Chapter 5 - Sentience.

Brian hadn’t really slept much the night before - the boy had spent the entire night huddled on the floor of his closet. At first he’d just fearfully waited for Jack’s return, not sure if his ‘punishment’ for the night was over yet and not wanting to be taken unawares. After his father had noisily stumbled in the door and straight upstairs, crashing loudly into his own bed, Brian had fallen into a fitful slumber, but he didn’t feel confident enough to leave the dubious protection of his closet. What little sleep the young man had managed was only possible because of Justin’s reassuring, if quiet, presence sitting there in the dark with him. The beautiful blond had sat with him all night, holding him, stroking the soft auburn locks of the boy and making him feel just a little safer. But, as soon as it was daylight, Brian had bolted from the house, preferring to wait in the cold and snow outside the front doors to the school rather than see what would happen at home.

By the time he’d reached school, Brian had conveniently boxed up all his fears and emotions from the previous night and hidden them away deep inside himself where he didn’t have to think about them. Along with the fear, he’d also stashed away, to the best of his ability, his innate need for reassurance from his ‘imaginary friend’. This meant that he was trying once again to avoid acknowledging Justin’s existence and had ignored the blond tagging along behind him all the way to school.  

All the concerned guardian really wanted was to take Brian away from this nightmare but he didn’t know how. In the alternative, he wished he and Brian could have stayed hidden all morning so that he could continue to hold and comfort the young man. Every bruise or wound inflicted on his young ward echoed in his own body. Every emotional stab that Brian had to suffer caused his own heart to bleed a little. Justin would give everything he was or ever would be to protect Brian. He would never push himself on Brian, though, so he resigned himself that he would have to settle for providing a little remote TLC.

After Brian’s last class, Justin positioned himself in the middle of the hallway on the direct route between the classroom and the freshmen lockers. Brian immediately turned to go the opposite direction as soon as he sensed the unsolicited presence. The longer route around inevitably led Brian right past Michael Novotny’s locker and, of course, the short brunet immediately pounced on his new friend, whining until Brian agreed to follow his new best friend to the Diner for a snack before heading home.

Justin smiled down on the scene from his distant position, happy with the idea that Debbie would soon be looking after his boy for a bit, as scores of unseeing students streamed around him never noticing the ethereal blond beauty standing in the middle of the hall.

~~*~~*~~*~~

This was Brian’s second visit to the Liberty Diner. When he’d visited the place the previous week with Michael, he’d picked up the flavor of the locale right away. His prior visit had been fairly short, though, as he’d had to race home to finish some chores before his father got home from work. This afternoon he didn’t have any desire to hurry home, so he sat at the counter with Michael watching Debbie work for quite some time, and simply soaked up the atmosphere.

The repressed youth had never even dreamed such a place existed before. It was a very eye-opening experience for the lad. He’d never in his life seen two men hugging like that or even holding hands, let alone kissing. And, despite having grown up with a father who regularly threw around derogatory terms like ‘fairy’ and ‘faggot’, Brian didn’t find what he saw to be all that objectionable. In fact, he discovered that he was a little bit . . . aroused by these sights.

Up till now, Brian hadn’t really thought much about either girls or boys. At least, not like that. He’d been such a loner for so long now that he hadn’t had much interaction with either gender. He’d hidden in books and school work whenever he could and, when he couldn’t, most of his time had been spent dealing with all the issues surrounding his fucked up family. His sexual orientation hadn’t really come up before - or at least he hadn’t had any leisure time to examine the issue very deeply.

The boner he popped as one particularly hot, slightly older, honey-blond haired youth walked by and winked at him, proved that the question was definitely coming up now.

~~*~~*~~*~~

Both Brian and Michael hated gym class. Michael was completely uncoordinated and small for his age and was always picked last for every team. Brian was naturally athletic, so he didn’t have the same reason for hating the class as his friend, but he still hated it. Brian’s reason was primarily because of what always seemed to happen after gym class when the boys were all back in the locker room changing. That was when the school bullies liked to target the younger boys - they especially liked to wait until they were mostly undressed and completely vulnerable before they would strike. All the freshmen boys knew to get in and out of the gym locker room as quickly as possible - nobody ever bothered with showers since it was just too dangerous - but still, sometimes one of them would get caught with their pants down, literally.

