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Author's Chapter Notes:

If I've done my job as an author right, the title of this chapter should reflect your opinion by the time you're done reading... Enjoy! TAG 

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Chapter 5 - Really Confused.



Maybe it was because Justin was home for the week and had nothing much to occupy his mind, or maybe it was a reaction to that super strange dream he’d had while sitting in church on Christmas Day, but the rest of the week between Christmas and New Year’s was filled with even more, increasingly bizarre, dreams. 


Only, they were no longer dreams, precisely. These images, visions, whatever, were coming at him even when he wasn’t asleep. One minute he’d be sitting in his room, or at the dinner table with his parents, or even out walking, and the next he’d be seeing the faces of people he didn’t know and looking at places he’d never been to before. And the only constant in all these odd visions was the baby. A baby he seemed connected to in some mystical way that made no sense at all. 


But if Justin’s non-dream dreams weren’t concerning enough, the increasingly hostile tenor of those visions was certainly something to cause alarm. Every time he looked at the happy, cooing, innocent little baby, Justin was filled with hatred. Pure, unadulterated, unreasoning, hatred. It made no sense. There was nothing this tiny infant could possibly have done that might’ve engendered such antipathy. And yet, each time he saw a vision of this baby, Justin sensed a rush of hatred for the poor little thing.


Worse still, Justin no longer seemed to be able to escape from his baby-hating visions into his previously fun, sexy-romping fantasies of Brian, because those dreams had changed as well. Instead of he and Brian making love, Justin now saw Brian pursuing others. Like a fly on the wall, unable to look away, he was forced, night after night, to join Brian in whatever bar, club, or orgy the older man chose to visit. 


And, while these experiences were eye-opening and maybe even educational in some instances, they were also torture. No matter how decadent or hedonistic the sex was in these visions, they were always accomplished with a palpable taint of desperation that made Justin wish he wasn’t watching. It felt almost like Brian was intentionally going out of his way to punish himself. Or maybe to punish Justin for tagging along? Which was a crazy thought because dreams weren’t supposed to work like that, were they? Also, how was he dreaming about things he’d never even imagined before? And why would Justin be dreaming up a vengeful Brian? Either way, all Justin saw in his Brian Dreams these days were empty orgasms without a shred of joy or love involved, and it made him sad. 


Needless to say, Justin was really confused and becoming more and more desperate to figure out what was causing all this. 


Matters seemed to come to a head on New Year’s Eve. Justin and Daphne were celebrating the traditional way - by being forced to stay home and babysit their younger siblings, while all the parents went out and partied. Not that either really minded; they usually made a ton of money for their services and, after all the kids fell asleep, they spent the rest of the night in a bad movie marathon while scarfing all the junk food they could stomach. This year, they were making double the money since, besides Molly and Daphne’s younger brothers, Cleo and Clay, they were also taking care of Daph’s cousins, Trev, a spunky five year old, and Lashay, a sweet little five month old baby girl. It was quite the handful, and everything was a bit chaotic during the critical dinnertime struggles, but eventually they got all the younglings into bed and were able to chill out. 


“Okay. I think we’re home free,” Daphne announced as she slumped into a recliner in the media room. “I threatened Cleo and Clay with bodily harm if they got out of bed again and I think they bought it.”


“Sweet,” Justin agreed as he flipped through the movie offerings on Netflix, searching for the worst possible movie option he could find so they’d have something to make fun of. “I had to bribe the Mollusk with my iPad to get her to agree to stay out of our hair. Unfortunately, threats of violence don’t work on her anymore - not since she told on me when I said I’d shave her head while she slept if she touched my art stuff again and mom chewed my ass out in public.”


“Oooo - that’s a good one. I can use that on the brats next time. Thanks for the suggestion, Jus,” Daphne commented, apparently missing the part about Justin getting in trouble. “Hey! That one looks horrible. Let’s watch that.”


Justin used the remote to select ‘Poltergeist’ and then sat back in his own chair, snagging the bowl of popcorn along the way. The movie flickered away and the two friends spent most of the next hour making fun of the old-time special effects and predictable plot line. Just before they got to the big climax, though, the baby monitor sitting on the coffee table started emitting a squealing noise, indicating that the baby was awake and in need of some attention. 


