Chapter 15

"You are so queer," he said, frankly puzzled...

J.M. Barrie

To:BAK@KinnetikKorp.com

From:Zephyr@LibertyComics.com

Hey Brian, Haven't heard from you in a while and all my calls go to Cynthia, so I thought I would drop you a line and check up on you and see if you are feeling any better. Ma says you are probably too busy "recuperating" to talk, and I get that, but I guess I just need to hear from you that you are really okay. I feel like we haven't seen each other in ages and I guess I just miss talking to you. Em's been real busy and so has Ben since most of the renovations are finished. Thanks for helping us get the old theatre by the way, it's turning out much better than we could have ever expected. No more getting high in the balcony though...

Hunter has a new girlfriend and has decided to go to her parent's house for Thanksgiving and I have to admit to being a little peeved about it. Ben says it is only natural and he promised to be here for Christmas, but it leaves us at loose ends, ya know? I haven't heard yet if the Munchers are going to be here either and if I don't get my Honeybun fix soon I think I might go crazy. I miss her so much!

Carl gave Ma a cruise for her birthday and they haven't decided yet where they are going to go, but when they do, I will let you know. Ted moved back to the Pitts but I guess you probably already knew that. DUH! What you most likely didn't know, is that he broke it off with Blake before your fundraiser, which, by the way, was fantastic! I stayed up all night watching it! I still can't believe how much money you raked in! And your costume was fabulous!

Anyway, I hope you feel better soon and can make it home for the holiday?

Always Will,

Michael

To:BAK@KinnetikKorp.com

From:LinSaP@SBGal.com

I know you probably don't want to hear from me right now, but I want to start off by saying I'm sorry.

I should not have come to see you when I did. You had other things that were more important and I didn't take that into consideration.

You were right to be angry with me. You were also right that Mel would be pissed.

When I got home she had already drawn up divorce papers. I was so fucking scared, I didn't even know what to say. Bulldog that she is she had already figured it out before I did and was amazingly understanding about the whole thing.

For years I have struggled to put into words that wouldn't offend her, how our relationship is. This time, I didn't have to. She did it for me. More astounding than that, she got it.

She finally, really got it.

Now that she does, I am not so sure that I do. Our parting at the hospital was awful. I don't want to lose you. Please say you forgive me, and I will try to do better.

Love,

Lindsay

To:BAK@KinnetikKorp.com

From:CynTAK@KinnetikKorp.com

Just a note to let you know I have attached a copy of the press release for your perusal. So far, everything is fine.

Our ruse has been sucked up by the media and you can tell Justin, if you talk to him, that he should have been an actor. His little display at the airport was posted almost immediately on YouTube and has since been on the news. Everyone now thinks that you are no longer together so he should be safe enough with his regular security personnel.

Mr. Ryker and I have done due diligence at the new plant and your body double seems to be handling the role well. I have managed to pick out at least an even dozen bodyguards, so you can rest assured that your imitation ass is also well covered.

We should all be back in New York by the end of the week. I was hoping to make it to Justin's show on Tuesday, but that is no longer feasible.

Speaking of Justin, a little birdie told me that you finally gave him his wedding present.

Care to elaborate on that?

Call me if you need anything.

C

There were a few other emails, but none of them were pressing so Brian shut down his laptop not really sure he wanted to connect with the "family" world just yet. He was feeling a little off center. Whether it was due to his injuries, the newness of where he was at, or the buxom brunette that was here to "shrink" him, he didn't know. What he did know, was that he was in the middle of fucking nowhere and the only gay man in the vicinity was Emmett.

Not that he had anything against him; just that he wasn't...no... he wasn't going to go there.

