't.”

I nodded slowly. “Really.”

Justin just kept drawing. 

“And then what happens?” I said.

“Oh, Rage shows up and saves the day, of course,” Michael said.

“Of course,” I said.

I figured Justin would want to give a hand a rest, but the first thing he did after Michael left was pull his easel out. I guess with all the signing, giving his hand a rest is kind of a lost concept.

“The paintbrush is easier for me to hold than a pencil,” Justin said, like he knew what I was thinking. “Bigger, and you don't have to grip it as tightly.”

I ignored the obvious joke about Brian's cock and sat on the couch with a glass of wine and read a magazine and watched him work. He looked so calm, studying the canvas and making little dabs now and then. It must have been nearly finished, but fuck all I know about art.

Still, I waved my hand until he looked at me and signed, It's beautiful.

He smiled at me. Thank you. He paused, took a step back, looked at it. “Did Brian tell you about New York?” he said.

“Michael did,” I said, signing. “He's...verklempt.” I just signed sad. When will my sign language catch up to my lovely vocabulary? Maybe never, if he and Brian flee the state.

“We're just waiting 'til it's the right time,” Justin said. “For Kinnetik, really. But it's really going to happen. Brian checks on real estate every day.”

“Yeah, Michael told me.” I let him work a little more, then waved my hand again and said, “Sweetie?”

He looked at me.

“Does Michael know? About what happened at Babylon?”

Justin ducked his head briefly. “I didn't tell him. It's possible Brian did, or he heard it through the gay grapevine or whatever. I just told him it was a story I thought up and he didn't...he didn't ask any questions. He thought it was a good story.”

“It is a good story,” I said. “Rage coming in and fixing it all.”

Justin grinned. “You're not feeling slighted, are you?”

“No, baby, of course not.” I sipped my wine. “People show up to see Rage fix everything, right?”

Justin nodded a little.

“Is this really the best time?” I asked him, gently. “For you to be leaving?”

“There's too many memories here,” he said. “Way too much stuff I think about that there's no reason for me to be thinking about. Once I'm out of here it'll be better.” He gestured with his paintbrush. “Plus. Art.”

He is fucking incredibly talented. Any idiot could see that.

“Sweetie,” I said. “What do you dream about?”

“Getting bashed,” he said, immediately, easily.

“Just that?”

“Just that,” he said, with something like bitterness in his voice. “No matter what else is actually going on, without fail...dream about the bashing. My brain’s stand-in for any issue.”

“Justin...do you think maybe you should talk to someone about what happened at Babylon?”

“You mean the cops?” He dabbed on a line of paint. “I’m not ratting out a queer to the cops.”

“I mean like a therapist,” I said. I didn’t know the sign, so I fingerspelled it.

Justin showed me how to say it, with a small roll of his eyes. “I don’t need a therapist. What, I need professional help because some guy had his hands around my throat for thirty seconds? I didn’t even go to a therapist after my head got bashed in.”

“Doll, that’s not the strong argument you think it is,” I said, but I don’t know if he even understood me. He just went back to his painting.

He screamed even louder that night, and by the time I untangled myself from the sheets and scrambled across the loft, I could already hear him calling Brian. He signed frantically at the phone, sobbing, gasping, and Brian said, “Justin, you have to speak, I can’t see you—“ and then, when Justin kept signing, barked, “Emmett! Where the fuck is Emmett?”

“I’m here,” I said.

“Turn on the light. Take the phone, hold it back so I can see what the fuck he’s saying.”

I knelt in front of the bed and held the phone up and Justin signed and Brian said, “Kid, slow down, I can’t...” and then “Yes you can. Yes you can, Justin,” and then a small, broken “Please.”

Justin folded up, knees to chest, and cried and cried and didn’t seem like he was going to be looking at the phone any time soon, so I hesitantly turned the phone back around to me. Brian was smoking out his hotel room window.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“He said he can’t breathe,” Brian snapped. “He’s having a panic attack.”

“What does he need?”

Brian looked at me like I was a moron and said, “Me.”

“Of course,” I said. “Rage to the rescue.”

“Why are you still sitting there? Get him a fucking Klonopin. No, don’t—leave the phone. Leave me here.”

**

Brian called Justin’s phone midday the next day, while he was sleeping hard on top of the duvet. I rescued the phone from his bedside table and answered it. “Hey.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Not Justin.”

“So observant! He’s sleeping.”

“I thought he’d just be getting gone from work.”

“He called in sick. He needed to get some damn sleep. I stayed here to keep an eye on him.”

Brian nodded once, shortly. “I’ll be home tomorrow,” he said. “He’ll be better then.”

“Will he?”

