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Author's Chapter Notes:

The final chapter! Yay!!!! HEA awaits. Enjoy! TAG



Chapter 22 - We’ll Never Be Apart.



Brian had only been to the small, unassuming, drab-green, craftsman-style house one time before; a couple weeks after they’d returned from their cross-country RV trek. Justin had only gone there because he wanted to retrieve some of his clothing and a few personal objects. Neither of them had enjoyed the experience. 



The entire time they’d been in the house, Justin had acted like he was afraid of his own shadow. Brian hated thinking of his effervescent blond, full of so much life, growing up in such a stifling atmosphere. It didn’t help much that the interior of the house was cluttered and dark, with all the windows covered by thick cardboard taped to the window frames, the paint on the walls faded to grey, and the old shag carpeting matted and stained. It was a fetid, depressing prison, and he didn’t blame Justin for saying he never wanted to return.


In the intervening months, Brian had used some of Justin’s trust money to pay for a cleaning service to come over and give the place a thorough cleaning. He’d also paid a gardening service to come spruce up the exterior and keep the lawn mowed. So, when they arrived on Thursday evening, the place actually looked a lot better than it ever had before. Justin almost didn’t recognize his childhood home, it was that transformed just by the minimal maintenance that had been done. That being said, there were still a lot of unpleasant memories associated with the place, so it was understandable that Justin was a bit jumpy as Brian unlocked the front door for his crew. The other two boys, however, were unaffected; they seemed interested in exploring, running off down the hall to check out the ground floor rooms and peek into all the closets. Meanwhile, Justin led Brian upstairs to the cramped little bedroom that had been his mother’s sanctuary. 


This room had been one of the places Justin associated with some of his worst memories. This had been the place where his mother would lock herself up for days, screaming at the walls, pacing the floors, throwing things and raging. Justin had mostly avoided the room when he was growing up. It was also the room in which his mother had killed herself, so it wasn’t a surprise that the traumatized youth hesitated before he pulled open the door.


“You can do this, Sunshine. I’m right here with you,” Brian whispered, his hand resting comfortingly on the young man’s back. 


With a silent nod, Justin twisted the antique glass knob and pulled open the door. It was almost like he expected to find the still-bloody corpse of his mother lying in the middle of the floor. But, when it seemed like nothing scary was likely to jump out at him, he took a deep breath and ventured inside. He seemed surprised to note that this room, like the rest of the house, had been cleaned up and, with the layers of paper, cardboard, and aluminum foil removed from the windows, was now much less gloomy. 


Brian flipped on the light and followed closely on Justin’s heels. Justin was already on his knees, digging through an old wooden chest that occupied a spot beneath the dormer window which popped up through the roofline on the west side of the house, providing a little extra headroom in that part of the room. Hovering behind his partner, Brian watched as Justin rifled through the contents, eventually unearthing a large, wooden keepsake box from underneath a pile of quilts and other bedding.


 

The box itself was quite attractive. It’s finish was scratched in a few places but you could tell it was sturdy and well-made and that it could easily be restored. 


Justin closed the lid of the chest, set the keepsake box on top, and then went across the way to a tallboy dresser, from which he retrieved a small tin container that looked like it might once have been filled with candies. Pulling the lid off the tin, Justin used a finger to stir the contents around - sifting through a mess of tiny trinkets, buttons, paperclips, earrings, a couple of brooches, thimbles, and other inconsequentials - until he located the key to the box. 



With Brian toting the box and Justin following behind holding onto the key as if it was some kind of taliman, they made their way back downstairs. Brian set the box in the middle of the dining table. By that point Hunter and Tristan had joined them and they all four stood around staring at that damned box as if it were a pirate's treasure or something. Finally, with a little whimper, Justin stepped forward, slid the key into the lock, and twisted it until they all heard the mechanism inside click. 


“Here goes nothing,” Brian said, trying to lighten the mood as he reached out to lift up the lid, releasing a creak from the rusty old hinges.


Inside, as expected, there were a lot of legal-looking papers. There was also a lot of other stuff; so much stuff, actually, that the box was literally packed full. On top, in the little tray that fitted into the back of the box, there was some jewelry, a woman’s gold watch, an antique Girl Scouts pin, a diamond-studded stick pin with the greek letters ‘𝚫𝚪’ on a blue ceramic background, more keys, and, in a silk-lined velvet bag, three rings including a large diamond solitaire that could have been an engagement ring, a diamond and turquoise cocktail ring, and a more sedate, braided gold band that looked like a wedding ring. Justin lifted the tray out and set all that aside leaving only the deeper well full of papers visible. On the top of that section they found Jennifer Taylor’s expired passport showing that, before her illness had set in, the woman had done quite a lot of travelling. While Justin was showing off the passport to Tristan, Brian pulled out all the rest of the documents and began to lay them out on the table so they could go through them more carefully. 