His stomach was turning over again and acid was creeping up the back of his throat. He sucked in a quick breath through his nose and clenched his teeth, willing the anxiety to back the fuck off! He rose and leaned over to brace both hands on the desk while he ducked his head and ignored the flop sweat that broke out on his skin. He pretended he didn't notice the quivering in his arms the tighter he gripped with his fingers. He tried to force himself to relax and only succeeded in making his legs weaker and his head to pound. Squeezing his eyes closed as hard as he could set off a keening in his mind that threatened to send him to his knees in abject pain. His skin felt too tight again, a feeling he was becoming very familiar with over the last few weeks, that made him want to tear his hair out and release the pressure in his skull. He was panting, his sinuses were swollen and dripping and he could only envision a kaleidoscope of dizzying colors swirling and pulsing maniacally behind his lids. He was losing control. He couldn't let that happen. Wouldn't let that happen. Was doing everything he could to keep it from happening.

All of a sudden, his panting brought him the scent of nutmeg. He didn't even think about it, he just latched onto it because it was something outside of his internal agony. He focused on bringing as much of the fragrance as he could into his belabored lungs and analyzing the warm, earthy tones. After a few moments his brain got on board with his intentions and produced a wonderful susurration of deep comforting sounds followed by a gently undulating vision of caramel colors.

"Breathe" he heard. "Focus on my voice."

The primal part of his brain, upon realizing he was not alone, sent out the "flight" signals just as he felt a small warm hand press firmly to the center of his back and he flinched. It was all he could do not to flee the room in humiliation. That is, if his legs would have cooperated.

"Don't quit now, it's almost over."

He strained to focus on the voice. Anything to get him out of his own head.

"Breathe, Brian. As deep as you can, as slowly as you can."

The hand on his back was lightly stroking across his shoulder blades and he tried to mimic her breathing pattern. His first gulps of air sounded shaky and desperate to his own ears. He felt her shift to his side, ducking her head under his arm with her right shoulder pressed into his armpit.

"That's it, you're getting there. In...out."

She place her left hand in the center of his chest, causing his fucked up mind to imagine a nebulous link between it and the one still on his back as she rubbed both of them upwards on his inhale, then down on his exhale.

"Good...again. In...out."

The hands followed, warming a track from his collarbone to his navel in the front and shoulders to waist in the back. Several minutes passed and he breathed easier, his shaking down to an occasional tremor, and he was able to loosen his grip on the desk. He was not sure, however, if his legs would hold him if he stood upright. With his eyes still closed he became aware that his stance and grip had set off the pain in his bad arm.

As if sensing his need, he felt the smaller body cross in front of him and brace her left shoulder under his right arm, wrapping a supportive arm around his waist offering to take some of his weight if necessary. "When you stand upright, you will most likely feel light headed. That is normal. If you need to puke, just do it. Don't fight it. It is normal too."

The hands were rubbing again. Soothing circles front and back, bringing some calm. He stood slowly, trying not to let on how badly shaken he was by this attack. The wave of dizziness she had mentioned rolled over him in sickening waves, bringing chills and a drenching sweat with it.

"Breathe...that's it...you're doing good."

Her body pressed into his side, nudging him to take a sideways step toward where he knew the bed to be. He inhaled deeply, feeling his chest loosen a little, as his head tilted of its own volition towards the sound of her voice emanating from the vicinity of his right pectoral. He felt her breath there and the heat of her forehead as it pressed into his shoulder joint.

"Take a step." She ordered, but not harshly.

His subconscious obeyed.

He took the next step without being told and he felt her smile. God! I feel like such an idiot that that makes me feel better! He thought to himself with an internal grimace of embarrassment.

He faltered, briefly, as his shuffling foot caught on the rug and he canted precariously to the right, unable to stop his momentum, but she stayed there, bracing her feet and countering with her own weight until he could regain his balance. Once righted, it was only two more steps to the bed and he felt like singing hallelujah praises when he felt the mattress edge. He turned and dropped his ass onto it, forgetting that his arm was over her shoulders and inadvertently pulling her much shorter frame over and mashing her face into his chest.

