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Author's Chapter Notes:

Time to get you down off that cliff? J.S.T.


Chapter 5 - The Double.



“You’re awfully quiet back there, Sir. Is everything alright?” The driver interrupted Brunet Guy, who’d been babbling for ten minutes nonstop while raving about some ridiculous comic book shit that Tristan didn’t know anything about.


Tristan could see the eyes of the chauffeur scrutinizing him via the rearview mirror. There was something judgmental in that gaze that worried the interloper. Brunet Guy might not have known the difference between the two seemingly identical blonds, but Jeeves up there seemed to suspect something was wrong.


“I’m fine. Just a little tired I guess,” Tristan lied.


“If you’re not feeling well, Sir, perhaps we should go straight back to the loft,” Driver Guy suggested. 


“Fuck that! I’ve got to get back to my store. I’m sure Boy Wonder will be just fine. At least long enough for me to meet the delivery I’m expecting and put the stock away,” Brunet Guy insisted. “Besides, the kid’s coming back to my place until Brian gets back from his trip to Chicago.”


The twitchy eyes underneath the black chauffeur cap gave a quick sideways glare at Michael but the driver didn’t say anything. Then the penetrating stare returned its focus onto Tristan, causing shivers to run up the boy's spine. He’d bet anything he had that Jeeves was hip to his little switcheroo. Without any better idea what to do to save himself, though, Tristan opted for playing possum. He shut his eyes and snuggled even deeper into the cushioning of the backseat. He couldn’t give himself away if he was asleep, right?


He didn’t get to pretend nap for long, though. It was less than five minutes later when the car came to a stop. Tristan squinted out from underneath his lashes, trying to maintain the pretense of being asleep while checking out the scene around him. It looked like they were down on Liberty Avenue somewhere; the young hustler easily recognized one of the city's prime pick up venues - a place where he’d spent many a night over the years - although the dive they’d parked in front of didn’t look familiar. The tiny shop with the gaudy sign over the door - ‘Red Cape Comics’ - looked even seedier than the rest of the places on that block. Tristan had never had much use for comics himself; in his opinion, that kind of escapism was only for losers who couldn’t handle the real world. But since he didn’t know his double’s position on comics, he decided to keep his opinions to himself.


Brunet Guy was already out of the car and knocking impatiently on the passenger window in an attempt to ‘wake up’ the blond. Tristan made a show of blinking his eyes open and stretching, all the while trying to avoid the eyes of the driver, which were still surveying him through the mirror. If he really was going to do this, it was show time. Tristan was going to have to leave the relative safety of the town car’s back seat and face the world. He just hoped his acting skills were up to the task.


With a half-smile and a nod to the chauffeur, Tristan opened the car door for himself and started to get out.


“Oh, Sir. Don’t forget your shoes again!” the driver reminded him before he could close the door behind him. 


Tristan looked down at the holey sneakers on his feet and wondered silently what the guy was talking about. “Huh?”


“Don’t you remember? Mr. Brian made me promise to remind you about your shoes so you don’t leave them in the car every time we drive anywhere?” Driver Guy replied, sounding suspicious again.


“Oh . . . uh . . . right,” Tristan stuttered, not sure why anyone would need to be reminded not to forget their shoes. “No problem. They’re right on my feet where they belong. Thanks, Jeeves.”


But that must not have been the right thing to say since both Driver Guy and Brunet Guy stared at him when he said that. Tristan didn’t know what to do. He offered up a little half-shrug and tried to mimic the stupid ingenuous smile he’d seen the other blond wearing all the time. He must have done it right since both the men who’d been giving him those looks eventually looked away. Whew. That had been close. He’d have to try and figure out the thing with the shoes somehow so he didn’t make that mistake again.


“Very well, Sir,” the driver spoke up again, talking through the rolled down window. “See you again on Thursday. I hope you feel better by then, Justin.”


