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Author's Chapter Notes:

Brian contemplates the nature of being a father as he begins to dread the coming birth of his own child. Enjoy! TAG

~**~**~**~**~**~


Chapter 30 - Progenitorship.


Brian walked into the ballroom at the University of Pittsburgh, already in a foul mood and not at all excited to spend his evening being polite to people he didn’t really give a flying fuck about. Damn Ryder for forcing him to come to this stupid alumni thing. Why didn’t Ryder come hobnob with his alumni buddies himself? Brian didn’t really want to be there and, even if he had, this kind of scene wasn’t really his forte. He was the guy who impressed the clients with brilliant campaigns once they were already in the door. Drumming up business at social events was definitely not his thing.

His mood wasn't made any better by the fact that he'd just come from one of the thankfully infrequent visits with his parents. Brian had received a phone call from Joan the night before ‘inviting’ him over for dinner. Luckily Brian had the excuse of this work function to get him out of the proposed meal. But when his mother had persisted, he'd known what was up and grudgingly offered to drop by ‘for drinks’ on his way to the UP Mixer.


As expected, Joan had already been half a bottle ahead of him when Brian arrived. She had tried to stand and greet him in her usual, falsely genial way, but staggered and almost tripped in the process. Brian had shaken his head without commenting and left her to her tea cup full of gin in the kitchen. Jack had been, of course, parked in front of the television watching loud motor vehicles screaming around and around a track. Judging by the trail of empties sitting on the coffee table, he'd already worked his way through most of a six pack. In other words, the ‘rents had clearly already had their drinks without waiting on their son.


“Hey, Pop,” Brian had greeted the bleary-eyed old man his father had become, taking a seat in the nearby arm chair without waiting for any response. “So, what is it you needed this time.”


“What? I don't even rate five minutes of fucking small talk from you these days, Sonny Boy?” Jack had grumped, swigged the rest of the beer he was holding and then crushed the can in his fist before letting it tumble onto the coffee table with the rest of the dead soldiers.

 

 

“Can we just get this over with so I can get the fuck outta here already?” Brian demanded with a scowl at the broken down, angry, drunken mess his father was.


“I guess you're too fucking good for your old man, huh? You with your high-falutin’ education and that fancy-pants job. Looking down your nose at the rest of us?” Jack had sneered over the rim of the new beer can he’d popped open. “Well, I'll tell you one thing, Sonny Boy - for all your froufrou ways, you're STILL nothing but a Mick from the wrong side of the tracks and you always will be. It's in your blood. You can't escape it no matter how much money you make. And you can look down your nose at me all you want, but someday you'll end up just the same. You can't avoid your fate, boy, and all of us Kinney men are the same.”


“Fine,” Brian slapped his hands down on his knees with finality and pushed himself back up to his feet. “If I’m no better than the rest of you losers, then I guess there’s no reason for me to be here. See ya, Pops.”


“Hang on there, Speedy Gonzalez,” Jack had grabbed hold of Brian’s wrist as he tried to sidle past the couch. Brian had literally looked down his nose at the pathetic, washed up old man who was now looking up at him beseechingly and felt nothing but contempt for his father. “The plant lost some huge fucking contract last month and had to lay off half of us. I . . . I’m having a bit of trouble getting by on just unemployment and the little the Union gives us . . .”


“Figures,” Brian had shaken his head at the admission and then reached into his inside jacket pocket to pull out the money envelope he’d come prepared with. “Seems like my fancy-pants job’s good for something at least, huh Pops?”


Brian had handed over the packet of cash, not expecting any thanks and therefore not upset when he didn’t hear it from his father. Then he quickly turned on his heel and marched away. He hadn’t even bothered going into the kitchen to say goodbye to the lush who claimed to be his mother. He’d just wanted out of that house as fast as was humanly possible. The less time he had to spend with his parents, the better.


Even though he'd managed to limit his time at his childhood home, he was still extremely unsettled by the short experience. His parents were such an embarrassment. They’d been bad enough while he was growing up, but lately it seemed they no longer cared about keeping up even minimal appearances. They’d become virtual pariahs in the old neighborhood with everyone except for his mother’s church friends. The house was even more of an eyesore than ever before. As far as he could tell, they both spent the majority of their time drunk. And yet they still found ways to put Brian down? Well, fuck them. Why couldn’t they both just drink themselves into those early graves they seemed headed for already? That seemed to be what they were going for, right, and Brian would be more than glad to be finally rid of the obligation to acknowledge he was related to them.


