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Author's Chapter Notes:

This is the chapter you've all been waiting for! Enjoy! TAG



Chapter 20 - Among Others.



After riding the bus for what seemed like hours and hours, Justin finally got off the first moment he glimpsed a location he recognized. As soon as the bus glided to a stop next to the big plaza where he’d spent the prior day drawing pictures, he jumped up out of his seat and ran to the exit door. He didn’t even stop to say goodbye to the driver - which was a newer driver than the one who’d let him on, since that one had traded places with a different driver about halfway through the route - because he was still a little angry at the fact the first driver had let him get on the bus going the wrong way. But anyway, he was tired of riding the bus by that point and all the fun of the interesting new mode of transportation had long since worn off, so he was glad to get back on solid ground again, even though he was disappointed that he hadn’t found his way back to Brian yet. He knew he was close though. And he might even try the bus again. Later. For the moment, though, he was frustrated and hungry and just needed a break. He decided to give himself an hour or so and then he’d go back to finding his Brian. 


In the meantime, however, his first order of business was to find himself some lunch. It was long past noon and all he’d had for breakfast was some toast. His stomach was telling him that wasn’t nearly enough. But, since he’d given all his money away the night before, and used the money his Cat Lady had given him for the unproductive bus ride, he couldn’t just go out and buy himself some lunch. The fact that he’d made it back to the plaza where he’d spent the prior afternoon, though, had given him an idea.


Making his way over to the spot on the sidewalk where he’d attempted to panhandle the day before, Justin sat himself down and pulled out his drawing pad. He figured he could draw a few more pictures and, hopefully, earn enough to pay for a hot dog from the little cart on the other side of the plaza. All he had to do was find a customer or two.


His fortunes seemed to finally be turning around, thank goodness, because just as he was getting settled the Nice Lady from the day before - the one who’d suggested that he draw instead of beg for money - came over to say hello. “I didn’t expect to find you back here so soon,” Ms. Lady said, giving him a huge smile of welcome. “But I’m glad to see you. My fiance loved that portrait you did of me. It turned out so great, that I was thinking maybe I could get another one to give to my mother for her birthday next week. Would you be interested in doing another drawing of me?”


“I’d love to!” Justin enthused, digging through his trusty messenger bag to find his colored pencils. “How about, this time, I do one for you in color? I think your mother would like that, don’t you?”


The Nice Lady was thrilled by that idea and immediately agreed to pay him double the price for a colored picture. So Justin set her up on a nearby bench in front of some colorful flowers and set to work on his next masterpiece. While he drew, they chatted, and Justin brought her up to date on his bus adventures. Even with adding some extra details and embellishing it with color, though, it didn’t take him that long to finish the piece, which he handed off to his customer with a flourish. 


Ms. Lady was even more impressed with this portrait than the last and gladly gave him the $20 they’d agreed to. She also gave him her business card, telling Justin that her sister-in-law was the manager at a local art gallery, and hinting that they might be interested in seeing more of his work once he’d found his way home again and could produce all the other drawings and paintings he’d told her he had stashed back at His Brian’s loft. 


After the Nice Lady left to return to work, Justin took the money she’d given him and bought himself two hot dogs, along with three bags of chips and two sodas - he was THAT hungry - and returned to the bench to devour his feast while pondering his next steps in the quest to get unlost.


While he was thinking things through, Justin tried his best not to get all panicky and worried again, because that wouldn’t help him find Brian. He knew he had to approach this logically; even though logic was not his strong point. But there had to be some way he could figure this out on his own, right?



“Trey said he saw you - I mean, the other you - hanging around with Crazy Bertha yesterday afternoon,” Hunter explained as he led the way down the block with Tristan and Brian following closely on the boy’s heels. “So, if Bertha follows her usual route, she should probably be somewhere around Steel Plaza about this time of day.”


“Who the fuck is Crazy Bertha?” Brian asked, not liking the idea of his Sunshine spending time in the company of someone commonly referred to as ‘crazy’. 


“Everybody knows Bertha,” Tristan scoffed at the man’s lack of savvy. “She’s this weird old shopping cart lady who wanders around town digging through the trash. I have no idea what she does with all the crap she collects. She’s constantly babbling crazy shit at anyone who’ll listen, but I guess she’s mostly harmless.”


The little group rounded the corner, coming up to the dock area behind the BNY Mellon Center, and Hunter announced, “Yeah. Just like I said. There she is.” He pointed to where this stooped, little old lady was pulling a battered suitcase with one side caved in out of the dumpster, and they all trooped over in that direction. “Hey, Betha. How’s the dumpster diving going today?” 