“Yeah, right. Thursday,” Tristan echoed with a wave and then turned to follow the Brunet Guy who was already unlocking the front door of the comic book shop. 


He could feel the driver’s eyes still glued to his back as he walked away. He wondered if he’d already screwed up somehow. Oh well. If he’d been found out, he could always do a runner. It’s not like he’d actually done anything illegal. Just letting someone mistake you for another person wasn’t something they’d arrest you for, right? He figured he’d get found out sooner or later anyway, but if he could just hold out long enough to get a good meal and maybe even a comfortable place to bunk down for the night, Tristan would be happy. The other kid - Justin - he’d probably just go back to Kinney’s fancy loft and be fine. Meanwhile, Tristan would try to keep this friend, Brunet Guy, distracted enough that he wouldn’t notice he had the wrong blond, and everything would work out for the best. Then Tristan could go on his way in the morning and the rube probably wouldn’t even know he’d been played. 


Everything would work out.



“I’m sorry, I don’t know his name. I don’t know anything about the boy, really. I just saw him sitting on the sidewalk in the rain so I went up to talk to him. I wanted to make sure he was alright. That’s when he freaked out and ran into the street. Thank goodness that truck driver was able to stop in time,” the scritchety voice was declaring as Justin began to wake up. “But after the nice truck driver picked up the boy to bring him here, I remembered to grab the kid’s bag and brought it with me when I followed the truck here to the clinic. Maybe you can find his ID in the bag?”


The confused blond opened his eyes and looked around himself, growing more alarmed by the second. The place he found himself in looked just like the hospital where they’d taken him after his mother died. There were the same stark white walls, the same blinking and beeping machines, and the same antiseptic smell. He looked down and was happy to see that he was at least still wearing his own clothing rather than one of those flimsy, back-less, hospital gowns. He couldn’t remember how he’d got to the hospital though. Had the hospital people changed their minds and decided to take him back? He thought that Ms. Attorney had worked things out with Dr. Gilcrest, but what if the doctor had changed his mind? What if they were going to keep him here this time? What if they were going to keep him away from Brian?


“Nope. I don’t see anything in here that looks like it would help identify our patient,” a different, more calming voice was saying. “And he didn’t have a wallet or a phone on him either. I suppose we’ll have to wait and ask him who he is when he wakes up.”


Justin was already awake enough to determine that the voices were coming from the other side of the blue curtain that had been pulled around so it was blocking off the small space where the bed he was lying on lived. 


“So you think he’ll be okay?” Scritchety Voice asked.


“It doesn’t appear that he was badly hurt,” Calming Voice replied. “I think he just hit his head when he fell. We’ll take him down to get an MRI as soon as he’s awake to rule out a concussion, but besides the bump on his head, he doesn’t appear to have any other injuries. I’m still concerned about why he would have run into the street in the first place though. If we could ID him, and perhaps contact his relatives, we could get a more complete medical history and rule out any psychological problems . . .” 


That didn’t sound good. ‘Psychological problems’ sounded a lot like what the doctors were saying was wrong with him when they’d tried to keep him at Dr. Gilcrest’s ward. But he’d told them that the voices weren’t talking to him - the voices only talked to his mother - so why had they taken him back to the hospital? Justin didn’t want to stay at the hospital any more. He wanted to go home with Brian. Where was Brian? How did he get here to the hospital again? What had Scritchety Voice said about a truck?


That’s when Justin remembered what had happened at the school. He remembered that Simon Says hadn’t come to pick him up and he’d been scared. He remembered the creepy woman who’d come up to him. He remembered trying to run away from her. And he even remembered the big truck that was about to run him over. But then it all went blank. 


He did a quick internal body scan and discovered that, except for a really bad headache, he didn’t seem to be hurt. If the truck had run him over, he’d be a lot more hurt, right? He was happy that he wasn’t badly injured, but that still didn’t explain why the Calming Voice was talking about psychological problems. Justin didn’t want to talk to more doctors asking him intrusive questions about that kind of stuff. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to answer them the right way - those kinds of questions made him nervous and when he was nervous he got confused - and if he answered wrong, they’d probably try to keep him here at the hospital again.