“Damn, Lashay, you’ve got some terrible timing, girl,” Daphne complained, pressing the pause button on the remote. 


“If you change the diaper, I’ll go make a bottle up and then maybe we can get back to our movie sooner,” Justin offered. 


“Why do I have to do the stinky job?” Daph complained.


“Because you love me so much, you’d never subject me to that kind of horror,” Justin offered with his best innocent puppy dog look.


“Grrrr. You’re going to owe me, like, a thousand favors,” Daphne grumbled at him, but she still got up and headed for the stairs to see to her wailing cousin. 


Justin grinned after his friend’s back and then hurried off to the kitchen to fulfill his part of the bargain. By the time he had the bottle of formula mixed up and heated in the microwave, Daph was back with a now-happy baby in her arms. Justin took over, carrying Lashay back into the living room so they could get comfy on the couch while the infant guzzled down her midnight snack. Daphne took the opportunity to make herself and Justin another bowl of popcorn. When she came back into the living room, she found her friend sitting there, staring at the baby with such absorption that he didn’t even seem to realize she was there.


“Indulging your baby fetish again? Should I be worried?” Daphne asked, setting the bowl of popcorn down and then reaching to take the baby away from Justin. “Put the baby down and move away slowly . . .”


“Stop, Daph. I don’t have a baby fetish,” Justin complained, but let her take the baby away from him. “I was just . . . I was trying to figure out if I hate babies or something . . .”


“What are you talking about? You don’t hate babies, Jus. You’ve always been great with kids. I remember how excited you were when Molly was born - you begged your mom to let you hold her, like, fifty times a day. I’ve never met a guy who was so into babies, actually.”


“Then why did I dream about killing one just this morning?” Justin asked.


“What?” Daphne voiced her shock so loudly that the baby startled with a tiny whimper of fear. “Sorry, Lashay, baby. Sorry. Auntie Daphy promises not to yell while you’re having dinner anymore.” Daphne settled the nursing baby more comfortably in her arms and then returned her attention to her friend. “Are you kidding me? Did you really dream about killing a baby? That’s fucked, Justin.”


“I know, right?” Justin slumped back against the arm of the couch, looking distraught. “I just don’t understand . . . In my . . . Well, I guess you’d say it was a dream, although it felt completely real, but also all confused and hazy and disjointed at the same time. I can’t describe it in words, you know? . . . But, anyway, in this dream, I saw a baby lying in a carrier that had been placed in the basket of a shopping cart. I think it was a grocery store - I could sorta see all the shelves and this colorful blur of stuff in the background - and I watched as the mother walked away, going a few steps down the aisle with her back turned to the cart. The baby was asleep; he looked so sweet and angelic. And then I saw my hands reaching out to pick up this big stuffed bunny that was in the diaper bag next to the carrier and I . . .”


“What?” Daphne demanded he continue the story.


“My hands picked up the bunny and I . . .” Justin sighed and shook his head as if he didn’t believe what he was saying. “I pressed the stuffed animal over the baby’s face and just held it there . . .”


“Shit . . .” Daphne fell silent along with Justin and they both just stared as Lashay sleepily finished off the rest of her bottle. 


When the baby was done eating, Daphne took her back upstairs and put her to bed in the travel crib Lashay was using for the night. When Daph came down, she found Justin still sitting in silent worry. She flopped down on the sofa with enough velocity to cause her friend to bounce out of his reverie. But her heart went out to the poor boy when he looked up at her with a desolate expression.


“I don’t believe it, Justin,” Daphne stated forcefully, reaching out to grab Justin’s hands in her own, allowing her to pull him around till he was facing her directly. “I don’t. The Justin I know could NEVER, not in a million fucking years, hurt a child. I don’t know what’s up with you lately, or what that dream meant, but that WASN’T YOU. It just couldn’t be. I refuse to believe you would do shit like that, Jus.”


“But, I saw it. I was holding that toy . . .”


“Bullshit!” Daph insisted, finally getting Justin’s attention, and causing him to look up, into her eyes, with the first glimmer of hope. “Are you even sure it was you in that dream? Did you see yourself doing all these things? I mean, you kept saying you saw your hands doing this or that, but are you sure those were your hands? Because I know that in my dreams, a lot of times, I actually see myself, like I was looking at myself from a distance. But the way you told it, you only saw disembodied hands. And you know how dreams are - things get all jumbled up and confused. Maybe you were seeing someone else doing all these crazy things?”