The Tuesday following Brian’s super Super Bowl experience, he found himself in the locker room changing after gym class and quickly discovered that his bandaged left arm was slowing him down. He was having trouble getting his shirt on over the bandages without pulling them off along with the healing scabs. He was still bruised and achey and overall just moving a little more slowly than usual, which meant that everyone else was dressed and out of the locker room while Brian was still only halfway clothed.

Of course, this had to be the day that John Matthews just happened to be trolling for victims.

The bulky football jock came strolling into the changing room in a leisurely fashion, followed by his usual cronies. The menacing group rounded the corner of the lockers where Brian was struggling with his shirt, his pants on but still unfastened. The unaware freshman was in the very worst place at the absolute worst time and of course became the perfect target for the bullies.

Matthews nodded to two of his friends, who flanked Brian in an almost choreographed move, each one grabbing one of Brian’s arms. As they pulled his arms backwards behind him, Brian’s shirt, which was still only halfway on, was pulled against his face tightly, acting like a blindfold. He couldn’t see his attackers. That didn’t stop him from struggling and he almost got free from one of the two assailants who wasn’t quite prepared for the skinny kid to be so strong.

“Well. well, well. . . . What do we have here,” teased Matthews, causing Brian to freeze in the midst of his struggles. “Looks like we have some Freshman trash that needs cleaning up, boys.”

From the sycophantic chuckles, Brian could tell he was surrounded and that it wouldn’t do any good to keep fighting. The two holding his arms had a good grip now and, even though he was fairly strong, he wasn’t going to be able to overpower these hulking brutes. Brian let his body go limp, conserving his energy for a time when it could do more good.

“Time to flush this shit, guys!” cackled Matthews as his two mates dragged Brian backwards towards the toilets.

This particular boy was more than accustomed to being abused, and even though this time it wasn’t his prick of a father who was responsible for the attack, Brian knew the score. He knew there wasn’t any use in fighting back right now. He knew to pick his battles better. Therefore, the tall, skinny youth didn’t bother to struggle much. As humiliating and annoying as these bullies were, they couldn’t hold a candle to the torment and torture he’d already become inured to. This was nothing, really. Why even bother to resist when it would just lead to getting even more hurt? Brian Kinney knew better.

He managed to distance himself mentally from the scene. When the two thugs shoved his head into the toilet bowl, he simply held his breath, knowing that this wouldn’t last that long. Matthews himself flushed the toilet as the rest of the group stood around and laughed. When Brian came up spluttering afterwards, they roared with laughter, apparently never having seen anything quite so funny in their lives. The boy didn’t even respond to the rest of the taunts, though. He just sat on the dirty, tiled floor and shook the water out of his hair, ignoring the ruckus around him until the group filed out of the locker room in the steps of their leader.

Later that day, when the first period lunch crowd was slowly migrating back from the cafeteria towards their next classes, nobody noticed the tall, skinny Freshman lurking in the doorway of the English classroom across from the Senior’s lockers. Matthews was standing at his locker, surrounded by his buddies and regaling a pretty little blonde cheerleader with some asinine joke. The popular jock was standing with his right hand casually gripping the frame of his locker, the locker door wide open, while he told his little bon mot. They were the popular kids - high school royalty - the leaders of the school. They had no reason not to feel confident and in control of their environment.

Until about thirty seconds later, when a smirking Brian Kinney came striding up out of nowhere, slamming the door of Matthews’ locker closed and crushing all four metacarpal bones in his right hand.  

No one ever tried to bully Brian Kinney again.

~~*~~*~~*~~

Brian was free from the bullies after that day, but his antics didn’t do anything for his social standing in the school. If he hadn’t been a loner before, Brian was destined to be one now. He was able to claim it was an accident and therefore got out of being suspended from school, but too many of the students had already heard the real story behind the story and the rumors were rife. Now everyone was afraid of the volatile and unstable youth.