The experience had been distasteful enough that it actually put Brian off his own drink for the night. He wasn’t going to let his parents’ example control him - he was better than that, and he would prove it by NOT wasting his life as a perpetual lush. Which meant that, for once, he had no urge to head straight for the bar as soon as he arrived at the mixer. He was confident he could find some other way to get through the night. That left him completely at loose ends, however, because alcohol was usually the only thing that kept him going at these types of functions. And the directionless feeling he now had only exacerbated his bad mood.


Which is why he was still standing there just inside the entrance to the ballroom after more than five minutes and staring at the people around him with a sour expression that was doing a wonderful job of keeping any potential company at bay.


“I'm pretty sure that the point of a ‘mixer’ is that you’re supposed to talk to people,” a humor-tinged tenor voice spoke from behind Brian’s left shoulder. “If you keep glaring at everyone who passes by, you’re going to be standing here alone all night. Which is fine, if that’s what you planned on doing, but how will that get you any potential clients to take back to Ryder’s?”


Brian turned his glare in the direction of the visible-only-to-him blond sprite but didn’t respond verbally because he didn’t want to be seen talking to himself.


But even if he had been able to speak to his shadow, he wasn’t really sure what to say. Their relationship - and even Brian would be forced to use that word to describe whatever it was they had, at least in his own mind - had been so strained lately. Except for those few idyllic weeks right before Christmas when they’d been ridiculously happy, everything between them was so complicated.


Justin persisted in haunting his life, and his loft unrelentingly - sharing Brian’s bed nightly even when nothing much happened in that bed anymore - but somehow they’d lost that happy, unquestioning easiness around each other. Brian knew it hinged on the fact that he continued to spend the majority of his nights out with Michael at the bars and clubs on Liberty Avenue. Not that Brian really wanted to spend every night trolling for tricks at Babylon, but he also wasn’t willing to concede that Justin had the right to keep him away. So, even though, a lot of the time, he would have rather stayed home and played with his favorite blond boy, more often than not Brian allowed Mikey to talk him into going out. And each time Justin looked at him with one of those understanding sighs, he felt compelled to assert his independence even more.


Justin hadn’t been pressing his suit much outside the loft for a while now, though, so Brian was a little surprised to see him in this setting. If the spirit boy was now going to resume his campaign to dog Brian’s every step, they were going to have to have a serious talk. So it really wasn’t a surprise that he redirected his bad mood towards the hovering blond.


“Before you skewer me with that look, Stud,” the boy chuckled at him, ignoring the glare, “no, I didn’t follow you here.” Brian rolled his eyes, obviously disbelieving. “I swear, Brian. I came for Jesse.”


Justin pointed across the room to a large clique of men all dressed in business suits, in the midst of which the blond teenager stood out like a sore thumb in his uncomfortable-looking, obviously brand-new, and slightly too-big suit.


“His father dragged him here tonight to meet some of the alumni,” Justin continued explaining. “Four has been trying to force him to agree to go to Dartmouth - which is where Dear Old Dad went - but Jesse’s pushing for art school. UP would be sort of a compromise since it’s at least a four year college with a business school, not to mention that Gil has an in here, but I don’t think Jesse’s going to cave. He really wants to try to get into the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts. I think he’s good enough, too. But, since nobody else in the family is supporting that option, he asked me to come as invisible backup and see if I could figure out a way to help him escape.”


“Isn’t the kid a bit young for them to be pushing him to decide on a college already,” Brian asked as he tentatively took a few steps over towards the group with the intention of helping Justin’s friend out if he could.


“Not really. It’s the end of his Junior year of high school.”


“What did he do, skip like five years?” Brian asked, eying the very youthful looking adolescent with skepticism. “Shit, wasn’t it just last year that he was only a snot-nosed six year old that was hassling me after a soccer game?”


“Brian,” Justin swatted his disbelieving charge with a playful backhand to his stomach. “That was ten years ago, Stud - you apparently lost a few years, or are you just not counting anymore? *hehehe* Jesse’s seventeen now. His birthday was a couple months back.”


