I don’t know what appropriate manners are for when you’ve left your boyfriend at the hospital where he’s being held for being a danger to himself...and others. I only know what I did, which was return to the loft, change clothes, and go immediately out to drink and fuck my way through Babylon. I just needed to not...feel. To not have that image of Justin looking at me with those eyes and describing how he would fucking kill himself. I just needed to lose myself in the alcohol and the thumpa thumpa and the mouths and asses of hot men. And when I felt that I had turned off my brain sufficiently and I maybe could actually get some sleep, I went home. I grabbed the bottle of Beam on my way in and stripped my clothes and got in the shower, turning the water as hot as I could bear. I stood under the water and drank from the bottle. And just like a light, my brain switched back on. Magic.

Maybe it’s normal to conjure up a picture of the most horrifying thing you’ve ever been told. That something you never even would have guessed as a possibility is suddenly very, very possible causes you to now imagine it on repeat. So maybe that’s normal. But what can’t be normal is that the image of Justin having hurt himself, having killed himself, lying there, covered in blood? I don’t need to imagine what that would look like. It’s not imagination. It’s fucking memory. And sure, Justin lying there on that cold concrete floor, covered in blood, was not by his own hand. But that’s about all that’s different. The feeling that he is gone and there’s something I could have done to prevent it. That’s a memory, not my imagination. So I get that this is not a competition. As hard as it might be for someone to find out that a person they care about is having suicidal thoughts (yeah yeah yeah, I care for him - were you thinking I didn’t?), I think it’s infinitely harder if you can dredge up a memory and just see it. All I’m saying is, it was fucking impossible and if I happened to have sunk to the floor of the shower and sat there under the water and if I happened to catch some feelings about whole thing and cried like I hadn’t since that night then I think it’s pretty fucking understandable.

I woke up the next morning feeling like warmed over shit and, looking in the mirror, my face agreed. But I wasn’t going to not be at the hospital at 7 AM. The kid had been there for all my radiation appointments...or at least the ones I let him go to. And he had looked so fucking scared the night before. Hell I felt as scared as he looked. No way was I going to let him down now. There was the teeny tiny insignificant chance that I also wanted to redeem myself by, ya know, visiting during visiting hours. Insignificant chance. So I went about leaving messages for Cynthia and Ted that I would be in late, gathered all the things that Justin had requested I bring, stuffed them in that shitty, shitty duffle bag, and got dressed in my most flattering suit and made sure my hair was just about perfect. Like I said, I’m not going to let Justin down. I didn’t want him to feel any worse than he already did. Maybe he wouldn’t notice my face. Ha. I didn’t want him to worry about me. Plus, I figured giving him a little eye candy first thing in the morning wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.

Justin was still looking pretty distraught when I finally got signed into his locked unit. Understandable. He hadn’t yet met with the doctor so he didn’t have any more answers than he had last night. Apparently they dosed him with something that both didn’t kill him and helped him sleep relatively nightmare-free. So that was actually a bit of relief. Of course he was working down about six months of shitty sleep and one night wasn’t going to fix that. I think we both surprised ourselves by having a relatively normal (for us) conversation. Nothing either of us said about why were were in a hospital visiting room was going to change that we were, in fact, in a hospital visiting room.

Thumb in the soda, by the way. Phoebe got a huge settlement in that one.

Even though Justin was in the hospital, a place purportedly designed to keep him safe and help get him well, I still felt uneasy. Christ, I’m not good at emotional stuff (understatement of the fucking century) and here’s Justin, torn apart by emotional stuff. I thought back to after the bashing, when I did all I could to help him overcome his fear of crowds and strengthen his hand. My biggest and best advice for all the emotional shit that went along with that was “just don’t think about it.” It probably wasn’t good advice then and it sure as fuck wasn’t good advice for this little situation we were in. I just hoped Justin’s doctors would help us identify things we could do. I’m much better at doing.

When visiting hours were up, I had to leave and get to work. I felt like absolute shit leaving him. He just looked so fucking miserable. I wanted to grab him and just get the fuck out of there. Get the fuck out of Pitts. Just find someplace where he could be happy again. And then the kid had the fucking audacity to apologize again.

“Okay Sunshine, visiting hours are over. I’ll see you again tonight?”

“Okay. Brian?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to do this. To visit me here and put up with me.”

“Christ on a cross, Justin! I do not know why you keep apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry for. Seriously, stop it, it’s making me soft.”