Brian’s jaw tightened. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Brian, he is fucked up,” I said. “He’s a mess about what happened at Babylon, and hell, I think he’s a lot more of a mess than he wants us to know about the fucking bashing. This isn’t just a stress reaction to you being gone or to losing his hearing a year and a half ago or however the fuck you’ve been rationalizing this to yourself. Something fucking bad happened to him, and he is not okay, and stuffing him full of drugs and running away to New York is not going to make him okay.”

Brian just looked at me, and for one beautiful, stupid moment, I actually thought Brian Kinney was listening to me.

Then he leaned forwards in his chair and said, “Let me get something straight, okay? Because it seems there’s been some confusion. Your job is to babysit. Not to diagnose. You don’t know shit about Justin and what he needs. None of you do.”

“I know he’s not a baby,” I said.

Brian glared.

“See you tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll tell him you called.” I hung up and stared at the screen for a while.

Listen. I might not worship at the Brian Kinney altar here in the Church of Gay Pittsburgh, but I’m not here to try to minimize what Brian’s done for Justin. But if nobody else is willing to puncture holes in the ego himself, maybe that’s my job. For Justin.

Because it sure as fuck wasn’t babysitting. We’re really going to act like BRIAN is the responsible one in their little partnership? Even my head isn’t that far in the clouds.

Justin didn’t start screaming at any point while he was napping, but when he woke up he was sweaty, panting. I brought him a bottle of water and he drank gratefully.

I sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, and he leaned against the headboard. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

I waited, trying to plan what I wanted to say so I’d be able to sign as much as I could, and then said, “Did you know that when I was in junior high in Mississippi, some boys tried to burn my house down?”

Justin shook his head, watching me.

“I was twelve, and they...well. You don’t need me to tell you what kids can be like. They tried to set on fire when me and my parents and my grandma and all my siblings, even my four-year-old sister, were asleep inside.”

“What happened?”

I smiled a little. “Turns out setting a house on fire from the outside isn’t as easy as they expected. My dad heard a noise and went out and found them skulking around with kerosene and newspapers, trying to light up the aluminum siding. As soon as they saw his shotgun they ran off.”

“That’s good,” Justin said.

I smiled a little. “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? It’s great that my house didn’t burn down. It’s great that my family didn’t get hurt. And yet...twenty-five years later, I still jump if I hear a noise at night. I still get scared when I’m in the house alone. And sometimes...I wish I had a shotgun under my bed, like my daddy did. Just in case.”

He didn’t say anything.

“You don’t have to sit around feeling grateful because they didn’t succeed,” I said. “You don’t have to be okay. And fuck anybody who tells you you do.”

Justin nodded a little, looking away.

I lifted his chin and said, “And that includes Brian Kinney.”

I gave him some space for the rest of the evening, sitting at the kitchen table working on invoices while he painted, and messed around on his computer, and ran for a little while on the treadmill. Right before I was about to ask if he wanted me to pick up something for dinner, his phone rang, and he settled down with it on the couch.

“Hi,” he said, and afterwards switched to signing. I could see him out of the corner of my eye, and I knew I shouldn't watch, but I figured with the speed he and Brian sign at each other, I wouldn't understand enough for it to technically count as eavesdropping anyway. Brian wasn't talking, and from the amount of signing Justin was doing, I got the feeling Brian was being largely quiet in both languages.

Eventually I heard movement on the other end of the line. The click of Brian lighting a cigarette. A hitch of breath that didn't sound like Justin's.

Justin dabbed at his eyes, and nodded his head, and, just barely, smiled.

“He moved his flight up,” Justin said to me over dinner. “So he's gonna get here early tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And we're...going to look for a therapist.” He bit his thumbnail. “Turns out I've got a lot of shit.”

“The best people usually do,” I said, and he aimed that Sunshine smile right at me.

**

Brian got in at eight the next morning. I woke up to the sound of him tossing his keys on the counter, and he nodded at me, eyes already moving to the bedroom.

“How was last night?” he asked me.

“Fine.”

He looked at me. “Fine?”

“Really. No nightmares.”

“Hi.” Justin had appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing boyishly at his eyes. A smile broke over Brian's face, like nothing I'd ever seen on him, and he crossed to the bedroom in long strides and wrapped his arms around Justin.

I gave them some privacy, gathering my things, getting ready to put this little chapter behind me. I wasn't expecting to be acknowledged again—figured they'd need some time to celebrate their little reunion—but as I started towards the door Brian said, “Hey, Emmett?”

I turned around. They were still right at the top of the stairs, Justin's face buried in Brian's neck, Brian's eyes on me.

Thank you, Brian signed.