Not sure yet if he was willing to let go, he finally opened his eyes and immediately squinted at the too bright light. She took it in stride though, angling her lower half around so she was sitting next to him on the bed, she laced her fingers through the ones dangling now over her right shoulder. Brian didn't object.

"Would you like me to turn the lights off?" she asked while looking straight ahead, but rubbing the pad of her thumb over his palm with just enough pressure to have him focusing on it. He didn't answer, just kept taking deep breaths, trying to corral the fear and embarrassment that was threatening to overtake him.

She made to stand up and do it anyway, but he pressed her back down with the arm on her shoulder to keep her there. A wordless plea for her to stay as he stared at nothing in the middle distance and taking comfort from the gentle, repetitive path of her thumb.

***********************************************

"The first time I saw him, I thought to myself, this is the kid Michael won't shut up about?" Debbie chuckled with the memory. "I mean, I expected a big, beefy, jock the way Michael had been singing his praises and how nobody picked on him anymore since Brian stood up for him. Instead I'm looking at this scrawny bean-pole in pants that were too short and a threadbare t-shirt that had seen better days."

Jennifer was a little thrown by that but let Debbie continue at her own pace.

"So I say to him, ‘I just finished making dinner, ya wanna stay?' and the kid looked all embarrassed, nodding his head. So we sit down, the three of us, and I swear that kid's eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw all that food. He literally turned green. I don't think he had ever seen that much food in one place before. He turns to Michael and says, ‘Hey, Mikey, is today a holiday or something?' and gives him this shit-eatin grin."

Debbie shook her head, "I swear to God, Jen, I fell in love with that kid right then and there."

Jen cocked her head, "Was he malnourished?"

Debbie didn't know why she felt a little offended at that question but hastened to add, "He was tall, even then. Fourteen and he already had me beat by a couple of inches. So I could see why Michael looked up to him...literally." She chuckled at her own joke.

Sobering, she said, "About two weeks later, I hear the dog next door barkin' like crazy in the middle of the night, fucker won't shut up, so I get outta bed to go holler at him from the back porch and lo and behold, guess who's passed out on the stoop covered in his own blood?"

Jennifer wrapped her hands around her mug just to give them something to do. "Brian."

Debbie stabbed the table with a brightly lacquered fingernail, "That's right, Brian. Scared the fuckin' shit outta me till I realized it was him. Not that you could tell by his face, mind you, I just happened to recognize that bracelet he always wears, the one with the shells."

"Anyway, I got his skinny ass awake and into the kitchen where I cleaned him up. The whole time he's tellin me he's fine, and tryin to hold back the tears." Debbie's voice took on a choked sound, like she herself was holding the tears at bay. "But in my gut I knew, I just fucking knew, that the tears weren't because he was hurt. They were because I saw him like that. Because he needed help and didn't know where else to go."

Debbie cleared her throat and decided she didn't care that it was early afternoon and rustled up a bottle of liquor and two short glasses. Plopping back into her seat she set one in front of Jennifer and unscrewed the cap. As she filled their glasses she continued. "So I put him to bed on the couch. The next day is Saturday so I call in sick and run out to the store and get him some clothes that fit. Nothin fancy, but at least he won't look so goofy. I get back and he's still out but Michael is sitting in the chair in his Captain Astro pajamas just staring at him while he sleeps. By the time I make it to the kitchen, he's hot on my heels, bombarding me with questions about ‘when did he get here? Why didn't you wake me up? What happened to him?' I can't get a fuckin word in edgewise, ya know?"

They both took a sip of the stronger stuff, letting the potent heat warm the cold places inside them.

"So I take my son into the laundry room and try to explain that the world sometimes does shitty things to good people and that all we can do is try to make it better in whatever way we can." She gulped a large portion of her brew then. "I can't tell you, Jen, how many times I patched that kid up. A few times I had to take him to the hospital. He was terrified of them back then. He never said, but I figure it was because he had spent considerable time in them before he met Michael."

