********

Chapter 21 - PC Speech.

“Hey! You ready to get going, Justin?” Brian asked as he logged off his computer and pushed his chair back from the desk.

He’d spent the last hour or so going through his emails and dealing with some work stuff, hoping to get a head start on the next week. Justin had spent that time sitting quietly on the couch and doing some more work on the Liberty Air campaign, even though Brian had told him that he didn’t have to work on a Sunday. It had been a nice quiet day all round. Something that Brian prized after the last chaotic week.

Actually, the atmosphere around the loft this entire weekend had been really pleasant. It felt sort of nice and homey. Which was strange because he’d never really thought of his loft - his home - as homey before.

Brian had never had a ‘home’, per se, before he’d bought the loft at the ripe old age of twenty five. He didn’t count the horrible series of rental houses where he’d grown up with his hateful parents as ‘homes’. He’d hated every minute he’d spent under whatever roof he’d had to live in with his abusive father and zealot mother. He’d fled from the Kinney household as soon as he could and never gone back. After leaving there, he’d lived in the college dorms for three years, spent two years sharing a hole in the wall apartment with another student until he got his Master’s Degree, and then, once he’d landed his first full time job, had moved into another, slightly bigger apartment. None of these had felt like a home either.

When he’d finally amassed enough to buy his loft, Brian had thought he would finally feel like he had a ‘home’. And he did. Sort of. It was all his, and he could decorate it as he liked, renovate it as he liked, do whatever he liked with the space. He didn’t have to ask anyone’s permission to come or go. He was proud of having such a wonderful living space at such a relatively young age. However, even then it hadn’t really felt ‘homey’.

But, for some strange reason, Brian noticed that the loft NOW felt homey. And that was really bizarre since nothing about the loft itself had changed. Brian hadn’t changed. The only change had been the advent of one small, quiet boy into the loft’s environs. Somehow, though, Justin’s mere presence in the space added some indefinable quality that made the loft feel substantially more like a home than just a place to live.

Brian wasn’t going to question it. He didn’t want to jinx himself. He figured he’d just sit back and enjoy the change and see if it lasted. He rather hoped it would.

Unfortunately, they were not going to be allowed to stay and bask in the hominess for much longer. They had been summoned by Debbie Novotny to a ‘Family Dinner’. This was an imperative that one did not scorn lightly. Brian liked his balls where they were - thank you very much - and didn’t intend to put that fact at risk by defying the matron of their little pseudo-family. So he was going to have to get himself and his companion up and out of the house in order to not be overly late for the party.

Justin, as always, jumped up to obey, trotting off to the bedroom to put on something more than the sweatpants he’d been lounging around in all day. Brian chuckled at the boy’s alacrity. If he knew how tedious most Family Dinners were, the kid probably wouldn’t have been that eager. So eager, in fact that the sketchpad he’d been drawing in had been dumped unceremoniously onto the floor in his haste to follow Brian’s directions.

Brian walked over and picked up the pad, which had fallen open to a page about halfway towards the back. Brian carefully straightened out the slightly crumpled pages, noting again the excellent work the boy was doing for his client’s campaign. Curious, though, about all the extra effort the boy seemed to be putting in, Brian quickly flipped through the more distant pages.

And almost immediately wished he hadn’t

The drawings at the beginning of the book were, as expected, scenes from the airline campaign. Nothing Brian hadn’t seen before. He appreciated the artwork again but didn’t stop on any of those pages. Further back in the book, there were other drawings - stuff that didn’t have anything to do with an advertising campaign. These were mostly just doodles. Some were actually pretty good still lifes of scenes around the loft or Brian’s VanGuard offices. Again, very nice, but still Brian flipped past them without much notice. Then he reached an entirely different type of drawing. These drawings he did stop and stare at.

These were drawings that definitely arrested the viewer’s attention.

The first one Brian came across was a picture of a boy - probably Justin, although you couldn’t see the subject’s face, only his hair from the back - tied to the headboard of a bed while he was being strangled with a scarf and fucked violently by a menacing figure that greatly resembled Howard Bellweather. And that was the least disturbing of the pictures that came afterwards.

Brian scanned drawing after drawing, more and more horrified by each one. These were scenes of torture. Of rape. Of pure sadistic violence. The victim in each was Justin himself and the man doing the torture was none other than the esteemed author and moral compass of so many gay men around the world, Mr. Bellweather. However, if any of his readers saw these images, they would soon lose their esteem, along with their lunches.

