"No!  Justin no!  Please don't go," Brian sobbed as he abruptly came awake, opening his eyes blurily and blinking at the too bright light. He was momentarily confused by his surroundings.

"Brian. It's me, Brian. Wake up - we need to get you back upstairs. Come on," came a familiar voice from somewhere over by his left shoulder. He turned his head to try to locate the speaker but had to close his eyes again as the movement made his head hurt and the room spin.

Then it came to him who the voice belonged to. Brian wasn't sure why the voice was here, though. "Michael?" he groaned.

"Yeah, it's me. Come on Brian, let’s get you upstairs. You'll be a lot more comfortable sleeping this off in your own bed than down here in the lobby on this chair. Besides, I think you're scaring the other folks that live here," Michael said with a soft chuckle. He grabbed his best friend's arm, hoisted it over his shoulder and braced himself to lift the larger and much heavier man into a standing position.

"Leave me alone, Michael," was the surly reply slurred out by an uncooperative Brian. "He's gone, Mikey. He let me go, but I don't wanna go. So just leave me alone."

"Sorry, but you're gonna have to go, at least up to your loft.  Come on big boy.  You have to work with me here. I can't carry you."

"What the fuck are you doing, Michael. I said to leave me alone," Brian's tone was getting louder and angrier the more his friend tried to tug at him. "I said LEAVE ME ALONE!" Brian shouted and pulled his arm away from Michael as he collapsed back onto the chair he'd been sitting on, knocking the chair over in the process and landing in a heap on the floor.

"Fuck you, Brian! You can't stay here. You're passed out drunk in the lobby of your building, sleeping on a fucking chair, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a dirty robe that look like you've been living in them for a week. You're holding onto an empty Beam bottle with at least two others at your feet. You are NOT staying here. Either get up now, come upstairs with me and get a shower and some coffee, or I'll have to call in reinforcements. I'll call Ma - you know you don't want her over here with you in this state. So, come ON!"  insisted the smaller but stubborn Michael.

"Fuck - you don't play fair, Mikey," was the defeated reply from a still surly but now compliant Brian, who finally allowed his friend to pull him to a standing position and guide him, tottering, towards the elevator.

An hour and several cups of coffee later, a freshly showered and almost coherent Brian was seated on his couch preparing for the interrogation which he was certain he was about to get from his oldest friend. His head was pounding despite the four Tylenol he'd downed and his mouth tasted like a fuzzy used ashtray even after he'd brushed his teeth twice. He had a huge bruise on his right temple that he couldn't remember how he'd gotten and most of the rest of his body ached from having slept for most of the past week on the chair in the lobby.  Put simply, Brian felt like shit.  And he wasn't really happy about the prospect of trying to explain his bender to an overinquisitive Michael.

"Okay, Bri. What about you tell me what the fuck is going on?" came the expected enquiry.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Michael? I didn't call you," Brian tried to evade the question.

"No. Cynthia called me. She said you'd called in sick at work on Monday and that nobody had heard from you since. She said that in all the years she's worked for you, you've never called in sick before - even when you could barely sit up you were so sick - let alone disappeared for a week. She was completely freaking out. Thought you were lying in a ditch somewhere dead. So I came over here to start the search, ready to call out the fucking FBI if necessary, and I find you sitting in the lobby, passed out drunk and smelling like a distillery. So, what the fuck brought this on, Brian. I'm not leaving until you tell me," Michael again insisted.

"I'm fine.  You can go now."

"Like fuck I'm gonna leave! And you're not fine. You're a fucking fall-down mess, that's what you are. Tell me what's going on. Who is 'Justin' - you were talking about somebody named Justin downstairs. Brian! Brian, look at me. Tell me what's going on here!"

Brian reluctantly admitted to himself that Michael was not going to leave without some kind of explanation. Fuck! He didn't want to talk about this. He didn't want to talk about Justin - it hurt to think about him.

"Michael, please, I don't want to talk. I just want to sleep. Please just leave me alone," Brian tried once more.

"Sorry. No can do. If you want to sleep you'll have to explain to me first why you're in such a shit-ass state. I'm not leaving until you do," Michael repeated as he plopped himself down on the couch next to Brian, jarring the other man's head in the process and eliciting a small groan from his friend.

"Fine," Brian caved. "There were a bunch of letters in the pocket of the robe I was wearing.  Where are they?"  

When Michael got up and retrieved the stack of letters, rubber banded together, and brought them back to Brian on the couch, the distraught man seized the bundle and then started to talk in a hushed voice.

"Before I start, you have to promise me that no matter what I tell you, you're not gonna drag me off to the hospital and stick me in some psych ward, okay. I'm not fucking crazy, alright?" Brian demanded, looking at his friend intently.

"Huh?  What are you talking about, Brian?"

"Promise, Mikey! Or I'm not telling you anything."

"Fine. I promise not to throw you in the looney bin. Now, start talking. I'm getting freaked, here, Bri." Michael was looking worried.

And so, Brian launched into the whole story about the time-travelling mailbox, the disappearing letters and the beautiful blond boy he'd met first through the mail and then in person. The more he spoke, the crazier the whole story sounded, even to him.  Brian was sure that Michael was going to renege on his promise and he was probably going to wake up tomorrow in a padded cell wearing a straight jacket. All he had for proof that he wasn't insane were the stack of letters and a few drawings - none of which were conclusive evidence of sanity. But he hadn't told the whole story to anyone and he simply had to get this off his soul or implode with the anguish that was weighing him down.

"Fuck," was Michael's only response when Brian had finished his tale.  

Brian wasn't sure whether his friend actually believed him or not. But, at least he hadn't yet called for an ambulance to cart him off to the sanatarium. That was a good sign, Brian thought.

