Chapter 3

Brian lay on his bed and looked at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come and claim him, but knowing that it would still be a long time until he would find some semblance of peace. His mind was in a turmoil and his thoughts were running wildly in his head and he just couldn't seem to calm down and get some rest.

Ever since Michael had told him what he had meant by the words 'We've lost him, Brian.', he had felt confused and surprised and most of all disbelieving. It just couldn't be. Not Justin. No way!

He had known Justin for almost a year when he had moved away, had been fucking him regularly for months, knew him better than anyone else in their group of friends or at least he had thought so and what Michael had told him earlier that night just didn't make any sense because it went against everything that Brian had ever known about or believed to know about Justin.

And yet he believed Michael. Michael had no reason to lie to him and wouldn't do so. Michael was his best friend and suddenly Brian understood why Michael and Emmett had wanted to talk about Justin so often, why they had mentioned the blond so many times. They had wanted Brian's help, had wanted Brian to help them and the other members of their Liberty Avenue family to get Justin to turn away from that road he had been on, but Brian had been too immersed in his own life in New York to even care about anyone but himself and now he felt guilty, wondering if it would have made any difference if he had known earlier and had been able to talk to Justin before things had gotten this far.

He sighed, turned onto his side and looked out of the window at the night sky over Pittsburgh, seeing the moon, wondering how Justin was doing and where he was staying that night. After all that Michael had told him, Brian just hoped that he was somewhere safe and was okay.

“Lost him? What do you mean?” Brian asked, looking at Michael, urging him to explain what he had meant with that sentence.

“Brian...there's no easy way of telling you this, so...I am just going to tell you in one go, okay?”

“What is going on here, Michael? Is he okay?” Brian asked, suddenly fearing that something might have happened to Justin. But he would have found out about that, wouldn't he?

“No, Brian. He's not. Far from it,” Michael replied, looking at Brian, feeling for his friend while at the same time feeling even more anger towards Justin for having made the decisions he had made.

“He's not?” Brian's eyes widened and he urged Michael to go on and tell him what was going on.

“Justin...like I said...he's changed and...he's not the same Justin anymore that we knew...After you two ended things...he shut out everybody and...he stopped answering our calls and meeting with us and...he would start to hang out with new people, friends from the art scene he claimed, but Brian...those were bad guys. And...he's become addicted to drugs, Brian. All kinds of drugs and...he's been for a long time now,” Michael explained and watched as Brian tried to take it in.

“What? No...no,” Brian just muttered, shaking his head. “Justin would never do drugs. He doesn't do drugs. He despises drugs and... his allergies.”

“Looks like he changed his mind on that one...At first it started with drinking a lot and weed and...we thought he might be headed into a depression after you had moved away, but then...he started using harder stuff as well and...last time I heard from him, he pretty much used every drug he could get his hands on. And I mean every drug, Brian. He's been doing heroine, cocaine...I've seen him do crack, pills...whatever he can get his hands on, he takes it...,” Michael went on explaining, the coldness never leaving his voice. “He isn't Justin anymore. There's nothing left of him in the person he's become now.”

“No...that doesn't make any sense...not Justin...,” Brian only muttered again, looking at Michael, pleading with him to tell him that he had just played a cruel practical joke on Brian.

“I am sorry, Brian, but...it is what it is...He's a druggy now. Addicted to whatever he can get his hands on.”

“No,” Brian only repeated. “Debbie would have never allowed him to. She would have kicked his ass from here to tomorrow if she had found out that he had even as much as smoked weed with me,” Brian said, remembering well how she had loved Justin like another son and would have never let him go down that road.

“Ma lost touch with Justin long ago. Last I heard he tried to break into her house to steal money a year ago so he could get more money for drugs. Luckily, she had installed an alarm and that scared him off.”

“What? Justin would never...he loves her! He would never...,” Brian looked beyond shocked at what Michael had just said and slowly got up, stumbling over to the kitchen where he made it to the sink just in time and threw up.

Michael followed him, gently patting his back as Brian emptied his stomach into the sink, speaking to him quietly. “Haven't you heard anything about him in the last three years, Brian? From anyone?You must have heard some stories. When he was arrested?”