“No! I won’t stay here again. I won’t let them keep me away from Brian,” Justin declared, only he did it quietly, so that nobody but himself would hear. “Brian says to ‘listen to my gut’ and my gut tells me I need to go find Brian. Which means I need to get out of here. Now.”


Justin sat up on the uncomfortable hospital bed and tried hard to listen for the Scritchety Voice and the Calming Voice. He didn’t hear them talking outside the curtain any more. That was good. He scooted over to the edge of the bed and, since there still wasn’t any sign of either voice, he hopped down, tip-toeing across the cold tile floor till he could peek around the edge of the blue curtain. Outside the little cubicle where he’d been sleeping there was a long hallway populated with other, identical cubicles. There were a bunch of people wandering around, all of whom looked very busy. There were other people in other beds in the other cubicles and most of the wandering people were coming and going and talking to the people in the beds. But, for the moment, there wasn’t anyone near Justin’s cubicle. 


Justin looked to the right and then to the left. There weren’t any hospital people paying any attention to him or his cubicle. He noticed a chair sitting in the corridor right between his cubicle and the next cubicle on the right; waiting in the chair was the messenger bag that Brian had bought him so he could carry his school stuff around. He picked up his bag. Then Justin left his cubicle and walked as quickly as he could down the hall, following the signs that said ‘Exit’.


Justin easily made it to the end of the hallway but stopped when he saw the long desk that was blocking his path to the big outside doors. He paused and tried to think about how he was going to get past the nurse sitting there. He didn’t think the nurse lady in the pink scrubs was going to let him just walk out. The last time he was in the hospital, Dr. Gilcrest had told his people to keep Justin locked in his room. At least until Ms. Attorney had come to save him. But Justin could see the big sliding glass doors just beyond the desk and they didn’t seem locked. As he watched, two people - A woman and a boy hobbling on crutches - walked out, the doors sliding open magically as soon as they neared. If those people could leave, he should be able to as well, right? If he could only get past the Pink Lady at the desk.


He wasn’t sure how to work that part of his plan though. Pink Lady didn’t look like she was going anywhere; not anytime soon. And Justin was starting to feel panicky again. He just HAD to get out of there and go find his Brian. But how?


Right when he was starting to get desperate, though, there was a loud commotion outside and the exit doors sprang open allowing two EMTs pushing a gurney to come barreling inside. The person on the gurney didn’t look like he was doing well. There was a lot of blood involved. Justin winced and pressed up against the wall of the corridor as the group of people and their patient bustled past. The Pink Lady jumped up from her seat at the desk and ran after them.


“What have we got?” Pink Lady questioned.


“Damn rain. Caused a five car pile up on I-579. This guy’s the worst, but there’s three other ambulances on their way behind us,” the tall, muscular, kinda hunky, black guy pushing the gurney replied. 


“And here I was thinking we’d have a nice quiet evening,” Pink Lady sighed. “Put him in curtain three. I’ll page Dr. Silliassen and make sure we have a couple of ORs ready.”


Pink Lady ran back to the desk, passing by Justin without even a sideways glance, as more chaos erupted in the cubicle where the gurney had been taken. All the hospital people that had previously been wandering around fairly calmly, now started running around. It was like an anthill that had been stirred up by a malicious child’s stick, with the ants all rushing about madly, each apparently doing something very important, even though it all looked like chaos to an outsider. Chaos that Justin was very grateful for right at that moment because it provided the perfect cover for his escape.


The big glass door slid open, admitting a second group of EMTs and an equally bloody patient. Pink Lady was busy yelling into the phone at her desk. Justin waited until the gurney passed and then quietly slipped through the still open doors. Nobody seemed to notice or care that he’d left. He quickly walked down the sidewalk away from the hospital exit, not really caring which way he was going, as long as it was away from the building. 


