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Author's Chapter Notes:

This story is definitely more angsty that the rest of the stuff I've been writing lately, but that goes with the plot. And the good news is that we only have a little bit more of the torturing Brian chapters before I can move on with this story - So, enjoy the angst while you can people! TAG


Chapter 7 - Evolution.


On the inside Brian was a nervous ball of seething insecurity all weekend long. However Brian didn't let any hint of that inner confusion show on the outside. People around him saw only that Brian was even quieter and more introspective than was usual even for him. Brian had long ago schooled himself not to let anyone see his true feelings. It was just easier that way.


Brian's ongoing silence about whatever had happened on Friday had Justin so worried he spent most of the weekend pacing around on the sidewalk in front of the Kinney house. What he really wanted was to be inside with his boy, but Brian's refusal to acknowledge Justin earlier had made the young guardian wary. He felt incredibly guilty that he'd been lured away just when Brian had apparently needed him the most. But all Justin was left with was a heart full of worry and no answers. Brian stayed in his room pretty much all weekend, laying low and only coming out when ordered to by his parents.  


On Monday, after school, Brian's imperturbable facade finally cracked a little. Michael found his friend sitting on the bleachers watching as the other boys went into the locker room to get ready for soccer practice. Brian had let his guard down just enough that Michael could see there was something wrong and that his friend was hesitant to go inside. Brian was just sitting there, staring at the locker room door, chewing on his bottom lip, his right knee nervously jiggling and his hands picking sightlessly at a tiny fold in the fabric of his pants.


"Hey, Bri," Michael sat down next to his buddy, one hand on Brian's shoulder. "You okay? You look . . . freaked out about something."


"I'm fine," Brian said without looking up at all.


"You don't look fine," Michael insisted stubbornly. "You sure everything's okay? If you need to talk or anything . . ."


"I said I was fine," Brian maintained and then finally he couldn't take Michael's continued staring at him. "I'm fine! Everything's just peachy! My life is just a fucking bed of roses! Happy? Now, fuck off! I have to get to practice."


Michael just sat there, even after Brian was gone, unsure why his friend had just blown a gasket and then blown him off. Justin, who'd been hovering out of sight under the bleachers, listened with a growing sense of dread. Neither of Brian's friends could figure out what exactly was going on, but both of them were worried.


"Coach?" Brian said as he knocked softly at the door of Stephens' office after practice.


“What is it Kinney?” the coach replied casually, barely looking up from whatever paperwork he was looking at on his desk.


“I . . . I thought maybe we could . . . you might . . . want to get a coffee with me or . . . we could maybe talk . . .” Brian hated that he’d fumbled and stuttered his way though only one lame sentence before he just gave up.


Coach Stephens looked genuinely surprised by Brian’s very presence. He didn’t say anything right away, just got up from his desk chair, came over to the doorway and looked down the hallway to make sure there wasn’t anyone else around, before pulling Brian all the way into the office and closing the door firmly. Brian wasn’t exactly happy with the brusque way that Coach was treating him, but he wasn’t sure what to do or say in this situation so he just let himself be tugged around until Coach Tad finally turned towards him.


“I don’t know what the fuck you’re thinking, Kinney. Why the fuck would I want to go out to coffee with you? You think that just because we got a little friendly one time in the shower that now we’re dating or something? You’re so fucking clueless. You're pathetic,” the Coach sneered at the boy as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed the nervous youth.


“But . . . I thought . . . after Friday . . ." Brian tried to pull himself together enough to voice his hopes.


“I don’t give a flying fuck what YOU thought. You’re just a kid. What the hell do you know?” the jeering older man said, sitting up and pointing his finger accusingly in Brian’s direction. “Nothing happened ‘On Friday’! You hear? NOTHING! You wanted me, I wanted you, we screwed around a little and that’s it. It doesn’t make you my boyfriend or anything. And even if you were old enough to go out with, I don’t DO boyfriends or dating or any of that crap. I fuck when I want to fuck. That’s all that happened. It doesn’t mean anything. Now get the hell out of my office and DON’T bother me again with this shit.”