“You want to do the honors, Sunshine,” Brian asked before delving into the private paperwork of his partner’s deceased mother.


Justin shook his head and took a step back so he was no longer within reach of any of the piles. “No. You do it, My Brian. I can’t . . .”


“Fine . . .” Brian agreed and took up the first document he saw.



The sheaf of papers was tri-folded and surrounded by a blue manuscript cover backing with the name of some pretentious-sounding law firm printed on it. When unfurled, this turned out to be the deed to the house they were all standing in. Brian set that aside, thinking to take it with them when they left so he could add it to the other important documents he kept in his safe. Next, there were some documents related to the death of Jennifer’s mother, Judy Caruthers-Taylor, including a death certificate and a Will, dating back to the 1980s. There were other quasi-legal papers related to taxes, a judgement against Jennifer for an unpaid credit card bill which had eventually been paid off, and even a restraining order taken out against Jennifer by someone named Phyllis Grabley in the 1990s. None of those seemed all that important to Brian so he just returned them all to the box. 


At that point in the stack, Brian began to come across piles of what appeared to be personal letters, still in their envelopes, all showing the address of the house they were standing in as the return address and directed to someone named Elliott Grabley. All were marked, ‘Return To Sender’. Many of the envelopes were sealed as if they’d never been opened. Brian didn’t want to wade into that mess so he returned all those letters to the box as well. 


Underneath that stack, it appeared that they were getting to the good stuff. Or the bad stuff, depending on how you looked at it. Because the stuff Brian began to dig through next included stacks of personal stationary, covered front and back, with miniscule handwriting. Each page was dated, the entries going back more than forty years. Some of the pages had been crumpled and torn, then taped back together. They were paperclipped together in random groupings, some of which were an inch or more thick and others only included a few sheets of paper. A quick glance at the contents of these pages indicated they’d found Jennifer Taylor’s private journals. Only, the entries they read didn’t make much sense; clearly, the woman doing the writing hadn’t been in her right mind most of the time. It was, basically, the diary of a madwoman.


“These go back to before I was born,” Justin said as he thumbed through one clump of pages. “It’s just rambling, mostly.”


Tristan picked up another group of pages and started to read, “they might have found me again. I heard noises in the kitchen last night. Voices. I made the boy come into my room with me and we lit the candles and I made him sing to block it all out. He fell asleep just after sunrise but by then they were gone. We are still safe . . .” Tristan tossed that page back into the box. “Okay, so, it’s pretty clear your mom was not firing on all cylinders, Dude.”


“Yeah . . . More of the same there,” Hunter agreed as he added the packet he’d been reading to the box. 


“Wait. I might have found something,” Brian spoke up, waving the group of pages he’d been looking at in the air. “These are from around the time you were born, Justin. Listen, ‘The copy wouldn’t sleep last night at all. It kept crying and crying and wouldn’t take the bottle. The boy slept right through it all. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the other one, though. He’s not right. Would they have put him here to spy on me? I’m so tired, I can’t think. But if I do something to get rid of it, then they’ll know I’m onto them and the next spy they send in will just be better disguised. Or they’ll plant bugs like they did before. Maybe I should just keep the copy for now so they don’t know I know.’”


“‘The Copy’? That could be referring to a second twin baby,” Hunter surmised, looking sideways at his friend to see how Stan was taking this. 


“It has to,” Justin stated, holding up another piece of paper he’d found further down in the stack of paperwork. “It’s my birth certificate and it says . . . It says here . . .” He breathlessly pointed to a line on the form. “It says ‘twin birth’.”


A little more digging through the box’s contents unearthed a few more clues that supported the theory they’d all come to believe already: there was the Psychiatric Evaluation where a doctor in 1989 had diagnosed Jennifer Taylor with paranoid schizophrenia and referred her to an inpatient treatment program, paperwork from several other doctors and hospitals spanning a decade or more detailing treatments she’d been subjected to, and some unfilled medication prescriptions from various doctors. Near the bottom of the stack they found a legal envelope with a copy of a marriage certificate dated 1988 and a divorce judgment dated 1991. And finally, the very last thing they came to, was a yellowed and stained envelope enclosing a second birth certificate that had been torn into small, crumpled pieces and then meticulously taped back together again. 