"I've never felt like this about anyone before, Mikey," Brian whispered.  "I don't know what to do. I can't just give up. There has to be some way."

"But, Brian, if this really is happening . . . I mean, you can't just wait around for two years for this guy, can you?  Especially when he told you not to try to see him again," Michael's voice was equally hushed.  He'd never seen his friend like this.  Brian had always been the 'fuck-em-and-leave-em' type - always keeping his distance and espousing to all that he didn't do relationships and didn't believe in love.  The Brian sitting next to him now - this crushed, despondent man - this was not the Brian he knew and it was scaring the shit out of him.

"What else can I do, Mikey," asked the distraught brunet. Then, Brian added, in a whisper so low that Michael could just barely hear him, "I think I love him."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

(January 19, 2000 - 8:00 pm)

After that discussion with Michael, Brian had somehow managed to pull himself together enough to return to his work and his life - sort of.  He was able to get up in the mornings, get dressed, go to work, go home, eat something and go to bed. But he wasn't really all there either. Brian knew his friends were still concerned about him. They'd pretty much all been on 'Brian Watch' since Mikey found him that day - Michael, Debbie, Lindsey, Ted, even Emmett had been calling him daily, dropping by the loft after work to check up on him, stopping in at the office to take him to lunch and generally plaguing his every moment. 'What do they think I'm going to do?' he thought, then admitted to himself that he knew what they were all thinking and that perhaps they hadn't been far off.

Today had been no different. Ted and Emmett had demanded that he join them for lunch at the Diner, where Debbie could assist in keeping an eye on him, and then had made him swear to join them for drinks at Woody's after work. He had reluctantly agreed - not that he really had any choice - the Brian Babysitting Squad could be relentless if he tried to turn them down. It was easier to just comply with their schemes than to try to fight them.  Besides, he had to admit, he didn't really want to sit alone in the loft again.

So, here he was, sitting on a bar stool in his old haunt, nursing a beer - the gang had also been carefully monitoring his alcohol consumption and he wasn't being allowed any of the hard stuff, just beer. Again, Brian was going along with it. The rest of the group were in pretty good spirits tonight. Emmett was currently up on stage doing his own karaoke version of Aretha Franklin, and Michael, Ted and Ben were boisterously cheering him on from the crowd. Brian was still not in the mood for 'boisterous' and so he had been relegated to sitting there 'holding up the bar' for the time being and contemplating the origins of the word 'melancholy'.

Completely ignoring the noisy crowd over at the stage and lost in his own thoughts, Brian wasn't paying any attention to the myriads of men coming and going in the crowded bar.  Something about his appearance must have been giving off a pretty strong 'leave me alone' signal since he hadn't even been hit on yet tonight - a first for Brian Kinney. He wasn't even aware when a man came up behind him, hesitated briefly and then seated himself at the bar stool to his left.

"Hey," came a soft murmur from the man.  The sultry voice instantly galvanized Brian, going straight to his cock and eliciting a soft groan. 'God, no. Not today. I can't take this today.' he complained inwardly.

Lifting his gaze from the nearly empty beer bottle in his hands, he turned his head to the side and fell into the deep mesmerizing sapphire eyes of the man sitting beside him.  

"Justin," he quietly stated.

"You looked . . . lonely. Need a little company?" came the low tenor question from the luscious lips.

"I'm definitely not going to be very good company tonight," Brian responded. It was taking everything he had to hold himself together at this moment. He wasn't sure if he wanted to reach out and grab this vision or break down and start crying. But, since he couldn't decide which, he tried just to hold on to his composure for the time being and do neither. "You should probably just go back to your boyfriend," he tried, thinking that if he could get rid of the man, maybe he could return to the numb state he'd been in before without totally losing it again.

"Boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend," Justin responded, obviously at a loss.

"What about that greasy little asswipe who drug you out of Babylon the other night? He said he was your boyfriend when he . . . ." Brian ventured, but was hastily interrupted.

"Oh God! Him. He is NOT my boyfriend. He's just some guy I met at the orientation for PIFA," Justin was quick to correct the older man's misconception. "I got my acceptance letter just before Christmas and they had this 'meet and greet' thing for the incoming freshman class that afternoon. I guess I got a little wasted. That idiot kept following me around the rest of the day. I mean, he was nice enough at first - I guess he's a musician of some kind - but he was so fucking clingy. I was trying to get rid of him all night but he just kept following me around. Even followed me to the club.  Sorry about that, by the way. I was really toasted.  I didn't mean to attack you like that." the boy finished as an unmistakable blush rose to his otherwise pale ivory cheeks.

Brian's mood rose a little at the explanation. It was at least some vindication that he hadn't misjudged this man, at least not too much.

"Buy you a drink?" he asked.

"Sure, thanks," Justin replied with that unbelievable heart-stopping smile. "Actually, I came here tonight to celebrate a little. It's my birthday! I'm officially eighteen. You can buy me my first beer now that I'm 'legal'.

The two men, one dark and one pale, sat together the rest of the night, just talking and drinking together. His friends were heartened that Brian seemed to be coming out of his depression a little, even though he wasn't quite back to his typical 'Studly' antics - at least he was talking with someone and had a more animated look to him. They held off interrupting until it started getting close to 1:00 am, but finally Michael sidled up to the pair at the bar to ask if Brian was almost ready to leave.

"Sure, Mikey. Give me a minute," was the calm response. Then Brian reached over and grasped the hand of his companion, bringing the delicate, long, pale fingers up to his lips for a brief kiss. "Later, Sunshine," he said to the blond man looking up at him with undisguised attraction. Brian then returned the hand to its owner's lap, smiled and turned to leave with his friends.

Brian knew now what he had to do. He was not giving up on this man. He would not give up on the only future he could now imagine.