Brian grappled for the door handle and eventually managed to twist it enough to open the door. He stumbled out of the stuffy little office and made his way with unseeing eyes through the rest of the locker room, somehow finding himself back outside near the bleachers without really knowing how he got there. Brian slumped down on the lowest tier of seats as his protective emotion-proof walls crumbled into a million little pieces beneath the pressure of the tears that he couldn’t hold back any longer.


“Brian? Hey, what’s wrong?” Michael came up on him so quietly from behind that Brian didn’t have a chance to hide anything this time.


Brian angrily swiped at the couple of hot tears that had escaped and quickly pulled himself together before he turned to look at Michael. “Nothing’s wrong,” Brian said in a dead, uncaring voice.


“But . . . Brian, you were . . ." Michael’s hero looked at him disdainfully, as if daring Mikey to do anything as stupid as state that Brian Kinney had been crying.


“Nothing’s wrong, Mikey, so just lay off. Okay?” Brian got up and, with pretend nonchalance, he slung his arm around the smaller boy’s shoulders, guiding him away from the athletic fields and the school. When it didn’t look like Michael was buying his act, Brian decided to go with the shock factor, which was guaranteed to shut that whiney little mouth. “So, did you know that Coach Stephens is gay?”


“Coach Stephens? No way! He’s like the original ‘Mr. Jock’,” Michael protested, willingly letting himself be distracted by the big news and the cocky little smirk that Brian had put on his face by this point.


“Oh, he’s gay alright. I should know. I sucked him off in the showers Friday after practice,” Brian bragged, trying to look like it had been the most inconsequential thing in the world.


“No fucking WAY!” Michael exploded. “You did not. You wouldn’t . . . You did? Oh my god, Brian? You gave Coach Stephens a blow job? And he let you?”


“Let me? He fucking loved it,” Brian boldly asserted.


“Shit! I can’t believe it . . . But, he’s like the gym teacher. You guys can’t see each other. What if you get caught,” Michael was already making assumptions and that pissed Brian off.


“We’re not going to be ‘seeing each other’, Mikey. Why the hell would I want to be with him? He’s old. He must be close to thirty. It was just a one-time thing.” Michael was even more in awe of his friend than ever at this point but, even to Michael’s idolizing ears, Brian sounded less than confident as he continued, “it was . . . It was just a fuck. That’s all it was. All it was meant to be.”


“Did he . . . did he hurt you,” Michael didn’t want to ask, but something in Brian’s voice made him think that Brian wasn’t as okay with this as he was making out.


“Fuck, no. I told you, I’m fine,” Brian insisted, his voice getting louder, trying to hide any residual insecurity with bravado. “He didn’t do anything to me. I’m the one who did the sucking and, really, it was no big deal.”  


“God! I can’t believe it,” Mikey was still so amazed he could barely speak. “You had SEX, Brian. You had sex with the fucking gym teacher!”


“Calm yourself, Mikey. It’s not that big a deal. It was only a blow job. It didn’t mean anything,” Brian said, almost convincing himself this time.


And Brian might have believed what he was saying, if he hadn’t also seen the look of sorrow and disappointment on the face of the young blond man who had been walking along beside them all this time, unbeknownst to Michael.


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


After that, Brian mostly avoided Coach Stephens until school was out for the summer. Several times Brian had felt the older man's eyes following him in gym class or on the soccer field, but Brian never returned the looks. 'Once bitten, twice shy', as they say. No way was Brian going to leave himself open to that creep a second time.


In the meantime, Brian had talked Debbie into letting him work part-time busing tables and washing dishes at the Diner. It wasn't the most glamorous job in the world, but Brian liked having his own money to spend instead of having to rely on the vague whims of his parents, who might or might not deign to buy their son even bare necessities. Having his own money meant freedom to Brian. It was great. He felt so self-assured and independent. Who cared if the work sucked.


At least that's how Brian felt until just after he'd cashed his second paycheck. That was the night that Jack Kinney discovered the old tin can on the shelf of Brian's closet where he'd been hiding the paltry little sums he'd managed to save for himself out of his wages and tips. Jack was thrilled with his windfall and went on a weekend-long drinking spree with the money. When Brian got home from a Sunday afternoon shift at the diner to find his father passed out on the couch, he didn’t think anything of it - that was, after all, pretty much usual for a Sunday afternoon.


