********

Chapter 38 - Helping PC Hands.

Seven hours later, Brian still hadn’t managed to get quite as drunk as he’d planned, thanks to his very own, live, Jiminy Cricket.

Justin had taken his role as Brian’s conscience very seriously. He had stuck with Brian like a limpet to it’s rock. Without saying a word, the boy had managed to keep Brian’s alcohol intake within manageable levels, as well as fend off most of his possible tricks. The kid had continually waved off the bartenders when Brian had tried to order drinks, only allowing him two bourbons at the first bar and then a thin trickle of beers thereafter. Even bartenders that Brian had known for years were deferring to the teenager’s judgment on exactly how much liquor Brian should have. When Brian tried to order before Justin deemed it advisable for him to have another, the kid simply dismissed the bar keep with an imperious gesture and a scowl. If Brian wasn’t so annoyed by this behavior, he might have actually found it amusing.

When he’d given up on the first bar and moved on to the second, he encountered the same phenomenon. How the fuck did such an innocent-looking little mute manage to control all these hardened gin jockeys? Even worse, when Brian had finally located Anita and placed his order for a nice assortment of chemical helpers, the little twat had swooped in, grabbed the cash Brian had been in the process of handing over, and then ran off with it. Brian was left without enough dough to cover the cost of even one hit of E. And, since Anita didn’t take plastic, he was shit out of luck. Justin hadn’t come back with the money until after Brian’s dealer had left to pursue her trade at the next stop on her route.

Since he’d been forced to deal without drugs and only minimal drinking, Brian decided to move on to the third pillar of his pain management technique - dick. Sadly, this source of consolation didn’t come much easier than the others. The vexatious little PC simply would not leave him alone long enough for him to pick up a trick. The few Brian had managed to lure to the backroom were almost immediately chased off by the tireless twat. Justin actually even growled at one guy who didn’t back away fast enough. Brian only just barely managed to cover up the chuckle that scenario inspired - no sense encouraging the controlling little twerp. The little fireball did make it up to Brian, though, by dropping to his knees right there and then and delivering one of the best blow jobs Brian had ever had. That took the edge off his annoyance almost instantly.

By the time Brian and his shadow made it to Woody’s, the Ousted AdExec was past the worst of his outrage. By that point he was just amusing himself by trying to get around Justin’s vigilance - ordering drinks when the kid’s back was turned and flirting with guys simply to piss the little PC off. The kid was entertaining, if nothing else. Brian almost forgot he was supposed to be in a bad mood by the time five o’clock rolled around and the bar started to fill up with the afterwork crowd.

“Hey, Justin. Brian. Hitting the bar kind of early, aren’t you?” Ted interrupted Brian’s latest attempt to get a double JB from Matt the bartender while Justin was occupied intercepting the big muscle queen trick that Brian had been making eyes at from the other end of the bar. “You usually don’t even leave the office before six.”

“Well, I do now, Theodore,” Brian replied with a mirthless smile. “In fact, I might just spend all day here from today on out . . . seeing as I no longer have an office to go to.”

“What?” Ted was shocked out of his abstracted perusal of the bar’s potential amourous offerings by Brian’s offhand announcement. “What do you mean, you don’t have an office to go to anymore?”

“Just what it sounds like, Ted.” Brian tossed the bottle cap that had been sitting on the bar in front of him at Ted’s head, just to be perverse. “I’ve been fired. Sacked. Kicked out on my keister and shown off the property by security without even a ballpoint pen to my name.” Brian chugged the last of his beer and then, after an inquisitive look to the boy sitting on his left for permission, he raised the bottle in the air to get the bartender’s attention. “Hence the lack of a need to work late . . . ever again.”

“But . . . But . . . But, how? Why?” Ted didn’t seem to be grasping the situation.

Brian laughed, again mirthlessly, while he signalled for three new beers - which Justin okayed with a nod to Matt. “THAT’S a really good question, Theodore . . . Why? . . . Unfortunately, I have no idea how to answer that.”

“So . . . you were just fired for no reason?”

“No. I was given a reason. But not the real reason,” Brian replied as he took the beers from Matt and handed one to Ted and a second to Justin.

“I don’t understand,” Ted exclaimed, looking back and forth between Brian and Justin.

“I don’t either, which is the crux of the problem, right?” Brian took a healthy swig of his new beer and then, just to be contrary, started flirting with the tall black guy seated on the stool behind Ted - prompting Justin to get up, walk around to the other side of Ted and stand there, physically blocking the trick. Brian hid his smile of amusement in his beer as he continued his explanation. “Vance CLAIMS that a client heard I’d been bad-mouthing him, giving VanGuard grounds to fire me for gross misconduct. But, since I KNOW I did no such thing, the real reason behind all this is a total mystery. Either way, though, I’m still out of a job, so I guess it’s irrelevant.”