Brian had never seen such graphic horrors. He didn’t know where Justin had seen them either. He didn’t think that these were actual memories. At least he hoped to fuck they weren’t, because there was no way he could stand knowing that anything like this had happened to his boy. But, if they weren’t depictions of actual events, then they were the most vividly disturbing imaginative works Brian had ever seen.

Was this what Justin saw in his mind? Is this what Justin expected to happen to him? How could a mere boy have these images in his head and not go completely around the bend?

Was THIS all Justin thought of when he imagined sex?

Brian was horrified by this tiniest glimpse into the PC's mindset. If this is what the kid saw when he imagined what sex was going to be like, no wonder he was scared shitless by even a mere touch. If this was what Justin expected would be happening to him, then Brian could understand why he was virtually paralyzed with fear every single time anyone even touched him, let alone touched him with some sort of sexual intentions.

The only thing that he found at all reassuring after looking through the series of disturbing images, was that none of the attackers was him. He’d seen many drawings of Bellweather. A few of Gary Sapperstein. One with Jim Stockwell. And a couple with random men that Brian didn’t recognize. They were all hurting the boy in the pictures in some way. But at least none of the monsters Justin saw in his head looked like Brian. If that had been the case, then Brian would have known that it was hopeless. If Justin ever saw HIM as one of those men, Brian wouldn’t ever be able to get through to him. And he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself for making the kid feel that threatened. But, since Brian’s image hadn’t appeared, maybe there was still some modicum of hope.

All Brian knew was that Cynthia better hurry up and find out about that psychologist.

********

Brian really wasn’t sure about this whole family dinner thing. He had been sitting in the jeep for a good five minutes while parked outside Deb’s house, and still didn’t know whether or not he wanted to go inside. The only thing that finally convinced him to move was the fact that it was fucking freezing out and, with the car turned off, the heater didn’t work. It was either turn the car back on and head home, freeze to death sitting there, or go on inside. Justin, sitting peaceably in the passenger seat, didn’t seem to have a preference either way, so Brian eventually capitulated and decided to try his luck inside.

“Finally! Ma was just about to send me out to get you guys,” Michael exclaimed as soon as Brian opened the door and led his PC inside.

“It’s about time!” Deb interjected. “I was worried poor Justin would freeze to death out there before you finally got the balls to come on in. Justin, I think you know everybody except my brother Vic who’s sitting over there in the corner holding court like the Queen he is. Wave ‘hello’, Vic.” Vic followed orders and waved at the shy boy who was huddling into Brian’s side. “Now, Brian, you sit down over there on the couch and get to know your son a bit better. Lindsey, you leave Brian be and come in here and help me get dinner served. Justin, honey, you can set the table. Michael you get everyone drinks. All the rest of you get out of my hair so I can finish up in here, damn it!” Debbie ordered everyone around with her usual assumption that she was in charge of the universe, and because they loved her, and they wanted to be fed, the group let her have her way.

Brian squeezed Justin’s hand reassuringly and then let Debbie lead the boy away. He didn’t think anything truly horrible would happen to the kid here, but he still had this uneasy feeling about letting Justin out of his sight in the same house as Lindsey. He hoped that Debbie would make sure that the kid wasn’t overwhelmed. But Justin wasn’t a baby and Brian knew he shouldn’t coddle him. He had to let the young man stand on his own. So, reluctantly, Brian went the opposite way as his boy, finding a spot on the couch and waiting patiently until Mel eventually handed Gus over to his father.

“Hey there, Sonny Boy. How’s life been treating you?” Brian cooed at the blinking bundle of boy in his lap, amazed all over again that somehow this amazing little life was made up of parts of him.

While Brian spoke tenderly with his son, three sets of eyes looked on adoringly from the Kitchen.

Deb was thrilled to see one of her boys - and one that she’d often worried would never grow up - moving into parenthood. Despite all Brian’s protestations to the contrary, she’d always known he would be a wonderful and doting father if given half a chance. And watching as the big man gently tickled the baby’s chin, played with the tiny hands and even left one brief kiss on the infant’s perfectly bowed lips, Deb felt her heart melt. This was something Brian had needed in his life for a long time.