Brian might have responded to Justin’s amused heckling, but by that time he’d come up to the group and been almost immediately spotted by the youth himself. Jesse immediately excused himself from the conversation he was trapped in with three doddering octogenarians and turned towards the newcomer with a grateful smile. Over Jesse’s shoulder, Brian could see the boy’s father shooting his son an unhappy look before moving in to take up the slack in the discussion the kid had abandoned.


“Hey, Dude. Don't tell me you volunteered to come rescue me along with Uncle Jus?” Jesse greeted him with a big, relieved smile.


“Do I look like someone who rescues damsels in distress or does other charitable deeds?” Brian teased.


“Well, from what I hear, you’ve made at least one charitable donation this year, Brian.” Their twosome was invaded by another familiar face as Winnie popped up from behind a taller gentleman who’d hidden her presence earlier.


“Hey, Win,” Brian greeted his friend, leaning down to accept her kiss on his cheek. “I didn’t realize this was another Taylor family function. Do you guys always travel in packs?”


“Of course. We’re like rich hyenas - very predatory,” she joked, eliciting a laugh from them all. “But getting back to your recent charity work - I had lunch with Lindsey a couple weeks ago and just heard the big news about your big donation. I can’t believe YOU’RE going to be a father. Congratulations! Although, that’s pretty much the last news I ever thought I’d hear about Brian Kinney. Lindsey’s over the moon, though, so good going. What in the world made you change your mind and agree?”


“Obviously, it was all Lindsey’s compliments about my excellent genes,” Brian deflected. “Either that or or I was drunk . . . Oh, wait, it did happen the night of your wedding, so I guess the drunk theory wins.”


“Right. Go with the ‘I was too drunk to know better’ defense, Bro. That’ll save you from having to admit you’re actually a nice guy who wanted to help out his friends or maybe, even, that you LIKE the idea of creating your own clone,” Jesse interjected with a knowing smirk. “You wouldn’t want to admit to being human, now, would you?”


“Jesse, stop,” Justin warned.


Before Brian could speak up for himself and insist on his cad-hood, their little group was interrupted by yet another Taylor. “Justin Elias Sanford Taylor, I didn’t bring you here tonight to waste time talking to your cousin,” Four Taylor insisted, his big hand gripping Jesse’s shoulder and already physically turning the young man away from his friends. “Now get your butt over here and socialize some more. Two of the members of the admissions board are here tonight and your Uncle Gil wants to introduce you.”


“Dad . . .” Jesse whined and dragged his feet. “I’ve already met about a thousand old geezers. Can’t we call it a night already? I’d rather be home doing my Calculus for fuck’s sake. Not to mention all the noise in here is giving me a killer headache.”


Four ignored his son’s complaints entirely and force marched the kid away towards another group of sixty-year-old men. Winnie and Brian - along with the unseen Justin - all grimaced in sympathy with the boy. The way Jesse’s shoulders slumped even further down as soon as they’d reached the group and his father began the introductions, made it clear how unenthused the kid was with the evening’s entertainment.


“Yikes! Poor Jes. He even got the full name treatment - there’s no getting out of it for him after that,” Winnie voiced what they were all thinking. “Although, from the way he was squinting, I doubt the headache excuse was altogether made up. He looked like he was already fading. If Aunt Jenn was here, she probably would have overruled Uncle Four.”


Even as Winnie mentioned it, they watched Jesse surreptitiously rubbing at the base of his skull and grimacing in pain. As soon as one of the men turned to him and asked a question, though, he put on a fake smile and pretended to be interested. Four stood there behind him the whole time like a sentinel, monitoring the situation and making sure the kid didn’t abscond again.


“At least his dad actually seems to care about the kid,” Brian offered by way of partial explanation. “I’m sure he just wants Jesse to get into a good college. It could be worse. He could have had my father.”


“True,” Winnie conceded grudgingly. “But Uncle Four’s been really coming down hard on Jes lately and I think the stress is getting to the kid.” Winnie moved closer to Brian, leaning in so that their conversation would remain private. “For about the last year or so, my uncle has been on this kick about trying to make Jes ‘man up’. It’s so stupid, really. I mean, who really cares if Jes wants to become an artist rather than a businessman like his dad? Just because Four was the son who stepped up and took on the family business from Grandpa, doesn’t mean Jes has to do the same, right? Jesse’s never been the type who’d do well in that environment. Don’t get me wrong - he’s smart as hell - but if you ask me he’s too good an artist to waste his time in business school.”