“Here’s your proof.” Brian shook his head as he handed off the document to Tristan. “It’s the match to Justin’s. Tristan Taylor, twin birth, and the same birthdate, January 18th.”


“Fuck me . . .” Tristan took the form, stared at it for a second, and promptly collapsed into the nearest chair. 


“I have a brother,” Justin announced with the beginnings of a smile. “I . . . I have a brother.” He turned to hug Brian, who was the person closest to him. “I have a BROTHER!” Then the little blond dynamo skipped over to where Tristan was sitting and grappled the other boy into a hug so strong that it knocked them both to the floor, while yelling over and over again, “I HAVE A BROTHER! I HAVE A BROTHER! I HAVE A BROTHER!”


 


“Are you sure my new brother will be okay sleeping in the house without me there?” Justin asked for at least the tenth time.


“Tristan is fine, Sunshine. You heard him; he and Hunter were thrilled to stay in the house for the night. I don’t think either of them were looking forward to sleeping on a futon on the floor here at the loft. Not when they can each have their own bedroom at the house,” Brian reassured his antsy partner as he unlocked the door and ushered Justin inside the loft. 


“But, don’t you think it’s kind of scary there? And they’re all alone,” Justin argued, tugging on Boss’ leash to get the dog to heel as they entered.


Brian set the keepsake box they’d brought with them from the house of the island counter and then turned to take his blond into his arms. “They’re fine. They’re big boys. They’re used to being on their own. They can handle one night alone.”


“I just don’t know if it’s right to leave your brand new, identical twin brother all alone after you just find him when you didn’t know he even existed for nineteen years, especially not in your dead mother’s house. What if we get lost to each other again and I don’t see him for ANOTHER nineteen years. I don’t think I’d like that at all. And what if he’s upset about finding out about my mother just leaving him like that as a baby? Maybe we should have stayed and talked about it some more . . .”


Brian cut him off with an expedient kiss that, momentarily at least, usurped all of Justin’s attention. Justin dropped the dog’s leash, allowing Boss to wander off, the puppy eagerly sniffing around his new home. It seemed like Boss was going to fit into the Kinney-Taylor household just fine and even Brian had already become accustomed enough to his new pet that he was able to forget about the animal . . . At least for long enough to enjoy another kiss from his newly relocated boyfriend. 


However, the second Brian stopped for a breath, Justin was already at it again. “What if they need something in the middle of the night? You said you told the telephone people to turn off the phones to the house because we didn’t need them anymore. What if they need to call someone . . .”


“Justin, stop!” Brian ordered, placing a finger over the babbling lips. “They'll be fine. They’ve got each other - and the damn cat, in case they need more company - and Hunter has a cell phone in case they need to call us for anything.”


“But Hunter is only fourteen. He’s practically still a baby . . .” Justin replied. 


“And Tristan is nineteen and has been on the streets for years. He’s plenty capable of taking care of himself for one night. I’m more afraid for the house than for him,” Brian insisted. “Let’s just hope the fear of Hugo finding them will force them to lay low for the night rather than inviting all their friends over for a party.”


“Oh! That’s a great idea! We should have an Unlost Twin Brother party,” Justin announced with a smile, his brain off on another tangent even as Brian was working diligently to distract him by methodically removing his clothing one piece at a time. “Your Tall Friend, Emmett, loves to plan parties. Maybe he could help.”


“Stop talking about your brother and Emmett and parties, Sunshine,” Brian demanded, pulling the younger man’s shirt off over his head and using the material to constrict the pale wrists and hold them in place against the pillar over Justin’s head. “I’ve had you back for more than six hours now and I haven’t got more than a few lousy kisses. I’m starting to think you didn’t miss me at all and it’s hurting my feelings, Sunshine.”


“That’s not true. I missed you a lot, My Brian,” Justin rushed to reassure the man he loved. “A lot, a lot. And I tried so hard to find you again but nobody would help me.”


“Well, then, how about you stop talking and show me just how much you missed me. Because I’ve been without any Sunshine for more than forty-eight hours and I’m starting to go into withdrawal,” Brian teased, nipping along the column of the long, pale neck as he nibbled his way down Justin’s body.


“OH!” Justin squeaked as Brian clamped onto one sensitive nipple and started to play with the tender nub with his tongue. “I missed that too. I missed all the boyfriend things you do to me. And I tried to tell the other boys that they were doing their boyfriend lessons wrong, but they just laughed at me. Of course, nobody’s as good at boyfriend lessons as you, My Brian. Oh . . . Yes . . . Just like  . . . Like that!”