“Looks like they lost all my luggage again,” Bertha responded, holding up the empty suitcase for their inspection. “Next time, I’ll go to the Bahamas instead, I think. I like those little rum drinks, you know? The ones with the umbrellas. Those are nice . . .” 


The woman shifted some items on the bottom shelf section of her shopping cart so there was room to add her newly found suitcase to the rest of the junk there. 


“Uh, yeah, rum is good, I suppose,” Hunter replied while looking at his buddy and rolling his eyes. “Hey, Bertha, we’re looking for someone you were hanging around with yesterday. A blond kid. Looks like Stan?” Hunter pointed to his friend and Tristan smiled. “Have you seen someone like that around here today?”


Bertha pointed at Tristan and gave them all a ‘you think I’m the crazy one’ look. 


“No, lady, we’re looking for another kid - my boyfriend - he looks a lot like Stan, here, but different,” Brian tried to interpret. 


“Someone who looks like you but isn’t you?” Bertha looked confused. “But, why aren’t you, you? Did you get lost again?”


“It’s not me that got lost, lady,” Tristan replied, already getting a little fed up with the conversation and unsure whether or not they were getting anywhere. “It’s the other kid that looks like me that got lost. Just tell us if you’ve seen him around today. Okay?”


“Nope. I ain’t seen any fairy godmothers around today, I don’t think. Maybe Fang has, though. Lemme ask her,” Bertha suggested, lifting up the blanket that was draped over the top of her shopping cart and whispering to something moving around inside. “You seen the Fairy Godmother, Baby? You remember - the little cutie pie who gived you the pizza? No? Hmmmm. Me neither.” Then she let the blanket fall back into place and turned to look at the group of waiting men. “Sorry, Boys, but Fang hasn’t seen you today. Then again, she’s been too busy with all my grandbabies. They sure do eat a lot, you know. Course, that’s cuz they ain’t really cats, but possums, you know. Possums eat a lot mor’n cats. But at least it's not tapeworms, right?”


“Uh, okay . . .” Hunter and Tristan started to back away from the woman, who clearly wasn’t operating on all four cylinders. “Thanks anyway, Bertha.”


“Hey, did you check over at Third Street Baptist?” Bertha yelled after the retreating group. “He really seemed to like the macaroni ‘n cheese, even though I told him the tuna casserole at St. Agnes’ was better. Course, that’s only on Fridays.”


That caused Brian to pause. “Third Street Baptist? Where’s that?” he asked the woman who was already starting to push her car in the other direction. 


“It’s this church that has a soup kitchen,” Tristan explained, tugging on Brian’s sleeve to try and get the man moving. “But it’s not open on Thursdays so there’s no use going there to look for your boy.”


Brian yanked his arm out of the youth’s grasp and started off down the alley after Bertha. “Even though she was babbling, I seemed like she might have seen Justin. Maybe we should keep trying to talk to her?” By that point, though, the bag lady had already pushed her cart around the far corner of the building, heading in the direction of Steel Plaza. 


“I doubt you’ll get anything out of her,” Hunter groused as he trotted to catch up to the tall brunet with the long legs. “At least nothing that would make any sense.”


Tristan, though, was already trying to think up some other way to find his blond twin. The deal he’d made with Kinney had been that, if he helped find Justin, and ‘Sunshine’ was returned in one piece, no criminal charges would be filed against Tristan. Kinney had made it clear, though, if Justin wasn’t home by nightfall, then all bets were off and he’d personally haul Tristan’s ass off to the closest police station. The wily con artists didn’t doubt Kinney’s determination either, so he was going to try his ultimate best to find the other kid and thereby save his ass. Which meant, if Bertha couldn’t help them find Justin, they’d have to come up with some other lead. Which was why he was scrambling to come up with another way to trace the missing look-alike even as he shambled after Kinney who, in turn, was intent on following Bertha. 


“Maybe we should call Trey back and see where else he mighta seen the kid?” Tristan yelled after the retreating backs of his fellow Justin-hunters. “Or . . . Wait, did Demarcus say where it was that the thing with the dog happened? We could try tracking him down from there . . . What do you think, Hunter? Would that work?”


“I didn’t talk to the man, Stan. I only got the story secondhand from Hugo, and only then because Daddy was screaming fit to be tied about how he was gonna kill you for crossing him up with Demarcus,” Hunter explained. “I don’t know where that shit went down.”