At the end of the short driveway, Justin came to a normal city street. He looked both directions but nothing seemed at all familiar. It was dark by that point and still drizzling, the heavy clouds overhead blocking out any ambient light from the sky, making the night seem darker than usual. He hesitated, not knowing which way to go and wondering, for a moment, if he maybe shouldn’t go back to the hospital even with the scary prospect of Dr. Gilcrest looming there. But the advent of another ambulance careening around the corner with lights and sirens wailing got Justin moving again. He moved down the sidewalk towards the left, the only direction he could go without getting run over by the ambulance, and then just kept walking.


Justin hadn’t made it more than a handful of long city blocks before he was seriously regretting his escape, though. The rain was getting heavier and his clothing, which had been damp to start with, was now drenched. His bare feet were cold and getting scraped up from walking along the rough pavement. When he inadvertently stepped on a jagged little pebble, he almost fell over again, it hurt so much. Since he didn’t see anyplace he could go to get out of the rain, though, he just had to keep on walking. 


The area of town Justin found himself in wasn’t very nice. There had been a few shops and office buildings closer to the hospital, but the farther he went, the more deserted the neighborhood became. Instead of office buildings, this section seemed to be populated by big, empty warehouses and dirty, old buildings that didn’t look like they were currently occupied. The streets in this area weren’t as well lit and the alleyways between buildings were as dark as pitch. The rainy night seemed to suck up any feeble light that did come from the dilapidated rattrap buildings, leaving the streets around him mostly dark and full of frightening shadows around every corner. The only sign of life Justin encountered was when a big semi-truck came driving down the street, blaring it’s horn at Justin to warn the boy to move over so it could turn into an alley in front of him, and dousing him with sludgey rain water when the gargantuan tires rolled through a curbside puddle. 


Justin was soaked to the skin. He could feel the panic welling up, forming a choke-point in the back of his throat. It was dark. He was cold and alone. He didn’t know where he was or how to find Brian. And there didn’t seem to be anyone around he could ask for help. But he didn’t know what else to do, so he just kept walking.


Eventually, after what felt like miles and miles, Justin spied a more populated area of town at the end of the street he’d been walking down. He picked up his pace, practically trotting towards the lights that beckoned. He still didn’t recognize the area, but he was just so glad to see evidence of other people that he didn’t care. It was the first glimmer of hope he’d had since he left the hospital. 


“Hey! That you, ‘Stan?” a stranger voice surprised Justin as he passed by a recessed doorway where the voice’s owner had been huddling out of the rain. “Where ya been, man? Hugo has been looking for you all day. He’s a hundred percent ass-chapped over you up and disappearing first thing. He pulled a Lewis Black on all of us this morning, complaining about you shirking all the time, and promised he’d kick your ass when he did find you. You better have some serious cabbage on you by the time he finds you or he’s gonna go all angry monkey on your hide.”


“I’m . . . I’m sorry . . .” Justin looked around, wondering who the voice was talking to. “You . . . You’re talking to me?”


The stranger voice emerged from the shadows and it turned out the voice was attached to a skinny boy who didn’t look like he could be more than fourteen. “Do you see any other blond boys with killer asses around here? Of course I’m talkin to you, dorkhead.”  


Justin looked at the boy who’d come sauntering over to stand next to him. The kid was ordinary looking. He had greasy, dirty-blond hair peeking out from under a knitted beanie cap. His face was thin and pinched-looking with a frown that seemed pretty close to permanent. His clothing was too big on his lanky frame, however even with all the layers you could tell the kid was ridiculously underweight. But at least he was friendly and, since this was the first non-scary face Justin had encountered in hours, he was inclined to accept the newcomer as a potential ally.



“You okay, ‘Stan?” the kid questioned, looking at Justin askance. “You seem . . . off.” Then the boy reached up with gentle fingers and brushed against something on Justin’s forehead. “What happened here?”


