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Chapter 4 - Out Of The Ordinary

“Justin! Justin, wake up!” 

Justin felt an elbow poking insistently into his side and rolled over to get away from it. But it took him another thirty seconds to figure out where he was as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and scratched at himself. Reality didn’t totally kick in till he looked to the side and saw a curly-haired girl staring down at him.

“Stop staring at me like that, Daph. You’re going to give me nightmares,” Justin complained, using the pillow next to him to bash his friend over the head.

“Yeah, well, that’s only fair, since watching you hump that pillow in your sleep is going to give me nightmares now too,” Daph teased him, throwing the pillow right back at him.

“I wasn’t humping the pillow.”

“Oh yes you were, Romeo,” Daphne laughed at him. “If I hadn’t woken you up when I did, that poor pillow was about to have it’s innocence ruined forever.” Then Daph took the pillow back from him, hugged it, and pretended to make love to it in a mocking demonstration of what she’d observed before Justin awoke. “Oh, Brian. Yeah. Just like that, Brian. More, more, more.”

Justin yanked the pillow away from his friend and threw it over the back of the sofa where they’d fallen asleep together. “Stop already.”

“Sorry, Jus. But it WAS pretty amusing,” Daphne finally relented. “I thought you were over that Brian guy. Didn’t you tell me you weren’t going to keep going after him if he wasn’t interested?”

“I’m not going after him,” Justin assured her. “But . . . Well . . . I kinda can’t stop thinking about him. He was just so . . .”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I can’t describe him with words. It’s just something I feel about him. Some . . . I don’t know, some pull he has on me?”

“Sounds terribly romantic,” Daphne opined with a teasing grin.

“Shut up,” Justin ordered, grinning back “I can’t forget him, Daph. I know there’s no chance of anything between us - Brian made sure to tell me that to my face - but I still feel like we’re somehow connected. When I’m drawing, even if I start out thinking I’m going to sketch something else, the picture almost always turns into another drawing of Brian. And the dreams . . .”

“If the dreams are anything like what I just witnessed, it’s got to be intense.”

“You have no idea,” Justin confirmed with an embarrassed half-smile. “They’re pretty vivid.” Justin stretched and shifted so he was sitting up straighter. “Actually, all of my dreams lately have been unusually vivid. Not just the ones about Brian. I’ve also been dreaming a lot about this baby . . .”

“A baby? That’s weird,” Daphne commented. “Why are you dreaming about babies? I mean, I’m a girl and even I don’t dream about babies.”

“It’s not like I WANT a baby. It’s not that kind of dream. It’s just that I . . .” Justin thought about the most recent dream he’d had featuring the mystery infant he sometimes saw. “It’s not really even me in my dreams. I’m . . . I’m someone else. And this person . . . whoever he is . . . keeps seeing this baby wherever he goes. Like in the park or shopping or even, like last night, I saw the baby in a library somewhere - which is really strange because I didn’t recognize that library, and don’t you usually dream about places you know? But anyway . . . All I get are these little clips of images, you know? People and places I’ve never seen before, and it’s all confused and sort of hazy. No idea what it means, but for some reason those - and the dreams about Brian - are, like, ten times more powerful than any of my other dreams. They’re the only ones I remember after I wake up.” 

“You’re a total freak, Justin,” Daphne summed up the situation succinctly.

“No doubt,” Justin agreed with her. Then he got up off the couch and extended his hand to help his friend up as well. “Whatever. Let’s go to bed. If we sleep here on the couch all night, my back will be too sore to snowboard tomorrow.”

“Good call.” 

Daphne accepted the help and they both shuffled off down the hall of the Aspen vacation cabin where they were spending their Thanksgiving vacation along with the rest of the Chanders family. Justin had been thrilled to accept the offer to get away from his family and the rest of Pittsburgh for a whole week. The added bonus of snowboarding in the Colorado mountains was just icing on the cake. But, unfortunately, it seemed like at least part of his problems was following him in the form of these dreams.