Justin thought about that possibility for a minute as the worried frown lines in his forehead slowly faded. “You know, now that you say that, I think you might be right. The whole thing always felt off, you know? Like I was having an out of body experience or something. I mean, even in my dream, I was . . . shocked . . . by what was happening. It was as if I didn’t know what was happening. Which wouldn’t make sense if I was doing those things, right?”


“Exactly. That’s because it wasn’t YOU hurting that baby. It was someone else. It had to be,” Daphne affirmed what Justin was saying. “Of course, that doesn’t mean it still isn’t a freaky dream. I mean, who dreams about what other people are doing or about some sicko hurting a baby? That’s still a little weird, you know?”


“Tell me about it,” Justin agreed, finally relaxing enough to offer his friend a tentative smile. “But, now that I think about it more, I know you have to be right. Those thoughts - that hatred I felt in the dream - that’s not coming from ME. *I* just feel horrified by everything I’m seeing. It’s someone else’s hate I’m sensing and seeing . . . But, then, why am I seeing all this crap?”


“And, an even better question, WHO is it that you’re watching do all this stuff?” Daphne added, looking almost as worried now as her friend had earlier. “Cuz, if there’s someone else out there thinking about this shit - if you’re, like, channeling some baby-killer - that’s bad, Justin.”


Justin looked at his friend inquisitively. He’d never shared with her about his ‘gift’, but maybe she’d somehow sensed it on her own? Daph scored rather high on the empathy meter, according to Justin's metrics, so she might have just naturally come to the conclusion that her best friend was a little different than others. But for her to just assume he was ‘channeling’ another was a big leap. Especially when HE hadn’t even realized that was what was happening until now. Hmm. Maybe Daphne knew him better than he’d suspected?


“Yeah, that would be bad,” Justin replied, noncommittally. Then he picked up the TV remote and hit the button to un-pause their movie again. “Whatever. For now, I just want to forget about that stupid dream and go back to worrying about evil ghosts.”


“Deal,” Daphne agreed, picking up the bowl of popcorn and settling back into the couch with nothing more than a final, worried, glance at her friend.


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The realization that his ‘dreams’ weren’t his own musings, but rather, the manifestation of another’s obsession, didn’t make them go away. Justin continued to see the disturbing visions off and on over the following weeks. He could still feel the unknown person’s hatred for the baby, but at least he now understood that it was someone else’s hatred, not his own. Fortunately, there were no more instances of infanticide in the ensuing dream scenes. 


What Justin hadn’t figured out, though, was why HE was experiencing some other person’s negative emotions like that. He’d never had anything like that happen to him before. He’d never internalized someone else’s feelings that completely, and he was confused as to why it was happening now. Who was this person that hated a baby enough to attempt to kill it? Why did he never see the bad guy’s face? Why was Justin, of all the people on the planet, the one seeing these things? Was the responsible person someone he was otherwise connected with? If so, how? The questions just kept piling up without any answers in sight.


And Justin was only minimally distracted from his worry over these unrelenting visitions by a return to school after the start of the New Year.


Justin’s new term didn’t start all that well, either. He was so worn out from worry and confusion that, two weeks into the new semester, he actually fell asleep in History class. Needless to say, Mr. Dickson wasn’t amused; after the ‘fuck you’ run in earlier in the year, Dickson had been itching to get back at Justin. So, despite the fact that dozing in class was a relatively minor issue which, for another student, wouldn’t have had any repercussions at all, Justin was ordered to detention that afternoon. 


Dickson smiled gloatingly as Justin shuffled into the teacher’s classroom after the last class of the day was dismissed. Even worse, Justin realized he wasn’t going to suffer through an hour of boring detention alone since Chris Hobbs was already seated in a back desk, looking surly. Great. Just who Justin wanted to spend an extra hour of his day with.