Brian had, by that point, nibbled his way down to his Sunshine’s crotch where he inhaled the sweaty, Justin-y aroma deeply, feeling the last of his unease at being without the boy evaporate as the familiar scent filled his senses. He pushed the unbuttoned chinos down, off Justin’s hips, until they puddled on the ground, leaving his boy bare as an egg and, Brian was happy to see, as beautiful as ever. Damn, he’d missed the kid more than he would have ever expected. And the crazy part was they’d only been apart two fucking days. But, two days without tasting that creamy flesh - he licked at the soft spot on Justin’s abdomen where the thin flesh stretched tautly over an angular hipbone - was far too long. He dug his fingers into the plump muscles of Justin’s glutes, loving the way the kid moaned and backed into the touch. He reveled in the way that wonderful ass filled his palms so perfectly. He sighed happily, turned his face to the side, licked his way up the hardening lengths of the youth’s long, thick dick, and decided, right there on the spot, that he would never, ever go that long without.


Heaving the naked boy over his shoulder, Brian rose to his feet and sprinted across the loft in the direction of the bathroom, with Justin giggling melodically all the way. It took Brian only seconds to get himself as naked as Justin was and, before you knew it, they were under the warm spray of the shower. Then the real boyfriend lessons began with hands and lips and dicks and never-not-touching until they were both breathless and boneless and sated. It was only after they’d both come twice in the shower that Brian felt he could bear not touching his recently unlost Sunshine for more than ten seconds. So he deposited the boy in their bed and took a moment to pull on some sweats, run back down to the car to get the damn dog bed they’d bought earlier, and bring that up to the loft so Boss could get settled and stop staring at Brian while he was trying to fuck his boyfriend. Then, once Boss was taken care of, Brian crawled back into bed, prepared to spend the rest of the night, if necessary, proving to his wandering boyfriend just how much he really had been missed. 


Of course, nothing was ever that easy with Justin.


Brian had just managed to lick his boyfriend to full hardness and was about to swallow his dick when the distracted blond commented, “We have to help Tristan and Skinny Boy get away from Hugo. For good; not just for a day or two. Because he is NOT a nice man, Just Brian, and I don’t want him finding them and doing mean things to them because they didn’t come back to the ‘Tarlight and give him their money tonight. But, how do we make sure that Hugo leaves them alone for good? I remember the boys saying something about an ‘Exit Fee’? Could we maybe pay him the exit fee for both my brother and Skinny Boy? Would that work?”


“Maybe, although I expect that would end up being pretty pricey,” Brian replied, turtling his head up from under the covers in order to continue the conversation. “And Hugo would just continue exploiting all the other boys you told me about. Plus, if Hugo ever found out that Tristan has ties to us, and all our money, he probably wouldn’t be satisfied with just the regular fee. The only way to ever really be free from someone like that is to put the fucking monster behind bars for life for human trafficking. But that would require some of his boys speaking up against him, maybe even testifying in court, and most of them are too intimidated to risk that kind of thing.”


“Well, that’s what we’ll do then. We’ll have Tristan go tell the police all about Hugo tomorrow. I can testify in court too, if they need me to. He really wasn’t a very nice man, you know, so I won’t feel bad at all sending the police after him,” Justin concluded, as if it was a done deal.


“Sorry, Sunshine, but I don’t think it will be that easy to convince Tristan to take that kind of step,” Brian countered. “It could be dangerous too; guys like Hugo always retaliate.”


“Well, Tristan has us now to protect him and support him and we won’t let Hugo do anything mean to him and Ms. Attorney Lady can help him too,” Justin replied, sounding so certain. Brian scoffed but the determined little blond simply ignored him and continued with his plans. “And after we get the Big Angry Man locked up behind bars for life - like you said - I’m going to give Tristan my mother’s house for him to keep, because he likes it there and I don’t and he’ll need someplace safe for him and Skinny Boy to stay because they can’t go back to that icky ‘Tarlight Motel again - it wasn’t very nice either, My Brian - and Patches needs a place to stay too and Tristan seemed to really like her, so they’ll need to live at the house together . . .”


“You sure about that, Sunshine? The house isn’t that great, but the property alone, in that neighborhood, is probably worth a few hundred thousand if we fixed it up and sold it,” Brian hypothesized.