Except for Michael Novotny. Michael’s previous admiration for Brian now escalated to sheer idolatry. The slight, shy, easily cowed, comic-book nerd now had his very own, real-life, hero to worship. The entire rest of the week, Brian was followed everywhere by his personal groupie, who offered to get his books for him, gave him portions of his own lunch, and praised him incessantly. Apparently everything Brian did was now beyond ‘cool’ in Michael’s eyes.

For the kid who’d never experienced much recognition from his own family and who had few, if any friends, this was intoxicating. Michael’s adulation was a huge ego-boost. For the first time in his life, someone looked up to Brian and gave him heaping amounts of praise. Even the disgruntled looks and avoidance of Matthews’ gang gave him a mild little boost to his confidence. Brian liked these feelings - he liked them a lot - and therefore he put up with Michael’s over-the-top flattery and fawning even after it began to grate on him. By the end of the week, when Michael convinced Brian to stay over at his house on Friday night, Brian was even starting to believe the other boy’s PR about himself.

It was easy to drift into the habit of letting Michael wait on him and follow him around. Brian started to spend the majority of his weekends at the Novotny house where he was praised, petted and fed by Debbie and adored by Mikey. He liked having his very own booster squad and he definitely wasn’t getting any support at home, so of course he gravitated towards the only place he’d ever felt wanted. It also helped that he wasn’t around Jack as much and therefore he was less likely to incur his father’s by-blows.

Mikey liked to brag to everyone that he was Brian’s best friend. It went a long way towards keeping the small youth out of trouble himself - Brian’s notoriety was sufficient to protect his friend as well. Brian got the approval he craved and Michael was covered by the other boy’s umbrella of protection from all the school bullies. And, if they didn’t really share any common interests and had completely different life goals, did it really matter all that much as long as they both got something out of the relationship? Brian himself almost started to believe that he’d finally found a true friend.

~~*~~*~~*~~

Brian’s science class was going to the Carnegie Science Center the last day before Spring Break. They were going to get to spend the entire day at the science museum and were even going to see a special show in the planetarium. All the students were excited about the trip and about getting out of an entire day of school.

Brian had already got his mother to sign off on the field trip permission slip the prior week - he’d hit her up early in the morning when she hadn’t been completely recovered from her usual hangover, which meant she just signed the form he put in front of her without bothering to look at it at all. However, Brian still needed to come up with the $10 fee that each participant needed to pay towards to the costs of the trip. If he couldn’t come up with the ten bucks, he’d end up spending the entire day all by himself at school, sitting in the office or going to empty classrooms by himself while all the other kids got to enjoy their day of hookey.

Brian had asked his mother for the money a couple of times already. She always told him that of course she would get him the money, and then told him to remind her again the next day. Now, the night before the trip, she’d put him off again, promising to get him the money in the morning. Brian’s experience with his parents’ promises told him that it was unlikely that the old drunk would even remember about the field trip when she woke up in the morning, if she even managed to pull herself out of bed before he had to leave for school. He had to come up with a ‘Plan B’.

Jack Kinney lumbered into the house about 9:30 after an extended visit to his favorite local pub. He wasn’t as drunk as Brian had seen him in the past but the man had had enough to ensure he wasn’t paying much attention when he got home. Jack hung his jacket on the hook by the kitchen door, tossed his keys onto the counter and emptied out his pockets before collapsing onto the couch in front of the television, not even acknowledging his son sitting in the armchair nearby.

It took less than ten minutes for Jack to drift off into sleep, his head tilted back onto a threadbare pillow, his mouth gaping open so that each cacophonous snore ricocheted off the ceiling and rebounded into the room with twice the volume. Brian waited another five minutes before moving, just to make sure that his father was really sound asleep. When he thought it was safe, the boy rose to his feet and tiptoed as quietly as he could out of the family room and down the hall to the kitchen, heading for Jack’s wallet which was sitting on the counter next to his keys. Brian breathed a sigh of relief when he opened the wallet and found there was still a $20 bill left inside - easily enough to pay for the field trip plus a little extra for his lunch and maybe some spending money. He quickly liberated the twenty from the confines of the wallet and tucked it into his own jeans’ pocket.