Dickson proceeded to give them both a lecture on how badly they were fucking up their lives, and then threw in some extra homework as a bonus punishment, before leaving the two boys alone. Justin managed to finish the assignment in less than fifteen minutes while Hobbs slowly struggled along. At least that part made Justin smile. He figured he could kill the rest of his detention hour doodling and pulled out a sketch pad. Before long, though, he realized the picture he’d started had, as usual, turned into a complete study of Naked Brian - his favorite subject. But he figured, what the hell. He might as well enjoy his time in detention as much as he could, and if that meant daydreaming about his hunky ex-lover, so be it. 


The only problem with that theory was that Justin quickly became so absorbed in his task he didn’t notice that Hobbs had come up behind him and was looking over his shoulder, seemingly fascinated by what Justin was drawing.


“Fuck! You really are a fag, aren’t you?” Hobbs exclaimed, punctuating his sentence with a slap to the back of Justin’s head that was so hard it caused the artist’s forehead to bounce painfully against the desk in front of him.


Justin wasn’t taking it though. He stood up so fast his chair toppled over backward, spinning around to confront his attacker with a snarl that belied his more fragile-looking frame. Hobbs, like most bullies, hadn’t been expecting any resistance. So he was doubly surprised by the strong right hook Justin let fly. The blow landed squarely on Hobbs' jaw and knocked him flat on his ass.


“What the hell? You fucking little cocksucker you! I’m going to break every bone in your butt-fucking body . . .” Hobbs growled, scrambling to get back to his feet and then standing there, towering over Justin, with a menacing expression and fists balled.


“You can try, but I’m not gonna just sit here and let you get away with bullying me anymore. I’m done being your punching bag. From now on, every time you hit me I’m hitting back. And you might be bigger than me, but you’re going to have to beat me unconscious to get me to stop. At which point, you can take the matter up with the police after they haul your ass to the pen for aggravated assault.”


For about half a minute Hobbs looked like he was going to take Justin up on the proposition. Happily, though, this was also the moment that Dickson came back to check on the status of his detentionees. 


“What the hell is going on here?” Dickson raged. “I thought I told you not to get out of those chairs until I came back and dismissed you. However, since you apparently can’t follow directions at all, you get to stay for another hour of detention. Now, both of you, get your butts in those seats and get back to work or you’ll be doing detention for the entire rest of the week.”


Justin turned around and took his seat promptly. Hobbs, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as prompt. He shuffled slowly back to the desk he’d been sitting at earlier, while shooting murderous looks at Justin the entire time. Justin tried to ignore him, focusing instead on fixing the stray lines that had squiggled across his drawing when Hobbs had hit him. Fucking Hobbs; he ruined everything. But when Justin saw Dickson looking his way, apparently curious about what Justin was working on, the artist realized it probably wasn’t a good idea to be caught drawing the equivalent of porn while in school detention. He quickly put his sketch pad away and took out his copy of Brave New World; the book his English class was supposed to be reading.


The only problem with that alternative was that Justin had read the book at least twice already, so he wasn’t exactly riveted by the story. He quickly found his attention wandering. He wasn’t exactly dozing, but he wasn’t 100% awake either. So, inevitably, his off-kilter mind went where it had been going a lot lately - into odd visions of his mystery baby.


This time, Justin found himself in a restaurant of some kind. The colors were bright, yet indistinct, with a dull roar of noise surrounding him on all sides. The only part of the image that was clear was the table right in front of him and the bench seats, one on each side. Sitting on the linoleum-topped table was a familiar looking baby carrier. Justin watched, in the same disembodied way, as whomever was the focus of his vision neared the table and looked down at the sleeping infant. He was no longer surprised at the rush of jealousy and resentment that flooded through him, even though it was still disturbing. Whoever it was he was channeling was completely irrational when it came to this poor baby.


Then, suddenly, the perspective of his vision changed. It was like the camera viewing the scene was abruptly pulled way back, still showing the table, but now from a distance of several meters. The shift was very disconcerting, not only because of the feeling of rapid movement, but also because of the way the surroundings swirled in a confused haze of colors and shapes, all indistinct and dreamlike. But that table with the baby somehow remained in perfect focus. 


And then the scene shifted again. It was as if Justin’s point of view jumped closer again, only this time it happened without the sense of physical movement. If you could get motion sickness from a dream, Justin thought he’d be puking his guts out. Just before the zoom-in, however, there was an even stranger development - Brian Kinney had appeared.