“I don’t need more money. We have all the other money and your company and it’s making tons of money already and if we need more I’ll just go draw more pictures and get you more clients that way just like I did today with that Money Man at the plaza. Tristan should have the house. And we can get him a job too so he can buy things to put in the house,” Justin continued, all his plans finally coming together in his mind. “Maybe Debbie would let him work at the Diner and make food for people? I wonder if he likes to make food? Oh, and maybe we can ask Michael to let Skinny Boy work in his store - although I think Skinny Boy should probably go back to school during the daytimes, because he’s only fourteen, you know - but maybe Tristan will want to go back to school too? I don’t know. We’ll have to ask him tomorrow . . .”


“Justin . . . Can you please be done with all your machinations for tonight so I can fucking make love to you already?” Brian pleaded. “We’ve got two whole days to make up for and I’m about to fucking explode here.”


Unfortunately, it seemed like his blond hadn’t yet got everything off his mind. “. . . Before we go back to see Tristan and Skinny Boy tomorrow, though, I need you to take me to see the nice man at the place where my friend Bertha took me for dinner last night. Pastor Clark was a very nice person and he let me help serve the dinner to the people at the church, but he said they didn’t have enough money to give food to the people every night so I said I would give him some of my money. He said $10,000 would be enough to help him feed the people every night and I said that I would bring it to him as soon as I got unlost. Oh, and I’d like to make sure Possum Granny is okay too. Maybe we could buy her some clothing - like, a new coat or something because her clothes were a little old - and a bag of possum food for her babies. Do they make special possum food? I don’t know but we could ask the PetSet man, or my Cat Lady, they would know, right . . .”


“Justin!” Brian crawled out from under the blankets and sat up, staring down at the previously shy boy. “I get it, okay? Despite everything, you seem to have had a pretty amazing adventure and you’re excited to help out all your new friends. I’m glad you don’t feel like you have to hide out from the world any more, really I am. Shit, just a couple of weeks ago you were so scared of your shadow I had to practically drag you out to Babylon to go dancing. So, trust me, I’m thrilled by this newfound show of confidence.” Brian reached over to the nightstand to grab a condom and the big bottle of lube. “But, for the rest of tonight at least, could we maybe just forget about all your new friends and concentrate on those ‘Boyfriend Things’ you promised we could do once I got you home?”  


“I’m sorry, Just Brian.” Justin smiled up at his boyfriend, displaying that angelic grin that was so bright it practically lit up the entire loft by itself, and took the lube out of Brian’s hands. “I didn’t mean to neglect you. It’s just that my brain is still zooming around in my head so fast it’s like it’s trying to escape through my ears.” That caused them both to laugh and Brian almost didn’t notice when Justin plucked the condom out of his hand. Almost. “I promise not to think about anyone else but you for the rest of the night, though. And, maybe, just to prove to you how much I really did miss you, I can give YOU a few boyfriend lessons this time?”


Brian might have objected to this unprecedented turn of events but he was distracted by a new spate of Justin giggles and . . . The next thing he knew he was lying on his back in the bed, spread eagle, with a lusty blond boy crawling off him as he tried to catch his breath.


“Damn it, Justin,” Brian panted and pulled his blond down for another kiss. “I’m never going out of town and leaving you alone again. Not only can I not handle being without you, but you might kill me if you learn any more boyfriend things like THAT! Although, I suppose at least I’d die with a huge fucking smile on my lips . . .”


“I missed you too, Just Brian. And I don’t want to go on any more adventures - even ones where I get to find lost brothers - without you. So you better just plan on taking me with you everywhere from here on out. You hear me?” 


The last thing Brian heard as his boyfriend turned off the light was that damn giggle and he knew he wouldn’t object to any future adventures with a giggling, barefoot, blond boy, no matter where they might lead.



The End . . . For Now.



 

Chapter End Notes:

4/19/21 - Hoorah! I FINALLY finished this one! I don’t know if it was pandemic brain or what, but this story took far longer than a simple little HEA story should have. I’m thrilled to have finally finished. I hope this will tide you BB fans over for a while before you start asking for yet another sequel. LOL! I want to work on some other story ideas I’ve been saving up, including an original novel/series I’ve been mulling over, and try re-upping my interactive summer participation story, and maybe even write another Time Blitz sequel with Sally . . . Anyway, thanks for reading and for all your support over the past, crazy year. Let’s hope the coming year is much, much better and that this will translate into a lot more fanfic for all! TAG 

 

The End.
Tagsit is the author of 61 other stories.
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