Chapter 4 - Shelter.

Shelter: Something that physically protects, especially from danger.

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Brian’s POV

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By now it’s about 9:30 pm and, as expected, the usual crowd starts to hound me to join them for the night out at the bar or the club. First I get a call from Ted. He’s calling from Woody’s and just wanted to let me know that the gang is waiting on me for drinks before they head over to Babylon for the night. I tell him that I’m not sure I can make it tonight. I can’t really elaborate on why, though, because before I can get anything more out, I hear the buzzer sounding on the loft’s front door so I end the call with Ted and answer the buzzer.

It’s Michael at the door, of course, coming to drag me along to the bar with him. Somehow or other he’s not really in the loop about Justin, who is sitting patiently on the sofa waiting for me.  

“Hey, Brian. Who’s that?” Michael asks, pointing rudely over at Justin while the boy appears to be trying to make himself invisible by sinking into the couch cushions.  

“That is Justin. He’s my GUEST, Mikey.” I say, trying to emphasize the ‘guest’ part so Michael will curb his rude curiosity.

“What’s he doing here, Brian? We need to get going to Woody’s. The guys are already waiting for us. You’ll have to kick this guy out quick or we’ll miss them.” Michael states brusquely, giving Justin a dismissive glance.

“Mikey! I just said that Justin is my guest. He’s not going anywhere. Don’t you and your mother talk like five times a day? I would think you would have been brought up to date regarding Emmett’s little lost street urchin already.” I say as I grab ahold of Michael’s shoulder and try to maneuver him back towards the door.”

“That’s the kid Emmett found? I didn’t know he was coming here with you. I thought Ma was going to put him up at home for a couple days. Nobody said you were going to be playing babysitter.” Michael shakes off my guiding hand and walks back to the sofa so he can more fully examine the interesting new specimen currently being cared for by the Liberty Diner gang, myself now included.

“The ‘kid’ has a name, Mikey - it’s Justin. And, he’s sitting right there listening to you. You don’t need to talk about him like he’s not here or deaf or something,” I admonish my callous friend.  

“Sorry. But whatever, Brian. We need to get going. You aren’t even dressed yet,” Michael dismisses the obviously insignificant twink in a blink as he concentrates on getting me ready for our standard Thursday night bar and club hopping.     

“Not tonight, Mikey,” I say immediately, again trying to impel Michael towards the door. “I’m going to stay home tonight. Justin is still settling in and I don’t want to abandon him for the night. You go on and enjoy your night with the guys and I’ll see you later, Mikey.”

“What the fuck, Brian? You’re not coming out with us tonight?” Michael appears to be astounded by the fact that I’m not going out for one night - apparently I’ve become a little too predictable, I think, if Michael can’t imagine my staying home for one single night.  

“You do speak English, don’t you, Mikey?” I snark, as I more forcefully drag my friend to the door. “I’m staying home tonight. Is that too hard for you to understand? Go on and play with your little friends and have a good time, Mikey. I’m a big boy and I can entertain myself for one night. Bye bye, Mikey!” I say and I slide the loft door closed in his face before he can protest further.

“That was Mikey, Sunshine,” I comment to the boy as I return to sit next to him on the sofa. “He’s a twat, but sorta my best friend. Don’t pay him too much mind - he was raised by a raging queen and a single Italian mother, so he pretty much has no manners. He’s got a big heart though, if you can see it through all the bluster.”  

Justin actually snorts softly - it's the closest thing to a laugh I’ve heard from him so far - and he smiles a tiny half smile while he carefully examines his foot so as not to have to look at me directly. This is definitely progress.

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Justin's POV

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I’m actually full. I haven’t felt full in . . . well, I don’t know if I’ve ever not been at least a little hungry. I like this feeling a lot. But I feel even more sleepy now that I’ve eaten. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I don’t want to sleep while He is here, though. I can’t believe I fell asleep earlier. I don’t want to waste a single moment of time that I can spend with Him. I’m sure that this can’t last and that soon I’ll be alone again. I still can’t forget the feeling of Him holding me in His arms earlier. I want to feel like that again. And if I can’t feel that, I want to at least listen to Him talking and watch Him moving around. If I let myself sleep, I won’t be able to see Him anymore and that thought makes the pain in my gut throb a little more strongly.  

Then the other man comes into the loft. The other man talks too loudly and moves around a lot and waves his arms about too much. I don’t like him at all. He’s talking about me the way people usually talk about me when they see me on the streets - like I don’t mean anything, like I don’t count for anything and they can say anything about me they want and I won’t understand or at least I won’t care.  