Justin said goodnight to his friend and went into the small guest room he had been assigned as his own. He pulled off the jeans and t-shirt he’d been wearing and crawled under the covers as fast as he could since the cabin was a little cold. But once he was in bed, he no longer felt all that tired. Instead, his mind was busy with thoughts and questions, mostly centered on his dream lover.

Why wasn’t he able to move past the experience he’d had that one night with Brian Kinney? It had been months earlier. You’d think the memories would start to fade or, at the very least, he wouldn’t still be obsessing over it like he was. But it felt like there was still some invisible tie between the two of them. Some connection that time and distance alone couldn’t sever. Or maybe he was just using that as an excuse to explain away his nightly wet dreams because he really was as much of a sexual deviant as the homophobic bullies at school said? Who knew. But for the time being, all Justin could do was bear with the dreaming and hope it got less intense over time.

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The rest of their vacation week passed by without incident. Both Justin and Daphne enjoyed their time on the slopes. By the time Sunday rolled around, though, they were exhausted. They’d spent their last day snowboarding without stop from the time the lifts opened until two pm, which was when Daph’s father ordered them back to the cabin so they could leave for the airport and the trip home. It was a good exhaustion, though, and Justin didn’t regret any of the fun they’d had, despite the fact that his muscles were aching as he slumped into the comfort of his first class airplane seat. 

They transferred planes in Denver and then settled in for the long flight to Pittsburgh. Justin took out his sketch pad but barely got a line drawn before he was nodding off, all the activity of the preceding week catching up to him. Unfortunately, his dreams were even more unsettled than usual, so his sleep wasn’t that restful.

The dream started off good. In the manner of all dreams, the images he saw were a jumble of disconnected pictures and memories, strung together in random fashion, all a little hazy around the edges and not making any real sense. The first thing he saw was the familiar street scene from when he’d first met Brian in that little alley off Liberty Avenue; it was a favorite memory of his, so it probably wasn’t a surprise that his dreams seemed to always start there. He re-lived that moment when his eyes met Brian’s and he felt that first jolt of surprise. It went on from there to the two of them heading back to Brian’s loft, then tumbling into bed, and everything that followed. 

But, for some strange reason, this time the dream didn’t end up in its usual fashion. Which was probably for the best since, even in his sleep, Justin retained some awareness of his surroundings and didn’t relish having another wet dream while sitting next to his BFF on a crowded airplane. Instead, the dream veered off in a completely novel direction; one minute he and Brian were in bed together and the next, seemingly without transition, they were both sitting together around the table in the cabin in Aspen, sharing the Thanksgiving dinner that Daphne’s mom and aunt had dished up for the family a few days earlier. Everyone was eating and talking and laughing and having a great time and Brian seemed to fit right in as if he belonged. Justin felt so proud of his boyfriend and revelled in showing him off to his friends. It was a happy image.

But, of course, the scene didn’t follow any expected path, because that’s not what dreams do. Instead, the scene abruptly morphed from a dinner scene at the cabin to a similar dinner at some other location that Justin didn’t even recognize. One minute they were in the upscale, well-decorated dining area in the main room of the cabin, and the next, Justin was squeezed in next to Brian around a too-small table in a kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 70’s. The decor was all gold and olive green, with scratched up appliances and worn linoleum on the floors. The people around the table had changed too - instead of Daphne’s family, Justin was surrounded by a group of blurry white faces, most of which he didn’t recognize. The only two he did know were Brian, who was sitting next to him, and the dark-haired man that Brian was smiling at, Brian’s friend, Michael. In his dream, it seemed almost like there was a spotlight on those two, bringing their faces into sharper focus, while all the other people in the room were left in a dim haze. But the feeling at this dinner was the same as the one before - it felt like a family celebration with all the guests happily gorging on the bounteous food being passed around - so Justin wasn’t too disconcerted by the shift. He happily listened to the muted roar of family chatter going on in the background while Brian and Michael talked about some superhero movie that Michael wanted to go see.