Justin reached up and his fingers touched on an adhesive bandage that had been affixed to his right temple. He hadn’t noticed that before. He guessed that must be what the Calming Voice at the hospital had been talking about when it had said he had a bump on his head. His head did still really hurt pretty bad. 


“Simon Says wasn’t at the school to pick me up and then I fell down and almost got run over by a truck and when I woke up I was at the hospital again but I got scared so I left and then I walked and walked and got lost and then I was here . . .” Justin blurted out his entire story in one lungful of air, only stopping when he looked around himself and got worried again. 


“Shit! That totally sucks. No wonder you’ve been MIA all day, ‘Stan,” the boy commented, looking at Justin sympathetically. 


“Why are you calling me ‘Stan’?” Justin asked, confused. “I’m Justin. I don’t know anyone called ‘Stan’.”


“What are you talking about, Tristan?” the skinny boy looked equally confused by that point. “I always call you ‘Stan. You told me the first day we met that you hated your name because it sounded so stuck up. Just like you always call me ‘Hunter’ because you know I hate my first name.” Justin must have still looked lost though since Skinny Boy shook his head and got a concerned look on his face. “How hard did you hit your head, anyway?”


Justin raised his hand to the side of his face and cringed as the added pressure only increased his headache. “Hard. I think. It hurts.”


“Shit, man. That’s not good. Hugo is gonna be pissed off if you’re outta commission for too long.”


“Who is Hugo,” Justin asked even as the Skinny Boy grabbed hold of his sleeve and started towing him away down the street. “And what do you mean that he’s out a commission? You mean a commission like when Brian’s clients ask him to do new art stuff for them? Brian said that some of them liked my art enough that they might give me a commission. But why would your Hugo be out of a commission because of me? I promise I won’t take his commission if he had it first . . .”


Skinny Boy stopped and turned to look at Justin like he had grown another head or something. “We better get you back to the motel and out of the fucking rain. You can lay low there for a while. Hopefully your brains will have unscrambled themselves before Hugo comes in from his rounds tonight.”


Justin tried to struggle but the kid just kept pulling him along. “I don’t want to go to a motel. I want to go home to Brian,” he insisted, eventually planting his heels in and yanking his arm out of Skinny Boy’s hand. 


“You’re not making any sense, ‘Stan. Home is the Starlight Motel. At least it is this week. And there isn’t anyone named Brian there,” Skinny Boy insisted. “Come on. Pull it together, man. Hugo will not be amused by this shit. We ain’t got no company health plan, you know. Hugo’s policy is, if you’re too sick to service your tricks you better be dead, cuz that’s what he’ll make you if you hurt his bottom line. Which is why, if you keep babbling on like this, you’re gonna get your ass kicked. Best thing you can do right now is just nut up and stop complaining and do your tricks as they come.”


“But . . . I live with Brian. Not at a motel. Where is Brian? I need to find Brian,” Justin kept repeating, without Skinny Boy taking any notice as he resumed pulling Justin after him down the dark, dingy street. “And I’m not a magician, so I don’t know any tricks.”


“Ha-fucking-ha,” Skinny Boy responded without looking back as the two of them continued down the block and around the corner.



 

Chapter End Notes:

4/28/20 - Endless thanks to Lorie for helping TAG finish up the last of this chapter. Quarantine Brain stuck bad the last couple weeks and we’ve all been totally blocked. But Lorie gave that kick in the butt needed to get through the end of this. Much love, Lorie. 

 

Also, since we’re now past the plot setup point of the story, and because we can always use the input and typo-catchers, it’s time to open up this story to our readers. If you want to come by the working doc and help us write, chat with us, or just hang out and watch as we write, we’d love to have you. Generally, we’re online in the evening hours or daytime on weekends. Please come by and say hello. Here’s the link: BBB Working Doc. J.S.T.

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