"You would be right." Jennifer offered in an oblique confirmation of Debbie's assumption of previous abuse.

"How long?" the redhead whispered.

Jen sighed, "From what I can tell, about kindergarten."

Debbie's hand flew to her chest, covering the pain that stabbed at her heart. "I didn't know."

Tears welled in her eyes as she knocked back the rest of her drink and refilled her glass. Jennifer's hair swayed as she tossed her head. "I didn't either, until recently." She sipped her drink more frugally than Debbie was inclined to and asked "What do you know about his family?"

Debbie snorted, "For that, honey, you're gonna need another drink."

**************************************

Justin woke from his nap feeling energized. He should have been hungover, since Daphne's solution had been to get him drunk, but oddly enough he had come across the answer to his dilemma in his inebriated dreams.

It didn't matter that Brian had waited so long to give him the gift, it only mattered that he did. Justin had dreamt of Rage taking on the world and setting things to rights for all mankind and Justin had awoken with a newfound purpose for his artistic outlet.

Brian was smart like that, he mused. The comic book had allowed him and Michael to address real world problems in a manner that would be accessible to everyone and had made impressive waves all the way to Hollywood. The movie didn't get made, so Justin's dream of Rage becoming a household name was never realized, but Brian had given him another way to do that. With technology, most especially the internet, growing astronomically every year, Brian had foreseen just how powerful it could become and had secured a foothold for Justin should he choose to use it to speak to millions of people worldwide.

It was a daunting task, but instead of feeling overwhelmed, Justin felt the uneasiness and self-doubt of the last year or so drain away, leaving a bright core of ambition and a direction for his creative juices to flow. He was so sure in fact that he woke up a very hungover Daphne to tell her about his new plan.

*****************************************

Jane gave him thirty minutes of quiet, sitting next to him on the bed without addressing his panic attack, to allow him time to fully recover. She made no direct eye contact and in fact didn't look at him at all after getting him calm and seated, just maintained their connection physically with her hand laced in his. She let nothing into her mind but peace, enjoying his presence and the fact that he allowed her to continue touching him. It had been nonverbal, of course, but it was most definitely a blessing that she wouldn't have to overcome that hurdle too and whether he admitted it or not, it was a subconscious admission of at least a small amount of trust.

She felt the moment he decided he had wallowed enough just before his fingers slipped from hers. His hand brushed across her shoulder then down her spine to rest on the bed behind her. He leaned on it, bringing his face nearer to her ear. "What brought you up here?" She felt his breath wash over cheek and his body heat envelope her left side. When she turned to look at him, his face was mere inches from hers and his half-closed lids and dark lashes hid his eyes from her. The tip of his tongue poked out, briefly coasting over his top lip before he pulled the bottom one between his teeth and just the corner of his mouth curled into a sexy grin. He peeked at her from under his lashes, a sultry glint that hinted at intention.

"Wow, Brian, I'm impressed." She said as she braced her palms on her thighs then stood up directly in front of him so he would have to look up at her. "I think you might even have followed up on that if you thought it would get you out of the conversation you think is coming."

His face fell, all pretenses cast aside as he flopped back onto the bed. She chuckled at his predicament as she walked around the bed to be closer to his head and leaned over to whisper in his ear. "I came up here because I thought you might like to have those itchy, annoying stitches taken out." Her breath fluttered the fine hairs at his temple and their positions put his face directly into the crook of her neck giving him an unobstructed field of flesh warmed nutmeg fragrance that settled somewhere deep in his gut with a return of the undulating caramel waves in his mind.

He didn't understand this new calm. It was scary because it was new, but he wasn't afraid of it. It left an odd tide of relaxation and he indulged himself by turning his nose closer to her skin and inhaling slowly as he nodded.