The other thing he’d needed was someone like the boy standing next to Deb and watching Brian with what she thought was a quizzical affection. Debbie could already tell that there was a lot more between Brian and Justin than either was willing to admit. She’d never seen her surrogate son being as protective as he was with this kid. But if anyone needed a champion it was this boy. And Debbie suspected that Brian Kinney would rise to this challenge, like he always did, in a spectacular fashion.

“Here you go, Justin,” Debbie handed off a stack of plates. “You put those on the table and then come back for the silverware. It’s going to be a tight squeeze, I’m afraid - our little group is getting bigger than the table - but that’s okay because we’re family, right? So just do the best you can.”

As soon as Debbie got Justin going on his chore, she picked up the asiago cheese she wanted Lindsey to grate, but was too shocked by the expression on the woman’s face to remember to hand it off right away. The sweet, motherly, doting look the woman had been exhibiting just a minute before while watching Brian cuddling her son had been replaced by a look of abject repugnance as she glared at the boy bustling around the table. Debbie had never seen so much unveiled animosity directed at any one person in her life. But here, in her own home, coming from someone whom she’d known for years and had thought of like a daughter, was a look of pure, unadulterated hatred - the likes of which would make a Klansman seem tolerant - directed at the boy now meekly setting plates out on the family table. It scared the shit out of Debbie for about a half a minute and then made her angry as hell.

“What the FUCK is your problem, Lindsey Peterson?” Debbie demanded, slamming the cheese grater and the cheese too on the formica countertop next to her.

“Me? I don’t have a problem,” Lindsey turned towards Debbie with a sneer slicing through her usually benign features. “It’s Brian that has a problem . . . Associating with decent people, that is. I told him last week that I didn’t want him bringing this piece of trash around my son, but apparently he didn’t listen. So, thanks for the invite, Deb, but I think we’ll just be going. I couldn’t eat with that thing in the house anyway.”

“Now you just stop that right this INSTANT!” Debbie screamed, grabbing Lindsey by the arm before the blonde woman could retreat from the kitchen. “You need to get an attitude adjustment, Missy, and you need it right now. So you’re going to sit the fuck down and listen to me and maybe learn a thing or two about ‘Decent Fucking People.” Debbie pulled out the closest kitchen chair, slid it around until it was blocking Lindsey’s escape and pointed at it with a long, red fingernail.

Lindsey didn’t look like she was going to play along this time. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a stubborn frown on her face. But Debbie was frowning just as hard and she had a good fifty pounds on Lindsey. And Debbie was backed up by an equally frowny Michael, Emmett and Ted, who’d all come in from the front room as soon as they heard the brewing ruckus, and who were all standing behind Debbie so as to further block the path. Behind them, Brian was standing - still holding Gus - but rather than looking at Lindsey, he was looking over to the corner where Justin had retreated with his face turned so that he could halfway hide from the yelling.

“Lindz, Hon, we talked about this at home, remember,” Mel pushed her way through the fray, coming up to her wife and stroking her arm mollifyingly. “We agreed that you’d try and approach things with an open mind. Right?” Lindsey looked down at her shoes, still frowning, so that she wouldn’t have to deal with any of them. “Come on, Lindz. Let’s all just calm down, and sit and have dinner and talk. Okay?”

Lindsey reluctantly let Mel guide her over to the waiting chair. She sat down gingerly, not really relaxing, as if keeping her guard up. You could tell that she wasn't really capitulating. She steadfastly refused to even look in Justin's direction. But direct confrontation wasn't really Lindsey's style. She was more the type to bide her time, manipulate things from behind the scenes, and wait patiently for her machinations to work. Brian was not reassured.

Debbie, however, seemed placated. She quickly rearranged her mental kitchen duty roster and handed the cheese grating job off to Emmett, ordered Ted to finish setting the table and had Michael help bring food over. Brian - still holding the baby - gathered Justin from the corner, and then seated himself and the boy at the farthest end of the table away from the girls. The rest of the group filled in the seats at the table as they finished their various jobs. Deb joined them soon after and started handing around the serving plates and bowls, ordering everyone to take more than they really wanted. Justin was a special target for Debbie’s mothering - he was directed to take at least a double helping of every single dish, heaping it all on his plate until it was practically overflowing. Nobody was willing to say anything against Deb though. In fact, nobody was willing to say anything at all - the atmosphere was still so uncomfortable - so they all just stared at their plates and started eating.

“So, I heard that Barbra is coming out of retirement to do one more, This Is Absolutely The Last ‘Last’ Tour,” Vic piped up, bravely breaking through the awkward silence. “Anybody else want to go see it with me if it hits the Pitts?”