A loud burst of manly laughter echoed from the group where Jesse and his dad were standing, drawing Brian’s attention to the group again. The little blond kid really did look totally out of place in the bunch. Brian felt for him. He knew first hand what it was like to feel like the odd man out. He’d felt that way pretty much his whole life.


“Maybe his dad will come around?” Brian offered.


“I hope so, because it’s really been hard on Jesse lately. Not to mention that the rest of us are getting tired of listening to Four’s ranting too,” Winnie confessed with a wink as she linked her arm through Brian's and headed the both of them away from the gaggle of Jesse’s group. “Every single family event I’ve been to for the past few months, it’s been nothing but ‘Jesse needs to get serious about his future’ and ‘We’ve coddled that boy long enough, it’s time he grew out of this nonsense’. I know I’m sick to death of hearing it all the time, so I bet Jesse’s ready to pull his hair out. No wonder his health hasn’t been great lately. If I was constantly being told I was a disappointment and that I needed to buckle down more, I’d probably have a constant headache too.”


“He’s also been giving Jesse shit lately about me,” Justin added, following along behind Brian and Winnie and commenting over Brian’s shoulder. “All of a sudden Four’s become convinced that Jesse’s ‘peculiarities’ are his mother’s fault for babying him too much. He’s also been saying that they shouldn’t have indulged Jes so much as a child, thinking he’d grow out of it, and that now they’ll have to ‘crack down’ or Jesse will end up a ‘sissy’.” Justin hissed out the last word venomously. “If I was still alive, I’d kick my little brother’s ass so hard he’d walk with a permanent limp, the little worm.”


“Fucker,” Brian replied, his answer conveniently responsive to both of his friends’ comments.


Brian could tell that Justin was seriously worried about his nephew by the way the spirit boy was biting nervously at his bottom lip as he looked back at the boy. Poor kid. Parents were really a curse for everyone, it seemed. Even rich kids who grew up indulged eventually had to stand up to them. Apparently. Life kinda sucked like that, you know?


Brian was just about to offer that they put their heads together and manufacture a plan to spring the kid, when his cell phone started vibrating in the pocket of his suit coat. He reached for it, intending to mute it and then return to his conversation, when he noted that the call was from ‘Uncle Vic’. Which was strange, since Vic had rarely called him before.


“Hmm. Maybe I should take this. Excuse me a sec,” Brian murmured, stepping away from Winnie as he accepted the call. “Vic?”


“It’s me, Brian,” Michael’s voice came through the phone’s small speaker. “Uncle Vic’s in the hospital. He collapsed right after dinner tonight. Ma’s going crazy. The doctors say it’s bad. I don’t know what to do.” Michael sounded panicked. “I need you, Brian.”


~**~**~**~**~


Brian arrived at Allegheny General to find Michael pacing the hall outside the ICU with Debbie slouched in a nearby chair in a sobbing heap. Brian squeezed Michael’s shoulder as he passed by and then sat next to his surrogate mother, putting a consoling arm around her heaving shoulders. Deb turned her face into his shoulder and let go with a wailing cry that hurt Brian’s heart. For a minute he wondered if he was already too late.


Brian turned worried eyes towards Michael, who could only shrug, indicating they didn’t yet know Vic’s condition. “The doctor hasn’t been out to talk to us yet. It’s been more than an hour.”


“Why?” Debbie demanded vociferously, sitting up straighter while she railed at fate. “Why Vic, huh? It’s not fair. He’s never had it fucking easy. Never. You boys think it’s tough being gay nowadays, just imagine how hard my kid brother had it growing up. Damn it! And if the bullies in school weren’t bad enough, he also had to put up with our fucking parents giving him shit all the time.” Debbie paused to blow her nose wetly into a tissue that she unwadded for the purpose. “Like as not, Vic would get a whupping from our Dad as ‘punishment’ for getting beat up at school. Unfortunately, our father was of the opinion that shit like that ‘built character’, and he seemed convinced Vic needed a lot more character. It was probably a good thing that Vic ran off to New York as soon as he turned eighteen, cause I don’t think he could have handled any more ‘character’ building. Although, even if he’d stuck around, he probably would have been kicked out the same way they kicked me out when I got pregnant. And, after all that, just when Vic was finally coming into his own, it’s not fair that he has to deal with fucking ‘AIDS’ too.”