Which is when things got a little freaky. All of a sudden that baby Justin had been seeing in his other dreams made an appearance at the dinner. Someone - a woman whose face was obscured by the fog of the dream - walked over and handed the baby to Brian. Brian took the bundle of boy and smiled down on the infant. Justin could, all of a sudden, feel a wash of happiness and pride coming from Brian, which surprised him even in his dreams. Brian began to chatter to the baby, interrupting Michael’s beaming praise of the movie they’d been discussing. Michael eventually sputtered to a stop, shooting out jealous vibes towards the baby who had taken over his friend’s attention. Brian, though, seemed oblivious to Michael’s antipathy towards the baby. However, when Dream Brian turned to hand the baby to Justin, the surge of hatred and hostility from Michael became overwhelming and, before Justin could grab hold of the proffered baby, the dream evaporated in a confusing swirl of angry emotions. 

Justin woke with a start just as the plane went through a pocket of turbulence, causing everyone’s seats to bounce. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m afraid we’ve hit a bit of bad weather,” the voice of a flight attendant came through the speakers over Justin’s seat. “The captain has turned on the seat belt sign and we’re asking everyone to return to their seats for the duration of the flight.”

“Damn. I hate when I get all shook up like this,” Daphne commented as she checked to make sure her seatbelt was secure. 

“Yeah, shook up . . .” Justin echoed, feeling shook up both physically and emotionally after the strange turn his dream had taken. 

“You okay, Jus?” Daphne turned to him, apparently clued in by his tone that her friend was upset about something more than the turbulence.

“I guess . . . I just had another of those weird dreams,” Justin confessed. 

“The Brian one? Oooo - do tell!”

“No. Not that one, you freak. And even if it was, I’m not sharing that one with you,” Justin teased his gutter-minded friend. “No, this one was about that strange baby again. Well, Brian was in it too, but this time he was with the baby . . . I wonder . . . Could it be Gus?”

“Okay, who’s Gus? Did you sleep with some OTHER hottie you didn’t tell me about?”

“Ewww. No! Gus is the name I picked out for Brian’s son. Remember, I told you how we got interrupted in the middle of things and he took me to the hospital to see his newborn son?”

“Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot about that part. I was more interested in the sex.”

“Obviously,” Justin huffed a laugh at his friend and her one-track mind. “It makes sense, though, don’t you think? That the baby I’m dreaming about is Brian’s son? I mean, I can’t think of any other reason I’d be dreaming about a baby.” 

“Maybe, but it’s still pretty out there. I mean, why would you be dreaming about a baby you only saw once for, like, ten minutes. Is Brian in all the baby dreams?”

“Nope. This is the first time I saw Brian and the baby together,” Justin replied, feeling more confused than ever. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s all unrelated. Something still feels really strange about those dreams . . .”

“Maybe you’re just a freak with a baby fetish,” Daphne offered with a snort.

Justin hit her with his sketch pad. “I do NOT have a baby fetish.” 

“Yeah, well, normal people don’t have dreams about strange babies where they’re hating on the kid from afar. Maybe you should see a shrink or something? Get your head psychoanalyzed and find out what your damage is?”

Justin shook his head at the ridiculous suggestion and then proceeded to ignore his friend for the rest of the plane ride as he tried to work through whatever message that strange dream was supposed to have conveyed. 

///~///~

Justin never did figure out what that dream on the airplane had been about and the odd dreams about the baby didn’t stop. He wasn’t sure if it really was Gus he was seeing in these dreams, or if he’d just confused Brian’s son with his rando dream baby. Since he continued to see the baby in different situations over the following few weeks, and these subsequent dreams never involved Brian, he tended to think it was all just a weird dreamland coincidence. But then again, who really knew; dreams were inherently confusing and rarely made sense to the conscious mind. 