“We could ask Demarcus, I guess . . .”


That suggestion seemed to amuse Hunter to no end. “Seriously, dude? Do you think Demarcus is going to talk to the guy who sicked his own dog on him and sent him to the hospital to get twenty-five stitches? Apparently, you have no concept of how extremely pissed off that man is. Hell, Stan, if you think you can get within a mile of Demarcus and not get your ass capped, you’re delusional.” 


“Well, I don’t hear YOU coming up with any other fucking ideas,” Tristan griped with a growl of frustration. 


“Ha!” Hunter burst out laughing and stopped dead in his tracks. Directing his companions’ attention across the plaza to where a small group of businessmen and women in suits were huddled around a bench, he asked, “how about we just go ask him?”


As one, all three heads turned to look in the same direction. At first there didn’t appear to be anything important to see, but then the crowd shifted enough that you could tell they were all gathered around a figure seated on one of the benches that lined the plaza. And, sitting on that bench in the fall sunshine, his sketch pad propped up on one knee, his attention focused on whatever he was drawing, was the very boy they’d been furiously traipsing all over the city trying to locate. 


“JUSTIN!” Brian screamed so loudly that every head in the vicinity swivelled to look at him. Kinney didn’t wait for his quarry to respond before he broke into a sprint across the intervening space, dropping to his knees in front of the little blond artist smiling at him from his perch on the bench. “Fuck! Justin! Finally!” 


“Hello, My Brian!” Justin sighed and reached out with both hands, looking a bit like a toddler begging to be hugged. 


Kinney wasn’t about to object. He reached up and gathered the once-missing blond in his long arms, pulling the boy off the bench into his lap. Then he began kissing the fuck out of the kid until they were both absolutely breathless. 


“Shit, Justin! What the fuck happened? Where the hell have you been?” Brian asked, in between kisses. “I was so fucking worried . . .”


“I’m sorry, Just Brian. I didn’t mean to worry you. I was too busy being worried myself. See, I got a little lost and I didn’t know how to find you . . .”


That statement threw Bryan into a tizzy all over again and Justin‘s further explanations were cut off as the worried boyfriend seized his blond’s lips in another frantic kiss. Justin was kissing back almost as frenziedly though. They may have gone on like that for quite a bit longer, too, if they hadn’t been interrupted by the two boys who’d been helping Brian search for his now-found boyfriend.


“So, we square now, Kinney?” Tristan asked hopefully.


“No fucking way. Not until Justin confirms your story that you weren’t involved in him going missing,” Brian maintained, shifting Justin off his lap so he could get up and reseat himself on the bench, with his boyfriend in place beside him. “Justin, meet Tristan.” Brian gestured from one blond to the other, causing Justin to stare in disbelief at what seemed like a mirror image. “Tristan has been masquerading as you for the last two days. Which is why nobody knew you were missing. Otherwise, we would’ve come looking for you a lot sooner, Sunshine. He claims it was all a mistake, and he had nothing to do with your temporary disappearance, but I want to hear that from you before I let our little impersonator here go free.”


“Why does that boy look like me?” Justin asked with amazement. “Oh wait! Is this like in that movie I saw one time - I think it was called Freaky Friday - where two people got switched into different bodies? Do I look different? Am I in his body while he’s in mine? Wait, I don’t think I look different,” he insisted, feeling his face with his fingers to try and ascertain whether or not he’d unknowingly changed shapes somehow.


“No, Sunshine, you still look like you. I’m pretty sure there hasn't been any body swapping involved here,” Brian insisted, grabbing hold of the flailing hands and holding them both in his own. “But that’s a good question; why DO the two of you look so much alike?”


“Uh, sorry to cut in,” a strange voice diverted Brian’s attention for a moment and he looked up to see the crowd of suits still standing around as witnesses to their reunion. One of them, an older man with silver hair who was actually a bit of a fox despite his age, was leaning in closer than the others. “Any chance you’re going to finish that portrait I already paid you for? Cuz, if not, I need to get back to work and . . .” The man was pointing to a small pile of bills that were peeking out from under Justin’s bag. 