The three of them fell silent. There really wasn't much you could say. HIV was the scourge of modern times. It had decimated a whole generation of gay men and Vic was just another of the statistics. Thankfully the new antivirals and other treatments were finally beginning to give those infected a fighting chance, but it was still far too frequent that the disease claimed the unlucky, especially those who'd been battling it since the early days of the epidemic.


“Uncle Vic is gonna be fine, Ma. He's a fighter,” Michael intoned, trying to be the supportive son, laying a consoling hand on his mother’s shoulder.


“Damn right he's a fighter,” Deb took the supportive statement and immediately amplified it. “Vic was always scrappy. He'd even argue with Dad. He never won, but he never gave up either . . .”


Deb rambled off into a string of reminiscences about when she and Vic were kids, most of which focused on the problems they had with their conservative and judgemental father. It didn't sound much different than what Brian's experiences had been growing up with Jack. Or, for that matter, Jesse’s current situation with his father. Maybe all fathers were the same - authoritarian shitheads who threw their weight around, and sometimes their fists too, if they didn't get their way. Or was it just the fathers of gay sons that were bastards? Nah, Jack didn't actually know Brian was gay, so that couldn't be it, could it? Maybe it was just genetic - something about becoming a father set off some chromosomal change, activating a dormant ‘asshole gene’ that was there in virtually all men but didn't emerge till they had a son? Yeah, whatever.


Apparently Brian wasn't the only one thinking along those same lines. “I always wished I'd known my dad,” Miley piped up when Deb seemed to run out of stories about Vic fighting with his old man, “but from the sounds of it, maybe it's a good thing that I didn't have one. If they all act the way you describe Grandpa Grassi, I guess I didn't miss much, right?” Michael asked, jokingly, trying to make light of the stories as well as of their current situation. “At least this way, if I ever lose my mind and decide to follow in Brian's footsteps and procreate, I won't have had such a bad example to follow after. The cycle has already been broken for me.”


“Now, Michael, not all fathers are like that. Especially not these days. You have to remember that was a different time. A different generation. Hopefully none of you boys will turn out that way. You all know better.” Debbie turned to the side so she could eyeball Brian where he was still sitting next to her. “You better NOT turn out that way, Mister. We don’t need another Jack Kinney in this world. You hear me, Brian?”


“Ma! Lay off Brian. I’m sure he’ll do the best he can. It’s not his fault who his father is,” Michael spoke up to defend his friend. “Besides, I’m sure Brian won’t be very involved with the baby. That’s not what Brian wants. He’s not exactly father material. The girls will be the ones doing all the parenting . . .”


Brian’s attention drifted away at that point while Michael and Debbie continued to discuss Brian’s future parenting possibilities. His arm, which had been draped over Debbie’s shoulders as he tried to comfort her, fell back to his side. His mouth was scrunched up in a thin line and his eyes fell to the scuffed tile floor, focusing on nothing as his thoughts took off in an unpleasant roil of spiralling negativity.


For about half a minute, Brian had contemplated arguing against the prevailing Novotny logic and insisting that he would never - could never - hurt his own child. But then that protest died on his lips. He thought back over his afternoon and evening, to all the disapproving fathers he’d encountered or heard about that day, and it no longer seemed like an impossibility.


Hadn’t he just been thinking that all fathers were alike? That even the ‘good’ fathers, like Jesse’s dad, often became manipulative, controlling and emotionally abusive when their children didn’t tow the line. And that’s if they didn’t get outright physical in order to enforce their innate authoritarian natures, like Deb & Vic’s father had. Or, worse yet, you could have the overtly malicious and vicious fatherhood option a la Jack Kinney. Those were the only examples of fatherhood Brian had to draw from and they all seemed equally bad. So, if that’s what all fathers were like, how could he promise that he would be different?