“Uh okay, Brian. Um, later?” He stood on his toes to kiss me. I held him close and noticed how fragile he seemed. About as fragile as I felt and I had to get out of there before I broke.

“Later.”

Ted greeted me in my office looking like he had battled against style and won. “Morning, boss. How’s Justin feeling?”

I just raised one eyebrow.

“It makes sense now...why he’s not been going out.”

“Huh?”

“Well he must have been fighting off this, whatever it is he’s got. I mean he must be really sick if you stayed home this morning.”

“Well you know our Sunshine, fucking drama princess... Is that all Theodore or did you need something other than inquiring after Justin’s well-being?”

“Oh, that’s right! I have payroll for you to review and sign off on. Annnnd while you’re at it, I wanted to ask if you have thought about converting to an electronic system. Would save us both a lot of manpower hours.”

“Leave everything here for me to review and sign. Go price out what it would cost to convert to an electronic system and get back to me with the numbers.”

“Great, thanks, Bri.”

“Go, Theodore.”

I spent the rest of the morning catching up on paperwork. I signed off on timesheets for payroll, including Justin’s. When I incorporated Kinnetik, I officially hired Justin under some bogus title. His actual salary is nominal, of course by his own choice. If I had my way, I would just pay him so he could quit the grease trap we call a diner and focus on his painting but he’s got some pride around that. I bump up his salary when he does consulting work for us on occasion. Having him on the Kinnetik payroll allows me to give him our employee health insurance. When we were initially incorporating, Ted reviewed the numbers with me. Thanks to Defense of Marriage Act, if we were to get married in Vermont, the amount of money Kinnetik was spending on Justin’s health insurance would have been considered income for tax purposes. And before you flip the fuck out about Brian Kinney mentioning the m-word...no the other m-word...the kid fucking needed health insurance. With his allergies alone, he could sneeze us out of house and home. Now of course the tiny difference in income that the cost of his insurance would mean is negligible but at the time, remember, we were living off of Justin’s diner job. He gets a lot in tips because look at that ass, but add an extra several hundred dollars or so per month, and we would have been in another tax bracket. So financially it made far more sense to put him on payroll and we avoided having a discussion about marriage. Win-win.

“Brian,” Cynthia buzzed in. “I’ve got Leo Brown on the line for you. He wants to talk about the Boyd situation.”

Drew Boyd had recently come out and been let go from the Ironmen. I had advised Brown to take a wait-and-see approach to the fallout from his outing and subsequent firing. We were in the middle of a campaign, so short of pulling ads that the whole country had already seen, we had some time to decide how to handle this. I was hoping to figure out a way to boost sales even more while avoiding firing Boyd. A queer firing a recently outed queer is just not a good look. Besides we couldn’t risk alienating that magical queer DINK market that we had been purposefully courting with the Boyd campaign. I was actually hoping we could just lean the fuck into this PR situation with something along the lines of Apple’s “Think Different” campaign that had really turned shit around for them a few years ago. I managed to sell Brown on waiting to make any decisions and scheduled a business trip to Chicago in two weeks. Fuck. I just hoped that Justin would be well enough by then that I wouldn’t be terrified to leave him alone.

After hanging up with Brown, my mind was stuck on the logistics of this whole Justin situation. Y’know, a problem that I could solve. I realized he was going to still be in the hospital on Saturday, which is when I usually visit Gus. I just take him to the park or the diner or someplace for an hour or so. Between his mommies’ attempt at an in-home separation - whateverthefuck lesbian nonsense that was - and the focus on JR as the new colicky baby, he needed some time away from that drama each week. Somehow I wound up as the stable adult presence in the tyke’s life. How the fuck did that happen? I needed to figure out a way to do my visit with Gus between visiting hours at the hospital, Eh, luckily the women were too self-absorbed at the moment to notice an earthquake, let alone my unreliable ass showing up late on a Saturday morning. It’s really hard to disappoint people when they expect not-a-goddamn-thing from you.

I tried to spend the day doing work that hit that happy medium so that my mind could not wander - something between mindless and creative. Before 3 PM, I called it quits and headed to the diner to pick up some decent food (decent being incredibly relative) and to face the music.

“What’s this about Sunshine being sick?” Deb greeted me with a kiss and a smack to my head.

“I dunno, Deb, he’s sick,” I rolled my eyes. “Want to help? Get me a hamburger and a couple of lemon bars to go.”

She squinted her eyes and tilted her head, “Sunshine can’t eat a hamburger if he’s sick. I’ll bring him over some of my chicken soup.”