She stood and went to the bathroom and he was momentarily bereft. He didn't have time to analyze the feeling though since she returned quickly with a damp washcloth and kicked off her shoes. Pulling a small leather case, about the size of a credit card, from her pocket she climbed onto the bed to sit cross-legged near his hip. She held the cloth to his side for several minutes then set it on her knee. He watched her as she opened the case and pulled out the tiniest pair of scissors on the planet. They were so small in fact, that even she, of the small warm hands, could only fit the very tips of her thumb and middle finger into the loops to operate them. Next came an equally tiny pair of tweezers and Brian could only laugh at the incongruity.

"Who did you steal those from, the Borrowers?" he asked.

She didn't even look up from her task as she snipped the knot off the first stitch. "No, the Lilliputians."

Another snip. "How old is your son?" Snip.

"Just turned seven. How did you know?"

"Statistics. Boys lean towards The Borrowers and girls gravitate to The Little People." Snip.

"Who is he staying with while you are here?" Snip.

"His mothers."

She had paused for a nanosecond, but he caught it because he was watching her so intently.

Snip. "How old is yours?"

"Which one?" Snip.

"How many do you have?"

"Three boys, four girls." Snip.

Brian couldn't hide the shock on his face and was glad she didn't see it because he had heard the pride in her voice and he didn't want to offend her.

"Aren't you going to make some snide comment or ask me if I am Catholic?" Snip.

"No. I was just going to ask how you manage that much chaos. I sometimes what to stab myself in the eye with a fork by the time Gus goes home to his moms." Snip.

This drew a hum of sympathy from her as she snipped again. "The Five P's."

Brian braced himself up on his elbows so he could see her better. "What?" Snip.

She smiled but she didn't look up from her task. "Preparedness, planning, patience, practice, and lots of Prozac." Snip.

Brian laughed hard enough that she had to stop what she was doing because he was no longer still.

"Prozac, Lady Jane?"

She gave him a huge smile then and let him in on the joke, "Well I'm not p-p-p-p-perfect." She said, making fun of herself and her five p's.

For some reason, her answer, combined with the completely innocent look on her face when she delivered it, set him off on a new round of boisterous laughter that soon had tears leaking down his cheeks. By the time he settled onto his back again she was shaking her head at his behavior. She snipped the last stitch and covered the area with the now cold washcloth in retribution causing Brian to squirm.

"Hey, whatcha do that for?"

As if he didn't know. She rolled her eyes at him but said in a sickly sweet voice, "Well, Mr. Kinney, your stitches had all dried out again so I am trying to moisten them enough that they won't pull too much when I remove them or damage your perfectly golden tan."

Tongue in cheek, Brian waved his hand in a kingly gesture, "Since you put it that way...you may proceed."

She gave a very inelegant snort, and smeared antibiotic ointment all over the area she was working on. She then picked up the teeny tiny tweezers and tugged gently but firmly on the first stitch until it was free of his skin and deposited it on the cloth.

"So when people ask if you are Catholic, what do you tell them?"

Another stitch freed, "I tell them, I am so devoutly Catholic that all my children's fathers are priests."

Brian was gob-smacked. He felt like he had just stepped on a land mine and didn't know if he should call for help or run like hell and hope for the best.

But I have to know...shit! I gotta know.

His voice betrayed his uncertainty when he quietly asked, "Is that true...?"

She set aside another stitch and looked at him very seriously. "No... but it keeps the fuckers from asking any more impertinent questions." Then she delivered an evilly shit eating grin that had Brian flopping back to the mattress admitting defeat.

"Score one for you Milady." he said, while shaking his head and chuckling to himself at his own stupidity for walking into it.

She dipped her head and offered a mock curtsy, the best she could do while sitting anyway, and said, "Why thank you, kind sir, I live only to please thee." Her wildly batting eyelashes and simpering demeanor reeked of jovial sarcasm.

Brian rubbed a hand over his chest in a lazy sweep as he stared at the ceiling and said, "You are. So. Fucking. Weird."

Jane would have taken offence, had she not heard the underlying and satisfying veneration in his voice when he made his decree.