“That’s not fair. You should sue Vance. I’m sure your employment contract requires him to have ‘reasonable’ grounds for firing you. He should have at least investigated this client’s allegations. He can’t just act on such specious claims without even checking into them . . .” Ted was already getting himself worked up into a lather on Brian’s behalf.

“You’re right, of course. I COULD sue him . . . if I had the money to hire a good attorney. But - correct me if I'm wrong, Ted - I believe you sent off all my money to the very client who is now accusing me of this shit, leaving me flat broke as of nine am this morning. So hiring an attorney ain't gonna happen, is it?”            

“Fuck!” Ted’s outrage collapsed and he slouched on his barstool alongside of Brian.

“Exactly. And not in a positive, life-affirming, way either,” Brian agreed, slamming back the rest of his beer and then gesturing to Matt for another - only to have Justin wave the bartender off again. “Shit, Sunshine, you’re killing me here . . .” he complained with a pout that was so un-Brian-like that everyone around, including Matt, started to chuckle.

Before Brian could transition from pouting to angry though, the stool on Brian’s left - where Justin had been sitting a few minutes earlier - was taken by a blonde whirlwind. “Brian! I’m so glad you’re here. I was totally fucking worried about you all day. That bitch, Sandy, was hovering over me like a mother hen all day, so I couldn’t even call you. Can you believe she even followed me to lunch! Fucking nosy, biddy . . .” Cynthia grumbled on about her VanGuard nemesis until she realized her audience had lost interest. “So tell me, what the fuck happened today? Vance announced that you were ‘leaving the agency’ but refused to say anything else. I can’t believe he would fucking fire you, though. VanGuard doesn't have anyone else even half as good as you. Vance just shot himself in the foot by firing his best rainmaker. What was he thinking?” Without waiting for a response she turned to Matt with an authoritative voice and ordered a “Drambuie Fresco, skip the mint”. Then she turned her attention back to the men waiting for her. “So? What the fuck happened today, Brian?”

“How come she gets a real drink and I don’t, Sunshine?” Brian grumbled as the server set the sumptuous looking drink in front of his former PA.

Justin didn’t bother to answer. He just handed over what was left of the beer he’d been sipping on and smiled timidly at the pouting man. Brian accepted the beer, without comment, and turned back to his friend so he could launch into the saga of his termination once again.

“. . . and then, as you witnessed, I was shown out of the building by two goons without even a ballpoint pen to my name,” Brian intoned again. “I wasn’t even allowed to go get my personal shit or any of my private papers. I bet that cunt Sandy had a ball going through all my crap today. Bitch . . .”

“Well, if you’d actually read your email, Brian,” Cynthia critiqued while picking up her spacious handbag and opening the top so that the waiting men could get a glimpse of the sheaf of files and envelopes inside, “you’d know that I already grabbed all your personal files for you before I left last night.” Cynthia dropped the bag to her feet. “I had a feeling that something serious was going down. I’m sorry I was right, but glad I didn’t take the chance of leaving this stuff where just anyone could find it. I’m sure Vance would have had a field day going through our most recent research.”

“You have all the research shit?” Brian perked up at hearing that tidbit.

“Of course. That was the first thing I grabbed when I cleaned out your office for you. And I also made extra copies of it - just in case,” Cynthia answered with her own version of a Kinney smirk. “Do you want them now? It’s a lot. Maybe we should put it all in your car or, better yet, take this stuff straight to the loft? I actually have a lot more to tell you about our ‘project’ - I did even more digging after you left yesterday, but I don’t think we should discuss it here.” The wily PA looked over Brian’s shoulder as she said this, eying Ted as well as Justin, both of whom had been listening in avidly to the conversation.

Brian caught Cynthia’s look but shook his head. “Cynthia, this is my accountant, Ted Schmidt. And don’t tell him I said this, but he’s also my friend. You can trust him.” Brian then paused a moment and appeared to be thinking through some train of thought before he continued. “Speaking of trusting someone, give me one of those file copies, Cynthia.” Cynthia looked at Brian with an assessing gaze, as if to make sure of his resolve, and then reached into her bag to pull out one of the large manilla envelopes. She handed it over to Ted carefully. “Theodore, you’re now our insurance policy. Put that thing somewhere safe. Don’t look in it unless I tell you to or something majorly bad happens to me. Got it?” Brian ordered.

“Uh . . . sure, Brian. But, is this something I’m going to get in trouble for? I mean, there’s nothing illegal in here, right?” Ted, the ever-cautious, asked.