“Oh, right! Of course I’ll finish your drawing, Mr. Businessman,” Justin immediately sat up and smiled winningly at his customer while picking up his sketch pad again. “I’m sorry I got distracted, but this is My Brian. You know, the one I was telling you about; the one you should hire to do the advertising for your money business. Cuz, Kinnetik is really good at advertising stuff, and I do all the drawing for My Brian, so if you like this drawing as much as you were saying, you could make a deal with Brian and then you could get me to draw all your ads and then you’d make tons and tons of new money, just like all Brian’s other clients are doing.” He must have been almost done before Brian and his two assistants had arrived because it only took Justin a couple more minutes - while he jabbered on, extolling the many virtues of Kinnetik Advertising - before he finished the drawing. “There you go; all done!” He held the portrait up to show off how good a likeness it was. “I told you I was a real artist - not like before when I was only pretending to be an artist when I met Ms. Simone - I’m even going to artist school to get a real artist degree. Except, I think I missed class this afternoon already. I hope my teacher won’t be too mad at me . . .”


“Actually, that’s not bad,” the businessman who’d been the subject of the drawing admitted. “Not bad at all.” The man took a business card out of his jacket pocket and held it out to Brian. “If you’re as good as this young man says, I’d love to talk to you further. My COO was just saying the other day how we needed to look for a new advertising firm. Give me a call later this week and we’ll talk.”


Brian pocketed the card and nodded to the man. “Sounds good,” he replied but then immediately turned his attention back to the boy artist. “Are you ready to go home now, Sunshine? I’ve got two days of missing you to make up for.”


Just sighed dramatically. “I missed you too, my Brian. So much.” Then he looked at all the people still waiting in the plaza. “But I can’t leave now. All these people were waiting for me to draw their pictures. And some of them even came back from when I got too tired to draw yesterday.”


“Sunshine . . .”


“I’ll draw fast, Brian. Really, really fast. I promise.” Justin made an X across his heart with his index finger to seal the vow. 


“Well, I’m not waiting while you fart around drawing pictures for fuck knows how long,” Tristan complained with a frown.


“I wouldn’t be in such a hurry if I were you,” Brian commented, shooting a menacing grin Tristan’s way. “It sounds to me like you’re in a pile of shit with this Hugo guy. You might as well stick around until Justin has cleared you. Then at least you won’t have to deal with pending criminal charges against you as well as an angry pimp riding your ass.” Kinney waved his hand in Justin‘s direction, indicating he should proceed with his drawing. “Do what you gotta do, Sunshine, but talk while you’re drawing.”


Which is precisely what Justin did for the next hour or so while he drew one portrait after another for his waiting customers. Perhaps not surprisingly, the story he was telling was almost as good as his artwork, resulting in the majority of his audience sticking around even after their portraits were completed. If anything, the crowd grew while Justin was telling his tale of woe, starting from that afternoon when he’d come out of class, missed his ride home, fallen into the street, hit his head, and woke up in the hospital. If Brian hadn’t known Justin so well - and his penchant for finding adventure no matter where he went - he might not have believed everything he was hearing. But, of course, a tale that fantastical couldn’t possibly be made up.


“. . . So then I got tired of riding the bus, and I was hungry, so I got off and started drawing pictures so I could get enough money to buy lunch. I was gonna try to get unlost again after lunch. Only, all these people that had seen me here yesterday came back and they all wanted pictures too, so I kept drawing them. And that’s when you and Skinny Boy and Freaky Friday Boy found me,” Justin finished his story and glanced up at his spellbound audience. “But that doesn’t explain why you showed up here with that boy who has my same face, Brian, or why he was pretending to be me while I was busy being lost. I don’t understand that part at all.”


“I don’t either, Sunshine,” Brian had to agree. “Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for you going missing, though, something about this just doesn’t add up. I think we might still want to get the police to look into what, exactly, is going on here . . .” 


“Hey! You said if I found your missing boyfriend for you, you’d let me go!” Tristan insisted, gesturing to where Justin was sitting as evidence that he’d fulfilled his part of the bargain. “Well, here he is - just fine - exactly as I predicted. Which means we’re done and I’m out of here . . .” 


“Wait! You can’t go back there,” Justin pleaded. “I think, maybe, I kinda messed things up with you with the Big Angry Man and, unless you have a whole lot of money with you when you go back there, he’s gonna think you’re me, and be angry, and Skinny Boy said he would do bad things to your rear end, and I would feel really bad if that happened because of you and me getting mixed up cuz we look alike.”


“He’s not wrong, Stan,” Hunter agreed. “I’ve never seen Hugo as pissed off as he was this morning after Demarcus called. I wouldn’t go home yet if I was you. If you show up now, dude, he’s not going to wait long enough for you to explain what happened before he starts in on you. I say, give Daddy at least a day or two to cool down. Then - maybe - he’ll hold off on your beating long enough for you to try and tell him your side of it.” 