How he managed to miss the cessation of the the noisy snoring coming from the other room, Brian never knew. He should have been listening for it. He should have been more alert, more wary. But, somehow, he’d missed the warning and was taken completely by surprise when he tossed the now empty wallet back onto the countertop and then turned around to see Jack standing in the kitchen doorway scowling at him.  

“What the HELL do you think you’re doing, Sonny Boy?” Jack boomed, taking three steps towards Brian as the boy cowered back against the counter in the face of the fury approaching him. Jack dug into the boy’s pocket and pulled out the twenty, his face turning purple in rage. “You’re nothing but a fucking THIEF! Goddamn it. I don’t work hard all day to support you and your mother and sister just so you can go stealing my money on top of it. I’ll teach you to take what doesn’t belong to you, you fucking brat!”

The corner of the kitchen to which Brian had withdrawn happened to be right next to the stove. Jack reached out to grab onto his son at the same time Brian raised his right arm in a defensive pose. Only, this time, instead of hitting Brian, Jack seized the boy’s arm and pulled his hand downward towards the cooktop, twisting the knob on the front of the stove at the same time to turn on the electric burner on ‘high’. Using his larger, heavier body to pin the slighter boy to the counter, the older man held the thieving hand against the burner grinning maniacally as the heating element changed from its normal dull, leaden grey to a bright, hot orange. Brian’s shrieks of anguish as his flesh was burned didn’t seem to phase Jack at all. Brian passed out about the time that Joan pulled Jack away.

Brian woke a few moments later to a squalling row going on between Jack and Joanie. The argument seemed to have already progressed beyond any concerns over what Jack had done to his son and moved on to Joan’s many other grievances. The two angry adults were yelling and jabbering at each other so loudly that they didn’t seem to even notice when Brian escaped out the kitchen door, his injured hand cradled against his chest as he ran down the street.

Debbie Novotny was already on her way up to bed when she heard a soft, almost hesitant, knocking on the front door. She flipped the porch light on, peeked out the side window and saw a small heap huddled on the doormat, quietly rocking back and forth. Debbie rushed to pull open the door. There on her porch she found Brian, his face screwed up to stop any impending useless tears, his scorched hand held out to her with a silent plea for help.

The kind-hearted woman scooped the boy up into her arms and bustled him into the kitchen without another word. Pulling out the first aid kit she kept under the sink, Debbie slathered burn ointment on the boy’s hand and gingerly wound a gauze bandage around the singed hand. When her one comment about this needing to be looked at by a doctor was met by Brian’s adamant ‘NO!’, Debbie reluctantly backed off and didn’t press further. She didn’t bother asking the boy what had happened - in the few months since Michael had befriended the boy, this wasn’t the first time he’d shown up at her door with an injury.

She would have loved to report what she’d seen and hopefully stop what was going on, but the boy had refused her offers of support. Brian’s terror at the mere thought of what would happen to him if anyone found out about Jack was a pretty effective deterrent. Debbie feared that if she did anything to bring attention to what was happening, Brian might simply disappear one day. And she’d rather have Brian trust her when he was hurt - if he didn’t trust her, he would have nowhere to go and no one to help him. So, she held her tongue and just did her best to patch up whatever wound the boy showed up with, comforting him as much as he would let her. When she’d done all that she could this time, Debbie bundled Brian up with a pillow and blankets on the couch, and turned off the lights as she unhappily climbed the stairs to her own room.

In the dark, the mute sentinel that had been watching the proceedings from the corner of the room moved over to sit on the couch near the quaking boy’s head. Justin carefully scooted over so that Brian could rest his head on his quiet protector’s lap. The strong, reassuring, always-there fingers caressed the tortured boy’s skin and played in his soft chestnut brown hair. The consoling presence of his longtime, patient friend allowed Brian to finally let go of the silent tears he’d been holding back all night, and he sobbed without making a sound until he finally fell asleep sometime near dawn. Justin would have cried too, if he thought anyone would hear his cries.