He tells the other man to stop talking about me like that, though. He is actually standing up for me to his friend. No one has ever stood up for me before. Ever. Well, not since Daphne, but she’s been gone a long time now so it probably doesn’t even count. But He’s telling His friend to talk to me directly. Then He tells His friend to leave and that He’s going to stay with me tonight!  He says my name and says He’s not going to abandon me for the night. I’m afraid to believe what I hear. I just won’t listen, I decide. I won’t count on anything. I’ll just wait.

Then He makes the other man leave and He comes to sit with me again on the couch. He makes a joke about his friend not having any manners and I almost even laugh. I don’t remember laughing for a long time. It feels strange but good. He makes me feel good - sort of safe.  

Then I remember the other man called Him something . . . Brian. Yeah. I remember hearing Emmett calling him that now too. He is Brian. That’s a very nice name, I think to myself. Brian.  

Brian starts to pick up the remains from my dinner and I’m startled back to the present. I’m scared and embarrassed that I’ve left a mess for Him to clean up. I scurry to my feet and grab the boxes and other trash out of his hands and quickly take it all to the kitchen, throwing it all in the trash and getting a towel to wipe off the table where I might have dropped something or made some other mess. Brian grabs my hand as I return to the coffee table and takes the towel away from me.

“You don’t have to do that, Justin. I have a cleaning service to take care of that. I appreciate you cleaning up the take out boxes but you don’t have to wipe down the tables or anything,” Brian says to me, as he carefully guides me to sit back down on the couch. “Now, we still have dessert. Do you think you can eat more? If not, I can save it for you for later.”

There’s more? Fuck! I can’t believe there is more. I remember the concept of dessert, but for so long now there’s only been ‘food’ - you eat what you can when you can get it and there isn’t any room for a concept like ‘dessert’, which entails something extra over and beyond ‘food’. I have no idea how to respond to such a concept anymore. Brian is standing there waiting for me to tell him somehow if I think I can eat more and I can tell he doesn’t understand why this is so hard for me. How the fuck do I explain to him? In the end all I do is nod again like some idiot bobble-head doll that can’t do anything else.  

Brian doesn’t seem to mind though and he comes right back with a plate loaded with what looks like chocolate cake. I hear myself moan at the mere sight of anything that delicious. It’s almost erotic how excited I get from the sight of that slice of cake. I remember that I love chocolate. I haven’t had any in a long time but I remember the taste. It’s just too much, though. The food, the shower, the warm safe place to sleep earlier. Now, chocolate cake and He is standing there watching like I’m supposed to know how to handle all this. I can’t do it. It’s too much.

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Brian’s POV

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Okay, I wasn’t ready for Justin’s reaction to the dessert I just put down on the table in front of him. He sat there staring at the plate for a couple minutes like I’d tried to feed him rat poison and then he just burst out into sobs and tears. What the fuck? Who cries over chocolate cake? If he didn’t want it he didn’t have to eat it, but I didn’t expect him to start to cry.  

I’m really, really not good at this whole caregiver thing, I think. What the fuck was I thinking bringing the kid here?  I can’t even seem to get him fed without heaps of drama. I really hate dealing with anyone who’s crying - probably just another one of the reasons why I’m totally turned off by most women. The sight of Justin crying though doesn’t strike me the same way - I’m not turned off, I just want to make the tears stop somehow.  

I start to take the cake away back to the kitchen. I figure I’ll put it away in the fridge for Justin for later and if he changes his mind he can eat it then. But, as I start to walk away with the plate, the sobbing from the little blond gets even louder. I’m completely lost as to what to do.  

I put the plate back down on the coffee table and move around toward the sobbing boy, trying to move slowly so as not to spook him. I manage to sit next to him and awkwardly put my arm around his shoulders. I just hold him and wait until the crying quiets and the tears stop. He’s sitting there with his head leaning on my shoulder and I can feel his shaking slow down and eventually notice his breathing has become more regular.  

When I angle my head to look down at him, I almost laugh - he’s fallen asleep again. The kid has cried himself to sleep over a fucking piece of chocolate cake - this is a first for Brian Kinney who has never held anyone while they cried before, let alone a cute little blond street kid who got overly emotional over his dessert. If he wasn’t so fucking adorable, I would probably start laughing at the little drama princess. Instead, I carefully lie him down on the couch, grabbing a cushion and the blanket from the pile he’s left on the floor and tuck him in to sleep.