“The kid asked for a burger. He’s sick for christ’s sake, give him what he wants.”

“Fine, fine. This why he’s been a little shit recently?” She was referring to the absolutely horrible mood Justin’s been in.

“Seems like.” Not a lie. “Hey Deb, if you care about the lad, how about you put that order in so I can get it to him before his ass starts to eat itself for sustenance?”

“Yeah, then where would you be?” she retorted and, thankfully, turned towards the kitchen.

“Here ya go.” She handed me the order a short time later. “Tell Sunshine to feel better soon, and that I’ll be by on my day off tomorrow with some chicken soup.”

Fucking chicken soup. “He’s sick, he’s in no mood for company.”

“So, he’ll hardly know I’m there. He doesn’t have to entertain me.”

“Hardly know you’re there?” I snorted. “Subtlety is not exactly your style. Let the kid rest. Bring the soup to Kinnetik, I’ll bring it home to him.”

I thought her eyebrows would just about lift off her forehead if she raised them any higher. “Brian fucking Kinney. ‘I’ll bring it home to him.’ You’re so gone for the boy.”

“Well..” I avoided eye contact.

“Good for you, kiddo, good for you.” She swatted my head again and turned and walked to the back booth to take an order.

I walked into the hospital visiting room after signing into the locked unit and tossed the bag from the diner to Justin. I knew he had met with the doctor earlier and, if possible, he looked even shittier than he had that morning.

“How’s life on the inside?” I joked because I can’t not.

“Eh. I met with the doctor. He agreed with Dr. Lin that I’ve got PTSD--” no surprise there, I thought, “--and severe depression.”

“Okay. Did he say what can be done about it?”

“He prescribed a few medications and recommended therapy. He wants me to start the medication here under medical supervision.”

“Probably a good idea. What about the therapy?”

“I think I start with something here but he wants me to find someone to see when I’m discharged. But…”

“But?”

“I dunno, I don’t see how bitching about my feelings is going to help anything.”

Not like I don’t know where he got that attitude from. “Well it can’t hurt to try, right? If that’s what’s recommended.”

“Sure.” He still looked nervous.

“What’s up?"

“Um, he also wants me to... He thinks I should talk to you…”

Oh. Shit. My thoughts jumped from bad to worse. I didn’t think I could tolerate hearing more details about Justin wanting to hurt...no, to kill himself. Or, what if, the doctor thought I was part of the problem. If being with me was harming Justin, what would I do? I’ve never before hesitated to do what’s right for someone, no matter the cost to me. But would I be able to do what needed to be done if...fuck. I would do it. I would do whateverthefuck it takes for Justin to be safe, to be happy, to be whole. In fact, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened sooner. Being with me cannot be what is best for a goddamn miracle like Justin.

Resolved, I said oh-so-casually, “Oh yeah? What about?”

“My...thoughts.”

Of the two possible outcomes I was dreading, this was honestly the less of two evils, by a longshot. Still not fucking thrilled about it. I braced myself, if this is what it took to help the kid...I just had to think how much more painful it was to be having the damn thoughts. I was the spineless asshole too sensitive to even hear what he was thinking.

“Mmhmm?”

“It’s...well...remember how the doctor, uh Dr. Lin, said that I was having, uh, thoughts of, um, harming others?”

Oh. Yeah. That. “Sure, I remember, Sunshine.” Pretty fucking hard to forget that.

“I don’t think...I don’t want to, I don’t want to want to hurt anyone.”

“I know that, you’re not a violent person.”

“Yeah, well, they said that, um, because I have a history of violence, they have to take it...seriously.”

“What the fuck? What history of violence?” I could hear the edge in my voice. The twat is kind to a fault. He is not a violent kid.

“The Pink Posse,” he responded quietly.

I’m not saying that there’s any excuse to go around sticking guns in people’s mouths and I guess I could see how straight doctors who don’t know Justin at all could consider this a “history of violence.” But I fucking know violence, thanks to dear old dad. Justin is not violent.

“What thoughts do they have to take seriously?”

“Thoughts of...fuck!” His voice broke. He wiped his face and looked away but continued. “Thoughts of people I care about, being hurt. Being killed."

I swallowed around the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. “People you care about?”

“You... Gus,” he whispered.

I looked him in the eyes. I stood up. And I walked out.

Remember how I said, “Look, I don’t walk away from Justin. I just don’t?”

Remember how I said that the hospitalization may have hurt more than it helped? That once again my stupid decisions caused Justin pain?

I can’t fucking forget. So you shouldn’t be able to either.