“Yeah, right, Schmidt!” Brian broke out laughing. “You’re the last person I’d ask to hold for me if I was doing something illegal. You look guilty even when you’re not. If I was doing something underhanded, I’d be better off with Sunshine, here. He at least LOOKS as innocent as the day he was born . . . Even though he’s really a sadistic control freak who won’t let me have more than one beer every hour, despite the horrible fucking day I just had,” Brian added with a glare in Justin’s direction that was completely belied by the teasing twinkle in his hazel eyes.   

Justin tried to fight off the smile that snuck up on his face, but failed. He did look away though, embarrassed enough that he refused to meet Brian’s eye, and simply shrugged off Brian’s joking complaints. Brian grinned at the blushing PC, but stopped himself before he could comment about how pretty that particular shade of pink was on the boy. And then he mentally berated himself for turning into a total lesbian.

“Good for you, Justin,” Cynthia interrupted Brian’s mental tug-of-war with himself. She downed the rest of her own drink before appending, “I’m sure Brian’s liver will thank you tomorrow when he’s not in hepatic failure because of the massive hangover he’d be waking up to.” The woman plunked down some money on the bar to cover her drink and then stood up. “Come on you two. Let’s get this Stud home and away from all this temptation before it’s too late. I’ll meet you at the loft, Boss, and we can finish going over my latest research. Then we can figure out what you’re going to be doing next.”

Brian looked at the remains of Justin’s beer, contemplated whether or not he wanted to put up a fight about being dragged home without having accomplished the drunk he’d planned for his day, and then gave up. He put the unfinished beer down on the bar, held out his hand so that Justin would give him back the rest of the money he was still withholding after the failed drug buy earlier, and used it to pay his bar tab. Then, with Justin at his heel, they headed out of the bar in Cynthia’s wake.

“See you later, Theodore,” Brian said over his shoulder. “And keep that fucking file safe or I’ll make sure that the next opera you sing will be in soprano.”

********

Talk about sadistic control freaks.

Justin was sure that Max, the physical therapist who'd just spent the last hour torturing him, would win that title, hands down. Or hands up. Or hands twisted painfully sideways and then contorted at other impossible angles. Although, after what he'd just been through, the boy didn't think his hands would be doing anything much, since he could barely move his right hand at the moment.

Granted, the boy had gone into the therapy session with his arm already aching after spending most the prior evening and a lot of the night either sketching or painting. It wasn't his fault though. He had to do something to burn off all the nervous energy caused by the stress of Brian losing his job.

Even after Cynthia had convinced the Master to leave Woody’s and go back to the loft - where the boy no longer had to worry over Brian's threat to go on a reckless bender - the tension hadn't really abated much. Brian and Cynthia had huddled around the dining table whispering worriedly for more than an hour. The boy had been summarily shooed off to the other side of the room and ordered to ‘go draw something’ while they whispered. The boy had complied, but couldn't completely block out all of the conversation between the two conspirators. He'd heard them mentioning the name ‘Justin’ more than once, so he felt justified in eavesdropping.

However, what little he'd gleaned from listening in hadn't reassured him at all. Not only were the Master’s finances going to be strained because of his lack of income, but that horrible Vance man was refusing to pay Brian his quarterly bonus. The same bonus that the Master had planned to use to pay off the balance owed on the boy’s contract. Which, of course, did not bode well for his future.

All the intent whispering notwithstanding, the boy didn't think that Brian and Cynthia had come up with a real solution to the PC dilemma. The fact that there was still a little over two months until the deadline for paying off the bid price, didn't reassure him very much. And the ongoing discussions from the far side of the loft left the boy with the distinct impression that there was more going on than just a discussion about how to raise money. The furtive looks aimed his way from the duo at the table hadn't felt even remotely encouraging.

With nothing else to occupy his attention and help take his mind off the threat of being taken away from Brian, the boy had resorted to his art to vent his fears. He'd sketched until long past when they would have normally headed off to bed, turning out drawing after drawing depicting the horrors he imagined waiting for him if Brian couldn't find the money to keep him. The pictures were horribly graphic and only served to make him more apprehensive, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Even when he tried to stop, the lurid visuals created by his imagination refused to go away and he felt like his brain would explode if he tried to keep those terrible images inside. So he'd drawn till his hand had become too cramped to hold a pencil anymore.

The small sound of the pencil hitting the floorboards had echoed through the silent loft loudly enough to draw Brian’s attention away from the paperwork he was still musing over. He’d silently come over to the couch, pulled the boy up and wordlessly directed him up to the bedroom. The boy had acquiesced, crawling under the covers that Brian had held up for him. But, when Brian himself still hadn’t come to bed more than an hour later, the boy had given up on trying to sleep. He crawled back out of the warm bed, looked over to where the Master had been standing and futilely staring out the windows, and then padded over to his easel in the corner, where he’d proceeded to paint away his demons until just before sunrise.