I figure I’ve done all I can for the boy as far as the malnutrition and the exhaustion are concerned. The cold will take care of itself - all I have to do is to remember to give him the meds tomorrow morning. I guess sleep is the best remedy for him, so I let him get on with it and I go back to working on the boards for Daddies’ Board Shop.  

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Justin's POV

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Someone cries out in the dark and it brings me awake immediately. It turns out the cry was from me. Another fucking nightmare. Thankfully I don’t remember what this one was about either. I really don’t want to know. It has to be about my father though, since I wake up with that feeling of panic I always get when I think of him. The panic and fear that the nightmare has left behind aren't going away and I wish I could forget those as well.  

I feel the couch dip near me, but Brian makes no move to touch me. I feel bad that I’ve woken Him up now too. Eventually, I allow Him to pull me to my feet and I again admire His patience, given the early hour, as He tows me towards His bedroom. We make our way towards the bed at a sluggish pace, my legs aren’t working particularly well yet. When we reach the bed, I lie down in the space He provides for me. He gets into the bed next to me and I roll over so my back is towards Him - facing away from Him is easier than looking Him in the face. His arms wrap around me and lock me in a warm, secure embrace. I close my eyes and wait for exhaustion to take over. I wonder if He's gonna fuck me now. Brian doesn’t say a word, but I know that he hasn’t succumbed to sleep because His breathing is still shallow and not even.  

“Sleep, Sunshine. Leave your musings for when the sun is shining,” Brian whispers into my ear.

The sound of his voice is so comforting - in a way I can’t even begin to explain. The pain in my gut left over from the nightmare still doesn’t go away completely, but it does subside again just enough, while He is holding me, that I manage to get back to sleep, sheltered in the strength of His arms.

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Brian's POV

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I can't sleep. I can't stop wondering what the hell must have happened to do this to the kid. I mean, I'm no stranger to abuse - growing up with Jack and Joanie as parents, I've seen my share of shit. But compared to Justin, I feel practically well-adjusted.

Every time he falls asleep, he wakes up screaming after only an hour or two. I don't think he even realizes he's doing it. This is the third time tonight he's bolted awake. There are still never any words to his terror, just panic filled screaming. And when he wakes, it's like nothing's happened - he just blinks at me, still saying nothing, then rolls over and goes right back to sleep. He seems so complaisant about it all - like this isn't anything unusual for him - like he somehow expects his life to be like this. I, on the other hand, am a complete basket case.  

What the hell am I going to do? One night of this I can probably handle, but does this go on every fucking night? Which brings me back to wondering again what could possibly have done this to him. Somehow I don't think it's just from being on the streets - this goes way fucking deeper. And for some reason, I just really, desperately want to help him but I have absolutely no idea even where to start.

I must have eventually fallen asleep because my ringing cell phone wakes me. It's got to be after 10:00 am since the pale winter sun is actually high enough to shine over the top of the neighboring building and in through the loft windows. I'm a bit groggy at first - all I can do is fumble around on the night stand until I find the offensive ringing device.

"Kinney," I croak.

"Hey, Bri," Michael's overly cheerful voice drills into my eardrum. "Just checking to see how your night in with the street twink went."

That comment wakes me up enough to wonder where the boy is, since he's obviously not here next to me in bed.

"Can't talk now, Mikey. Gotta go," I manage as I hang up.

I don’t want to just yell out for Justin - he's so jumpy, I'm afraid to frighten him by calling out. So I get out of bed and go looking for him instead. I can tell almost at once that there's something wrong. It's too quiet and too neat. I already know somehow that he's gone. I still need to make sure though, so I get up and look.

The first place I check, after briefly poking my head into the bathroom, is the corner where Justin made his little nest of cushions yesterday afternoon.  All the cushions are gone - placed carefully back on the couch - and the blanket is neatly folded and draped over the sofa back. Then I notice that all the new clothes I got him are likewise folded in a neat pile on the coffee table. Shit, I have a really bad feeling now.  

There's no sign of him anywhere around the loft. I finally throw caution to the wind and call out his name - just in case he's hiding somewhere - but there's no answer. When I come to the kitchen, I see that there's something large and white sitting on the counter. When I'm near enough, I see it's a drawing made on a large sheet of paper - on closer inspection it turns out to be the back side of one of the preliminary drawings my art department did for the Daddies' Board Shop account. Next to the drawing is a small pile of ragged, crumpled dollar bills - it looks like about fifty bucks altogether.

Shit. He's gone.

"Michael, meet me at the Diner in fifteen minutes," I'm yelling into the phone as I pull on my clothing, already heading towards the door. "It's an emergency. Oh, and call Em and Ted and get them down there too. We're gonna need help. The kid is missing."