As usual, Brian was resplendent. He was wearing tight jeans, a wine red button down shirt, and a black leather bomber jacket. His hair had that ruffled, just-fucked look. He strutted onto the scene with his typical superior-yet-disengaged demeanor. Brian was followed ten seconds later by a young hottie wearing a muscle tee, who tried to shove a small piece of paper into Brian’s back pocket. 


“Call me if you want another go,” the unknown trick offered with a simpering smile.


Brian pulled the hand away from his pocket, crumpled the slip of paper in his fist, and then shoved it back at the offeror. “I don’t think so. I have a strict ‘One fuck per customer; No Returns' policy,” Brian advised. “But thanks for playing.”


Justin didn’t hear what the disdained trick mumbled in response, though, because that’s when the shift in viewpoint happened. And, all of a sudden, Justin was looking down at the baby again, only this time through Brian’s eyes. Justin tried again to plum into Brian’s emotions, but he still got nothing. Justin felt only the same brick wall of blankness he’d experienced before when confronted by his former lover. It was the oddest feeling of this already bizarre experience. How could he be looking out through Brian’s eyes and yet not have any clue what Brian was thinking or feeling? He hadn’t thought his dreams could get any weirder, but then there he was.


Meanwhile, Justin continued to look on the scene through Brian’s eyes, feeling distanced from the scene by the lack of emotional connection, as Brian took a seat in the booth where the baby’s carrier rested. Justin could see the table, adorned with the usual Diner accouterments including the napkin holder, sugar dispenser, and ubiquitous bottle of ketchup. He could see the baby waiting in its carrier. He could hear a garbled roar of noise coming from what he assumed were the other restaurant patrons. But, with the twisted reality of any dream, he couldn’t make out anything or anyone beyond the purview of that table. 


“Thanks for watching him, Ma,” Brian said to some unseen entity as his hands reached out to turn the carrier so it was facing the bench seat. 


Justin couldn’t see the person who responded, but he did hear the words, even though the tone was distorted and wonky, a bit like the voices of anonymous adults in a Peanuts cartoon. “My pleasure. I love spending time with my little peanut. I’m just glad Kiki was able to trade shifts with me. But, next time you agree to watch him, maybe you better make sure it’s not the weekend of the Leather Ball?” The laughter that followed this statement was even more muted and faded out rapidly, as if someone had cut off the speaker’s mic halfway through a video.


“Yeah, tell that to the folks who schedule teaching conferences,” Brian replied cryptically.


Then, as Justin looked on through his host’s eyes, Brian leaned forward and peered into the baby carrier just as the infant inside opened his big brown eyes and smiled up at his admirer. 


Whereupon Justin was startled all the way awake by yet another wave of vitriolic hatred aimed at the sweet epitome of innocence.


Before he could react to this new development, though, his dream world upended itself again, with another transfer of perspective. Now he was looking directly at Brian instead of out of Brian’s eyes. And all of a sudden Brian seemed to see Justin too. 


“What are YOU doing here?” Brian asked, scoldingly.


Justin was so surprised he jerked backward . . . And instantly came to full awareness of his non-dream environment, physically starting so badly that he actually slipped off the edge of the chair he’d been dozing in. Both Hobbs and Dickson looked up in surprise and then broke into laughter at the boy’s plight. 


Justin gingerly picked himself up off the floor and took his seat again. He retrieved his book from where it had fallen and pretended to read again. He tried to school his expression back to bored indifference. All the while, though, he was internally reeling from what he thought he’d seen.


Could it really be Brian who’s emotions he’d been picking up on? Was Gus the baby he’d been seeing all along? Did Brian really HATE his son with such a vengeance that the negative emotions broke through his otherwise impenetrable emotional walls? How could that be? How could the caring, gentle man who’d ushered Justin in to sexual adulthood be capable of such unthinking malevolence?


If that was the case, then nothing in Justin’s world made any sense any more.


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Chapter End Notes:

9/10/19 - So, is everyone completely confused now? Good. That’s what I was going for! Now, let’s see if I can begin to sort things out for you a little bit... Or not. Bwahahaha! TAG

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