Brian only shook his head once he was sure that his stomach was empty and then ran the tap to get some water to rinse his mouth and clean the sink before pulling back and looking at Michael from pained eyes. “He was arrested?”

Michael only nodded, before getting a bottle of water out of the fridge and handing it to Brian, leading him over to the kitchen table and sitting down on the chairs around it.

“DUI's for driving high as a kite, drug use and drug possession and once he ran out of money also theft,” Michael told him.

“He's broke?” Brian asked. For as long as he had known Justin, the boy had wanted to be independent and after the break-in at the loft he had worked long hours at the diner to make his own money and pay Brian back.

“The guys he started to hang out with were a bad influence... let him pay for everything until he ran out of money. He tried to get money from us...stole money...Brian, you have to understand, he's not Justin anymore. He's a completely different person,” Michael said.

“But...why? It doesn't make any sense,” Brian said, looking at Michael from devastated eyes. He might not have loved Justin and they might not even be friends, but Justin had lived in his loft once and to know that someone he had once cared for had turned into a drug addict and criminal got to him and it pained him to know that Justin, who had always been gentle, sweet and nice had changed that much and what pained him even more was that he hadn't even known because he had been off following his professional dream.

“I don't know, Brian. He never really gave us any reason, but...if you want to hear my opinion here...I think he never really got over you.”

“Me? But that's ridiculous. There was never anything between us. We just fucked...,” Brian replied lamely. “Why would that make him change so much?”

“He loved you, Brian and you broke up with him even though he loved you and...I think it broke him to know that he had lost you, his first love, when he loved you so much,” Michael explained what he thought might be a reason.

Brian raised his head and looked at Michael, a question in his eyes. “Why didn't anyone stop him from self-destructing? God knows everyone gave me enough shit about taking drugs all the time...”

“Don't you think I've tried? Don't you think we've all tried? Me, Emmett, Ted, Ma, his mother...everyone talked to him, pleaded with him to listen to our concerns and...when things got way out of hand...we staged interventions...Brian, we forced him to go to rehab twice and I know that Ma and Emmett tried once more. The longest he ever stayed was a day. Then he ran off again. He didn't want our help and...,” Michael took a deep breath, his voice getting even colder when he continued. “At one point or another he just managed to piss off everyone who ever cared about him and people gave up on him, knowing that he was a lost cause. He's beyond help, Brian! Sad as it is...”

“You're just going to let him self-destruct until he dies? From an overdose or something worse?” Brian asked incredulously, looking at Michael wide-eyed.

“Brian, he doesn't want our help! We tried all we could. All of us...damn, we tried tying him down, for god's sake...”

Brian nodded slowly before he got up from his chair and paced the kitchen, his face a mixture of pain, disbelief, sadness and deep desperation. “Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't anyone bloody tell me?” He turned to Michael, glaring at him. “Why didn't you bloody tell me about any of this?”

Michael rose from his chair as well and pointed his finger in Brian's direction. “Don't you dare get angry with me for that one, Brian! I tried! I tried talking to you about Justin again and again. You were the one that threatened to end our friendship and to never talk to me again should I ever bring up Justin again. That was you! You made it clear to all of us that you didn't care about anything concerning him.”

“But...but...this...,”Brian stuttered, looking around helplessly.

“And honestly, Brian? I thought you knew...I mean...I thought you would have stayed in contact with him or his friend. That curly-haired girl...”

“Why didn't you force me to listen when you wanted to tell me? You could have, you know you could!”

“And then? What would you have done, Brian? You were an hour and a half away in New York working on your career. What could you have possibly done that we couldn't do right here in Pittsburgh?” Michael angrily retorted, not liking that Brian was now accusing him and the others of just having allowed Justin to go down that road. They had tried, they had tried all they could, but Justin hadn't wanted their help.

“Talk to him. See if I could have got through to him,” Brian started, but was immediately interrupted by Michael.

“He didn't want to see you, Brian. Ma told him several times that she would get you to talk to him and every time he ran off for days on end. The mere thought of you showing up made him run away. At least...at least this way we knew where he was and how he was doing,” Michael defended their decision to not tell Brian and get him to come back to Pittsburgh. “And we worried about you,” he added shortly after, his voice sounding gentle and caring.

“Me?”