In his mind’s eye, Brian could envision every single time Jack had slapped him, hit him, punched him, kicked him . . . He could feel the same gut-wrenching terror welling up in him at the mere memories. He remembered the nights spent huddled in his closet or locked in the basement, crying, in pain, and the fear that never seemed to go away altogether his entire childhood. Even now, he still had the occasional nightmare about those times. He’d thought that he’d finally escaped from that world, but maybe not. Not if what everyone was saying was true.


Was he genetically programmed to turn out just like Jack? Was there something in his nature or upbringing that said he was doomed to revisit that horrifying experience on the next generation? Was the abuse he’d suffered an integral part of his very being that he was helpless to escape? Was that what he was destined to do to his own child? Was there a monster inside him just waiting to emerge that he’d have no way to control.


The way Michael and Debbie had been talking, it seemed inevitable. Inescapable. Predestined.


“Shit,” Brian murmured, trying to swallow the bile that had risen in the back of his throat.


No. No, he could never do that to another child. Never.


He silently cursed himself for listening to Justin and thereby allowing even the possibility of this happening. It might be too late to go back and stop himself from acquiescing to Lindsey’s requests, but he refused to become another Jack Kinney. He refused to plunge his own child into the same hell he’d barely survived. He wouldn’t let himself become that monster. He’d kill himself before he let that happen.


Never.


“Fuck it! Life’s too fucking short,” Debbie’s vociferous exclamation finally jarred Brian out of his morose thoughts. Apparently, while Brian had been occupied, the conversation had somehow come back around from Brian’s chances of becoming an abusive father to the man they were at the hospital to support. “I’m not going to let Vic spend the next fuck-knows-how-many months in a stuffy hospital. Not that I’m giving up on him, mind you, but either way, Vic deserves to get at least one good thing out of this life and I’m going to figure out a way to make it happen.”


“What are you talking about, Ma?”


“Italy,” Deb declared assertively.


“Italy? What the hell does Italy have to do with Uncle Vic being sick?” Michael seemed as confused as Brian was at that moment.

 

 

“It has everything to do with it, Michael,” Deb insisted, fired up with her new plan to the point she was no longer teary-eyed. “We’re all going to die sooner or later, so we might as well live it up while we’re still able. As soon as Vic’s stable enough to get the hell out of here, we’re going to Italy. He’s always dreamed of visiting the ‘Old Country’ and seeing where our family was from. And there’s no time like the present, right? Especially if, heaven forbid, the present is all we have.”


Right then a tall woman in a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped around her neck strode purposely down the hall towards them. Debbie vaulted to her feet to go meet the newcomer and Michael followed on his mother’s heels. Brian only listened with half an ear to the report about what had caused Vic’s collapse and the subsequent reassurances that the patient was doing better. When they all started to follow the doctor towards the room where Vic was waiting, Brian held back.


“You coming, Brian?” Michael asked when he looked back over his shoulder and noticed his friend wasn’t with them.


“Nah. You guys go ahead. I’ve got someplace I need to be,” Brian excused himself. “Tell Vic that I’m pulling for him.”


Michael might have argued if he’d had the time, but already the doctor and Debbie were vanishing around the corner at the far end of the hall. He barely had time to wave goodbye to Brian and then trot off in their wake. Brian watched Michael disappear and then turned to go in the opposite direction towards the bank of elevators at the front of the hospital.

 

Brian thought Debbie’s assertion about living it up while you still could had been the best advice he’d heard in long fucking time. He couldn’t argue with her conclusion. Wasn't he living proof that life sucked and then you died. So, if those were his only two options, he figured he would go live it up for at least a while longer. Fuck his early determination not to turn out like his drunken parents. With any luck, he wouldn't live long enough for that inevitability. He might as well indulge - what else did he have to look forward to? And it wasn’t too early to hit the baths. Maybe a few willing mouths and asses would help him to forget the rest of this painfully insightful night.

Chapter End Notes:

5/15/17 - So sorry for the long delay with this chapter, folks. I'm really struggling with writer's block at the moment. I blame it on the idiot in the US white house - the political stress is far too distracting. But I'm determined to get this story done for you. I only see 2 (maybe 3) more chapters. Then I can move on to the next project that I have lined up - which will be much lighter and hopefully easier to write. Plus, I've got a working group together with ideas for another group-written summer fun story. So, keep your eyes open and be prepared for more soon. Thanks for reading. TAG

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