After which, first Emmett and then most of the rest of the guys figured out how to speak again. Vic to the rescue. Brian took a deep breath and tried to relax as well, although he still didn’t like the chill coming his way from the other end of the table.

He just didn’t understand why Lindsey was so overwhelmingly angry with him or how she could be so offended by someone as seemingly innocuous as Justin. The boy was as meek as a fucking church mouse. It wasn’t like the boy would SAY anything objectionable to Lindsey or even in her presence. And despite being a PC, Justin was the last person to go parading his sexuality around the room. Hell, Brian was a lot more likely to be doing or saying unacceptable shit in public - and Lindsey had never been offended by his outrageousness. In fact, Lindsey had, more often than not, egged Brian on, encouraging his depravity and then making excuses when others were offended. So what could she possibly have against this kid?

Brian looked warily at the woman, who was still scowling at her plate of pasta. Justin, sitting beside him, was picking fitfully at his own plate, obviously affected by the ongoing animosity aimed his way. Brian grabbed the boy’s free hand and gave a consolatory squeeze. Funny how the kid had seemed more self-assured kneeling almost naked at Brian’s feet back at that PC dinner than he was here, fully clothed in a roomful of people that Brian considered friends. Maybe because Justin didn’t know his place here. Or maybe it was that the Lapointe crowd at least all accepted the boy in his role as a PC, whereas here, there was at least one guest who didn’t accept him at all. Either way, it was almost as uncomfortable of a dinner experience.

“Brian, Honey, you can’t eat your dinner when you’ve got Gus in one hand and you’re holding Justin’s hand with the other,” Debbie complained. “Here. Pass the baby over. He’s asleep anyway. I’ll go put him up in Michael’s old room where he can get a good long nap without being disturbed.”

Brian reluctantly handed the baby down the table and Deb trotted up the stairs with him. Brian felt strangely unprotected without that tiny shield in his arms. He wasn’t sure why he needed protection from his family, but that’s how he felt. And without Gus in his arms he had nothing better to do than to tuck into the carb-laden dinner with all the rest.

The rest of the meal, though, went by without incident. Lindsey didn’t say a thing throughout, but everyone ignored her and carried on as if she wasn’t just sitting there glaring. Justin, of course, said nothing. And Brian was fairly quiet as well, which meant that the conversation was a lot more subdued than was typical at a Novotny Family Dinner. Everything just felt so awkward. So much for Deb’s theory that socializing over pasta would solve every possible problem.

Before the plates were even cleared, Brian was up out of his seat. He desperately needed a smoke after that whole debacle. He quietly asked Emmett to keep an eye on Justin, and then grabbed Michael on his way to the back door so he’d have company. As they were going out, Brian watched Vic seating himself in the chair next to Justin and amiably engaging the boy in some conversation. That was encouraging. Brian trusted that Vic would take the kid under his wing and make sure he was okay even with a disgruntled Lindsey still lurking.

The fifteen minutes spent in the familiar environs of Deb’s backyard with his oldest friend went a long way towards calming Brian’s rickety nerves. At least this was one thing that didn’t seem to have changed as a result of the crazy week just past. He figured he needed more than just a cigarette though to get himself back to normal. A trip to Babylon’s back room was definitely called for as well. He’d just deposit Justin at the loft and then meet up with the boys at Woody’s for their usual post-family-dinner night of debauchery. That should do the trick - or, more precisely, Brian would do the trick and that would do him.

After advising Michael of this brilliant plan and getting his friend’s wholehearted endorsement of the idea, Brian crushed the butt of his second cigarette and headed back inside to find his PC.

Who was nowhere to be found.

Emmett and Vic were still seated around the now cleared kitchen table, comparing notes about their favorite musicals. Brian didn’t bother to try and interrupt, knowing it was impossible to get a word in edgewise when those two got to gabbing about truly important stuff like that. Debbie was up to her lacy rubber-gloves in dish soap as she worked on the first stack of plates. A quick scan of the living room showed that Ted, Mel and Lindz were all seated around the coffee table with mugs in their hands, discussing some political mumbo-jumbo that Brian could care less about. The only one missing from the picture was the little mute PC. But since he’d already covered the entire first floor with that one brief search, unless Justin had left by the front door on his own, Brian was reasonably sure he’d find his missing boy upstairs.