He didn’t really have time to dwell on his nightly flights of fantasy, though. Life started to get even busier for the high school senior after Thanksgiving break. Justin had to buckle down and study for the next couple of weeks in preparation for his end of term finals. He was also putting in several hours a week working in the charity food pantry that the school sponsored in association with a local church, trying to get in the requisite number of service hours all seniors at St. James Academy were required to complete in order to graduate. And, as if that weren’t enough, it was college application season, requiring Justin to labor through hours of filling in applications and writing essays under the direction of his parents, who were hoping their son would be going to an approved, Ivy-League school the following fall. So, yeah, he was a little busy.

The only good thing about being so busy was that most of the school bullies were equally busy, which meant they didn’t have time to harass him too badly. Justin was grateful for the respite in his daily round of persecution. But, even so, when the last day of the term arrived, he was more than happy to have escaped from school for the Winter Break so he wouldn’t have to deal with any of them till January. 

After his last final was in the bag, Justin agreed to go with Daphne and a few other students to a coffee shop not far from school for a celebratory coffee or two before they all headed off for the holidays. The coffee shop was busy and, between all the warm bodies and the heat blasting to counter the snowy day outside, it was incredibly stuffy. Justin wasn’t really all that interested in the chatter going on around him about what fun plans everyone else had for the upcoming weeks, so his mind began to wander. He started to think about the holiday party at the country club he was being dragged along to that evening by his parents, wishing he had an excuse to get out of it or, at the very least, had a date he could bring along to distract him. Of course, that brought up the ludicrous idea of Craig going along with his son bringing a male date to the club - something that would only happen if this cold snap penetrated all the way to the core of the earth and hell actually froze over - and sent Justin into yet another day dream about his one and only lover, the inestimable Brian Kinney.

Before he knew it, Justin was in the middle of another of those strangely intense dreams. This one put him outside in the cold, walking through a park where kids were sledding down a small hill. He looked to his left and found there was a woman walking along next to him, pushing a familiar-looking stroller. The stroller was draped with a transparent plastic cover, keeping the worst of the cold out and protecting the baby inside. But, because it was a dream, Justin found he could see inside the plastic cover more clearly than he could see anything else around him. The baby inside was smiling up at him from his nest of blankets. Justin looked up to greet the woman pushing the stroller, but for some reason she was all blurred out, almost as if she didn’t exist. So he looked back down at the baby and that’s when the wave of resentment hit him. 

He hated that baby. That baby had everything he’d never had. It wasn’t fair. He worked like a fucking dog, getting paid minimum wage, and never getting ahead. Meanwhile, this brat was going to live like a fucking prince. Something should be done. Someone needed to pay . . .

“Hey, Jus. You coming?” September asked, interrupting Justin’s wool gathering.

“Huh?”

“Wake up, Dweeb,” Daphne laughed at his lost look. “We’re all heading over to the mall for some Christmas shopping. You’re welcome to come if you want.”

“Uh . . . No thanks. I think I’ll take a rain check. I’m going to head home and work on that application for PIFA we talked about. I need to get it done and in the mail before the ‘rents get home.”

“Oooo, the super secret art school application that would make their heads explode if they knew about it? I like,” Daphne replied with full-on sneaky friend support. 

“Yeah, that’s the one. Wish me luck.”

Daphne leaned in to kiss Justin’s cheek. “Luck!”

And then they were gone, leaving Justin alone with his now cold cappuccino and his worries over his most recent, and most-shocking-yet, dream.

///~///~

Christmas was always a hectic time around the Taylor household. Jennifer held her annual open house every year on December 23rd; pretty much the entire neighborhood would wander in at some point during the evening, bringing plates of cookies and drinking all the Taylor eggnog. Christmas Eve was always spent at Justin‘s maternal grandparents' house, where the Sullivan family put on a formal dinner complete with smoked salmon appetizers, a main course of roast goose, and rice pudding for dessert, all served on the best family china. They usually stayed late, taking their time through the five course meal, and lingering over after dinner drinks while the kids read Christmas stories aloud. Then it was up before dawn on Christmas morning so Molly and Justin could tear through their gifts before the family headed to the holiday services at Calvary Episcopal.