“What this would do to you. You have your own past with drugs and everyone knows that you don't do well with guilt… We were scared you might go and blame yourself for his actions... At the time...we just thought that it was better to have you as far away from Justin and his problems as was possible which seemed to suit you just fine. Justin didn't want to see you, but at least we had an idea where he was. Having you come over might have made him run. Maybe that was the wrong decision looking back on it now, but back then we only tried to do what was best for everyone involved. It wasn't an easy decision and Emmett has bought a plane ticket twice to get to New York and get you to come back to Pittsburgh, but in the end...we just thought it was best.”

“And now? How is he doing now?” Brian asked, as he slowed his pacing and stopped in the middle of his kitchen.

“I don't know and quite frankly, I've stopped caring,” Michael spat, surprising Brian with the anger in his voice.

“Mikey?”

“Like I said, Justin managed to piss off all the people that ever cared about him, including me. He can rot in hell for all I care,” Michael angrily exclaimed, making Brian wince.

Brian had never seen Michael that angry and had never seen him talk like that and he had genuinely thought Michael to be the most caring person on this planet, had thought him to be a person who always cared about how others were doing before caring about himself, but seeing Michael like this now shocked Brian to the core.

Brian wondered what had happened between those two and dared to ask the question, but Michael just waved it off.

“It doesn't matter. He knows what he did and I hope he knows better than to ever come near me again.”

Brian just nodded, accepting that reply for now, knowing that Michael was in no mood to give him a decent answer. Maybe he could get Michael to tell him another time what had happened between him and Justin and had made him give up on Justin like that and made him speak about Justin with so much coldness and anger, but that time wouldn't be tonight, Brian knew.

“What a mess,” Brian sighed as he sat down again, looking at Michael, wondering what all he had seen Justin go through and how it had affected him. Michael used to be one of Justin's friends and it had to have hurt him deeply to see someone he cared about change that much in front of his own eyes and not being able to do anything to stop it. And for the first time Brian realised what a shitty friend he had been to Michael these last years. He had only been concerned about his own career and life, not even noticing what Michael was going through.

“I am sorry,” he therefore whispered, surprising Michael and making him raise his head and look at him in confusion.

“For what?”

“I was a shitty friend to you. I only ever made it about me, me, me and...I never even considered that maybe you were going through a hard time as well and...I don't know...I am sorry for that,” Brian explained.

“Don't be. I tried to hide it from you. When you made it clear that you didn't want to know about Justin...well...I guess I kinda accepted that and then just tried even harder to keep it away from you. And...it's not like I didn't have anyone to talk to. Emmett, Ted and I...we talked about it a lot. We kinda became our own support group, I guess,” Michael chuckled humourlessly.

“Still...I never noticed that anything was going on and...I should have...I should have known and...I should have done something,” Brian told him. “I should have at least tried to help him.”

“You couldn't have helped him, Brian He chose this path for himself and...until he realises that it's dangerous and will kill him one day and until he decides for himself that he needs to end this...I don't think there's much either of us can do. As harsh as it might sound.”

And indeed it had sounded harsh and Brian wasn't sure if he agreed with Michael's opinion there, but then again he had known Michael for years, had gotten to know him as a caring, kind, gentle soul who at times cared more for the well-being of his friends than his own and he had no doubt that Michael was telling the truth when he said that they had tried everything possible. Brian wondered what all had gone on to make Michael come to this realisation, a realisation that was so unlike him and didn't fit with anything that Brian knew about his best friend.

Lying there in his bed, watching the moon outside his house, thinking about Justin and all that Michael had told him, Brian couldn't help but wonder if Michael was right. Had Justin's life changed so much because he hadn't been able to get over being left by Brian?

One of the last things Justin had ever said to Brian was that he loved him and Brian wondered if Justin had spoken the truth then and had really loved him. At the time Brian hadn't believed Justin when he had said that he loved him and Brian had thought that Justin was a child and too young to know what love was anyway, but what if Michael was right and Justin had really loved him? What if him leaving for New York had been so hard on Justin and the younger man hadn't been able to get over it? But...it had only been sex. They had only fucked...

Wondering if any of this would also have happened if Brian hadn't moved to New York, he finally fell into a fitfull sleep, images of Justin inserting a needle into his arm haunting his dreams.