When he’d been too tired to hold even the fat paintbrush he’d been working with, the boy had retreated back to his spot on the couch and huddled there, helpless and anxious and unable to do anything else to help either himself or the Master, until he eventually drifted off into a restless doze. He woke a few hours later, blinking at the now bright sun streaming through the windows, to find that he’d been covered by a blanket while he slept. With a groan caused by his stiff neck and sore back, the boy had then risen from the uncomfortable couch, marched over to the still pacing man by the windows, and forcibly dragged the bigger man with him to the bed. Brian hadn’t even put up a token resistance. He’d meekly followed the boy, slid into bed, spooned up behind the youth and finally, curled up around the pliant boy’s frame, fallen into an exhausted sleep that allowed the boy to relax as well.

They’d barely woken up in time to make it to the physical therapy appointment later that afternoon. Brian was adamant that they make the most of the healthcare benefits he still had through his employer provided insurance, all of which would expire at the end of the month because of his termination. As such, he’d vowed to schedule as many doctor, therapy and psychology visits as they could reasonably fit into the next couple of weeks, and insisted that the boy make this appointment no matter how tired and sore he felt.

Which is how the boy ended up having to endure an hour of poking, prodding, stretching and twisting in the name of ‘therapy’. He hadn’t minded the hot packs the PT used at the beginning to loosen up his muscles - that felt nice. Even the dexterity exercises weren’t so bad - rotating the Chinese hand balls in his palm was fine and trying to touch each fingertip on his right hand to his thumb in rapid succession had been doable. But the strengthening exercises had been hell. Max had forced him to squeeze a tennis ball over and over till he’d actually worked up a sweat. And then they’d moved on to flexing and rotating his wrist using resistance bands, which had been painful and utterly exhausting. By the time they’d ended with a short lesson for Brian on how to massage the boy’s neck, shoulder and hand in order to alleviate the built-up tension, he’d been in outright agony. Worse yet, they were due to go back for another torture session on Friday.

How, exactly, was this supposed to help him get the full use of his hand back? Right at that moment, the boy felt like he’d be lucky to be able to use it at all. The very idea of repeating those exercises several times a day outside the therapy sessions was depressing. And he really didn’t need anything else to be depressed about.

As Brian was leading him out of the PT office, the man’s arm already in its accustomed place draped over the boy’s shoulders, the young PC couldn’t help but despair. What was the purpose of all this? If he was just going to end up thrown back to that monster Bellweather, what was the point of getting therapy for his hand? A master like that wouldn’t care about his hand or his art. A man like that would only care about whether his ass was tight and available for whatever degenerate desires he had at any given moment. Was all this trouble worth it?

*Mmmnnnnhh* The boy groaned as a misstep jostled the arm he had cradled against his chest.

Brian stopped immediately, reached down, took the cramped hand in both his own and began to massage it as Max had just taught him. The boy flinched away, trying to pull back his arm. Even the well intentioned massage was painful at this point. Brian didn’t relent though. He held on and continued with his gentle kneading at the contorted muscles, not even acknowledging the fact that they were standing in the middle of the sidewalk outside the PT clinic and almost completely blocking the walkway.

It took a few minutes, but eventually the worst of the pain receded. By that time, though, the boy had finally lost the tight grip he’d been holding over his emotions. The fear, stress, fatigue, and now the pain, had finally overwhelmed him. Even as the pain let up, he felt the tears beginning to pool behind his closed eyelids. He tried valiantly to hold them back. He knew tears wouldn’t help. They wouldn’t change anything. Tears only served to let others know how weak you really were. The struggle to squelch them, however, seemed nearly impossible.

“Hey, Sunshine. Don’t let it get to you. Shhhh. It’s going to be okay,” the boy heard the Master’s consoling words and felt the hands that had been massaging his arm now winding around his back. He let himself hide against the solid wall of the big, sturdy chest. Somehow it felt easier to breathe with his face pressed into the fabric of Brian’s shirt. “You’re going to be fine. I’ll . . . I’ll think of something, Justin. Don’t give up on me yet, okay?” Brian tried to assure the boy.

The words didn’t mean much. He’d been told similar words often enough and they’d always meant nothing. He’d learned not to rely on anyone’s empty words. It was the arms wrapped protectively around him, the warmth of the man’s touch, the feel of a breath ghosting against his cheek as the man spoke, and the sound of the strong heartbeat reverberating deep in the broad chest that his cheek was leaning against, that reassured him. Those things meant something. They meant everything.

“Please don’t give up on us, Sunshine. Come on. You’ve got this. Right? I mean, you didn’t let me fall apart yesterday, even when I was being a total git. And I’m not going to let you lose it today. We’re in this thing together.”

The boy took a deep breath, filling himself with all the security and assurance he could, and then nodded. He could do this. He could hold on. Maybe Brian was right. Sunshine could do this. Sunshine wouldn’t give up. Not as long as Brian and Sunshine were together.