The Taylor’s weren’t exactly a religious family, but twice a year, on Christmas and Easter, Craig insisted on paying lip service to their Episcopalian roots and dragged the whole crew to church. Jennifer went along with it because she loved the traditions and carols. Molly was still too young to have an opinion of her own. But Justin was simply bored by the whole experience. What with going to a religious-based school - where the students were forced to attend mass once a week - Justin was inured to the pomp of the church services. He was also too smart to believe any of the mythology the church tried to instill in its followers, meaning that he didn’t bother paying attention to the sermon. So, while everyone else was following along in their hymnals, he was lost in other thoughts.

About halfway through the sermon, Justin’s attention drifted and, as he looked around himself, suddenly the image of the church he’d been looking at shifted. Instead of the fairly modern Episcopalian church he’d grown up in, he seemed to be sitting in a much older, stone-walled church with high stained-glass windows lining the nave and plain, almost empty, wooden pews waiting for the parishioners to fill them. There was Christmas music playing in this church too, but the mass here hadn’t started yet. Justin scanned the few people already coming down the aisles looking for seats and his gaze immediately latched onto one tall, svelte, brunet figure walking his way, accompanied by a severe-looking older woman, a dumpy middle-aged woman, and two straggling pre-teen boys. 

“I don’t care how busy you are, Brian,” the younger of the two women hissed, her voice somehow carrying to where Justin was standing halfway across the church, even though the comment had been meant as a whisper. “She’s your mother too. I’m tired of being the one that has to take care of her all the time. I’m the one that has to take her to get her haircut and go to doctors’ appointments with her and drag my butt to church every week. It’s about time you stepped up and took some of the responsibility too, you know!”

“Claire . . .” Brian replied, clearly exasperated. 

“Don’t ‘Claire’ me! I don’t want any of your excuses. You either step up, and start taking on some of the burden, or I swear I’m just gonna walk away and abandon her to you for good.”

“That’s fine with me. I don’t give a fuck. I’ll just put her in a home and let her rot there,” Brian replied coldly. 

“What the hell, Brian . . .” the woman began to protest, her voice raising to the point that the older woman overheard her comments.

“Clare! How dare you blaspheme in the Lord’s House! I hope Father Francis didn’t hear you. I’d be mortified if he ever found out how poorly behaved my daughter was,” the grey-haired matron scolded with a frown. “Now, come along and sit down already. I think you have time to say a rosary in penance before mass starts.”

Claire did as she’d been told, but not before she’d aimed a withering look at Brian. Even from a distance, Justin could feel the waves of anger and indignation the woman was directing towards Justin’s former lover. There was so much malevolence in that one blast of emotion, it caused Justin to gasp aloud.

Then the strangest thing of all happened. Right as Justin made that small gasping noise, Brian looked up, his gaze scanning over the space of the church until his eyes met Justin’s. Justin again felt that jolt of blankness - the same one he’d felt the first night he’d met Brian - as they stared at each other across the length of several pews. Justin felt frozen in place by the man’s penetrating hazel eyes. He couldn’t help thinking that, while Brian was a blank to him, his lover seemed to see right through to the heart of the empath. 

“All rise!” the Minister ordered, and the congregation got to its feet as one, the noise and commotion rousing Justin from his reverie.

Justin felt his mother stand up from where she’d been sitting next to him. He blinked, looking around himself, feeling dizzy and confused. He didn’t know what had just happened to him. Had he fallen asleep and dreamed that other church? He didn’t think he’d been asleep. But then, what the hell had that been? An out of body experience? Some kind of vision? A fucking Christmas Miracle?

Craig reached out a hand, grabbed hold of his son’s arm, and physically towed the youth to his feet. Justin could feel the annoyance wafting off his father and struggled to pull himself together so he wouldn’t be a cause of further embarrassment. The Minister said his final piece and began to walk down the aisle while the organ started to play and the folks around him sang one final carol. There was nothing out of the ordinary here. 

So, why had Justin broken out in a cold sweat with every hair on his body standing on end? 

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