He jogged up the steps and walked right past the open bathroom door since there was clearly no blond boy inside. Before he’d gone more than a couple steps further, though, he heard a voice coming from the first bedroom on the right. He slowed his footsteps so that he could listen in on the conversation before he was discovered.

What Brian heard was more than just a little surprising. The voice was a melodic low tenor. It sounded a bit raspy - like any voice would be if it hadn’t been used much for the past year or so - but it was still pleasant. If asked, Brian would have to say that the voice was soothing. The baby who was also listening to the voice must have agreed, since he was happily gurgling as if in response to the words.

“Hey there, Gus. You're such a sweet baby,” Brian peeked around the edge of the door and saw his missing PC standing next to the baby’s portable bassinet, leaning over so he could caress the soft infant cheek while he spoke. “Such a good boy, too - not crying or giving your parents trouble. Cause you're still a happy little boy, aren't you? And you're loved.” Brian could see a pudgy baby fist reaching up to grab hold of Justin’s finger, holding on with that unrelenting strength even the youngest babies seem to have. “I hope you always feel like that Gus. I hope you'll always be loved. You deserve to be loved. All little boys deserve to be loved by their parents, even though that doesn't happen a lot of the time. But I hope you'll always be loved, Gus. Always.” The voice tapered off with a wistful air that caused something in Brian’s gut to lurch uncomfortably.

That appeared to be the end of the conversation, however. The owner of the melancholy voice bent to leave a small kiss on the baby’s fat cheek, then paused to smile down at the cherubic face. And, even though he was loathe to interrupt this idyllic moment, Brian thought he’d better announce himself before he was caught eavesdropping.

“So. You'll talk to my son, but not to me, huh?”

The startled PC whipped around, staring up at his owner, fearful of having been caught not only speaking aloud, but also touching the precious baby. Brian leaned back casually against the door jamb with a playful smile on his face, endeavoring to show the boy that he wasn't in any trouble. Justin quickly backed away from the bassinet, keeping his gaze down submissively.

“Sorry, kid, that's not gonna work anymore. Now that I know you CAN talk - and WILL talk, even if it's not to me - that whole mute boy thing just isn't gonna cut it,” Brian teased stepping closer so that he could snake one hand around the boy’s waist.

Justin still refused to look up. Brian could feel the nervous shivering of the tremulous boy who was so caught up in his worries over being caught out that he hadn’t yet realized that Brian wasn’t angry at him. Brian hated that unreasoning fear, but didn’t know how to combat it. He and this boy were still so new. He didn’t have any idea how to prove himself to Justin. He was only just starting to get the barest glimpses into the horrors of his prior life and he knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get through all those layers of built up distrust, even though he desperately wanted to. But what would it take to convince Justin that Brian wasn’t like the men he’d been told to fear. The men he pictured in those disturbing drawings of his. That he wasn’t the kind of man that would hurt an innocent boy.

An uninhibited coo from the nearby baby brought the boy’s words back to Brian’s mind. “He will be loved, you know. Always. I won’t let anything bad happened to him, Justin. Even if I'm not really full-time parent material, I would still be there if he ever needed me. And I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to him.” Justin snorted unbelievingly and subconsciously rubbed at the back of his neck where the PC tattoo stood out in glaring contrast to his pale skin. “I would never let my son become a PC, Justin. I won’t let that happen.”

“You can’t say that,” the boy finally spoke up even though he still refused to look Brian in the eye. “You can’t predict the future. You can't know what might happen or what misfortunes might come along. It’s not like I ever imagined this would happen to me.” Justin finally looked up, stabbing Brian with an accusing gaze that refused to relent. “As long as it’s legal - as long as it’s a possibility for anyone - it’s a possibility for Gus, too. Because you never know what will happen to him in the future. Even if you mean what you say, you can’t know you’ll always be there for him. Anything can happen. And if he’s unlucky or unwise, there will always be someone who’ll be there to take advantage of the situation.”

Before Brian could come up with something to say to contradict this gloomy pronouncement, Justin pulled out of his grasp and strode determinedly out of the room. Brian was left staring at the space he’d left, feeling like his arms were too empty. Gus gurgling in the bassinet next to him no longer seemed all that reassuring. Because Justin was right. As long as PC contracts were legal, and powerful men like Lapointe and Bellweather had the money to pay for whatever political clout they needed, nobody could be one hundred percent sure they were safe. Or that their children were going to be safe.