“You should listen to Skinny Boy,” Justin echoed the other boy’s admonition. “My Brian says to always listen to your gut, and my gut says that Big Angry Man isn’t a nice person. Especially when he’s in a bad mood. Although, to be honest, I never saw him when he WASN’T in a bad mood, so who knows.”


“Well, there’s one problem with that suggestion, Sunshine,” Tristan grumbled, shuffling his feet anxiously as he spoke. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. So, it’s either go back to Hugo, or . . . I don’t know . . . Flee the country? Although, if I try to cut and run, he’s going to be even more pissed off and I’ll probably end up dead so . . . Fuck it.”


“No problem,” Justin spoke up as if he’d already solved that particular problem. “You’ll just have to come back to the loft and stay with me and Brian until we can figure out how to make the Big Angry Man leave you alone. And how to fix all the problems us two being mixed up caused. And why you have my same face.”


“Justin . . .” Brian began to object but his blond cut him off.


“Please, Brian? It’ll just be until we figure out why Freaky Friday Boy and I got ourselves all confused. Because I can’t let him go back to that Big Angry Man wearing my face. It’s just too confusing and it’s sorta my fault he’s going to be in trouble. I can’t do that. I can’t have him getting in trouble because of me.” 


Kinney looked back and forth between the two identical blonds for a minute or so before his shoulders slumped and you could see he’d already capitulated. “Fine. But if he tries to steal even one measly paperclip, I’m calling the cops this time for real.”


“Thank you, My Brian. I’m sure Freaky Friday Boy will be on his best behavior. Right, Friday?” Tristan rolled his eyes but didn’t argue the point. Justin clearly assumed everything was a done deal and went back to concentrating on his drawing for another thirty seconds or so before dropping his pencil back in the bag at his feet and tearing out the page he’d been working on. “Okay. I’m done.” He handed the portrait off to the woman who’d been modelling for him and accepted the $10 she paid him. “Can we go home now, Brian?” 


“Definitely,” Brian concurred, getting to his feet and pulling Justin up after him. He looked around the bench area but didn’t see anything they needed to take with them other than Justin’s messenger bag. “Shit, Justin. Have you been walking around the city for two days without any shoes on this whole time?” The shoe-hating youth shrugged. “It’s a wonder your feet aren’t torn to shreds. But at least we don’t have far to go; my car is at the office and it’s only about four blocks away. You can make that far, right?” Justin smiled and nodded. “So, you do realize, don’t you, that if you’d just stayed on the 61 bus for one more stop, you would’ve driven right past Kinnetik’s offices? Then you would’ve found us instead of having to wait around here for us to find you, Twat.”


“That’s okay. I don’t care who found who as long as I’m not lost anymore,” Justin smiled up at his rescuer with obvious adoration as Brian started to lead him away. “All I want to do is go home with you and get a shower and then do some boyfriend things, because I really missed you, My Brian, like, a whole lot, and I missed doing our boyfriend things a bunch too, you know? And watching Skinny Boy and those other kids doing boyfriend things with their friends made me feel like I missed you even more. And then, after all the boyfriend things I want to do to you, I want to go to the Diner and eat the biggest hamburger ever, because those two hot dogs I had for lunch weren’t really enough and my tummy is still kinda empty. And then we can go back to the loft and do even more boyfriend things, and . . . Oh, wait!” Justin froze in place, pulling Brian to a halt as well. “I almost forgot. I have to go get Boss first. I promised the Cat Lady I’d come back and get him as soon as I found you.”


“Boss? The dog?” Brian asked, sounding afraid of the answer he expected.


“Uh huh! You’re going to love him, My Brian. He’s such a sweet little puppy. And so snuggly. And I bet Gus is going to be super excited to have a pet!” He dug into his bag and pulled out a piece of paper, holding it out to his boyfriend. “Here. I made my Cat Lady write down her address so I could find her again once I got unlost.”


“But . . . But, Justin . . . A dog . . . I don’t think I’m ready for a dog . . .” Brain grumbled and looked around himself as if searching for someone to help him get out of his impending pet ownership.


“You weren’t ready for me either,” Justin reasoned, tugging on his boyfriend’s hand until he got the larger man moving again. “And look how good that turned out. So, come on. Let’s go get our new puppy, Just Brian!

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

4/14/21 - Darn! I was really hoping to end this one by Chapter 20. But there are still way too many loose ends to tie up. So I guess you get one more chapter? At least the boys are now reunited! Yay! But, however is Brian going to cope with his new puppy? LOL. Hope you enjoyed. TAG

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