Of course, when Brian went to add his tips for the day to his stash and discovered the empty tin can, he immediately knew where the money had gone. Without thinking about the consequences, Brian rushed back out to where his father was snoozing away in a drunken stupor, rolled the drunkard off the couch onto the floor and commenced kicking the shit out of the man before he was even completely conscious. Unfortunately for Brian, that state didn’t last for long. Before the third kick, Jack started to rouse himself. He grabbed his son’s leg at the next kick and pulled the boy’s limb until he was overextended and unbalanced. Brian fell with a loud thud onto the floor next to his old man who promptly grabbed him in a wrestler’s head lock.


It didn’t stop Brian from continuing to complain, though. “Where’s my fucking money, you bastard? Did you fucking drink it all? Where the fuck is my money!” Brian yelled even as he struggled to get free from the choke-hold Jack now had on him.


“You think you’re a big man now, Sonnyboy? Huh? You think you don’t owe nobody nothing and you can do whatever the fuck you want? Well, think again, kiddo,” Jack crowed as he twisted his body around so that he was on top of Brian and had the boy’s arms pinned to the floor with his knees leaving his hands free - one of which maintained a tight grip on the youth’s throat while the other was free to hit, punch, whack and otherwise rain down blows on the trapped boy. “You fucking owe me for taking care of your scrawny ass for the past fifteen years. I’ve fucking paid through the nose to feed and clothe you and put a roof over your head. I fucking own you and everything else in this house. I worked for it. I paid for it. You’ve done nothing but piss away my money all these years and mouth off. So, I figure anything I find in MY house is mine too. That money was just as much mine as anything else around here. Who the fuck do you think you are anyway, you little bastard?”


“I worked hard for that money. I earned it. It was mine,” Brian insisted, unwilling to give in even though he knew it was going to cost him additional blows for stating his position.


“Bullshit. You wouldn’t know hard work if it kicked you in the ass, you fucking loser,” Jack insisted with a sharp backhand to Brian’s mouth to shut the boy up. “You’ll never amount to nothing. You’re just a pile of useless shit and you always have been. The second I heard that your mother was knocked up I knew you’d be nothing but trouble. If I’d had my way, you would have never been born and the world would have been a better place for all of us. Useless. Piece. Of. Fucking. Shit!” Jack punctuated each word with another punch even after Brian had ceased to fight back.


“You’re wrong! You’re wrong,” Brian continued to mutter, refusing to be silenced once again despite his father’s fists. “Someday you’ll see. I’m going to be the biggest fucking success in this whole fucking town. I’ll be able to buy and sell you. I’ll own your fucking ass and then you’ll see . . .”


Jack seemingly disagreed with this prediction though. In fact, Brian’s words infuriated the man even more. He laid off with the blows to Brian’s face and instead directed all his fury towards choking the kid’s puny neck while knocking Brian’s skull against the floor over and over again. “You fucking asswipe. I’ll show you. You won’t ever talk back to me like that again. I’ll fucking teach you . . .”


“Brian!” Justin’s anguished voice crying out his name was the last thing the young man heard as everything around him slowly faded to black.


Brian woke up just before dawn in the same place on the floor where he’d passed out. Jack was nowhere to be seen. Joanie had apparently not even bothered to get up and find out what all the noise was about. If Claire had noticed her brother lying in a bloody heap on the living room floor when she came in last night, she obviously hadn’t cared enough to do anything about it.


The only person who had cared at all was the blond youth sitting on the floor next to Brian’s body, sobbing as he carefully combed Brian’s hair back from his eyes. Somehow Brian’s head had been propped up to rest against Justin’s thigh. When the anguished young man finally noticed that Brian’s eyes were open, he tried to marshal a smile but didn’t completely succeed.


“Hey, Buddy,” Justin whispered. “I’m so glad to see those gorgeous hazel eyes again.”  


“Where . . .” Brian’s voice cracked and he had to clear his throat before he could go on. “Where is he?”


“Passed out in bed, I think,” Justin replied with as much reassurance as he could muster. “He won’t be up for a while. He drank another half a bottle of cheap scotch after . . .”


“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Brian insisted, rolling over and trying to get up to his feet. “I don’t want to still be here when the fucker wakes up and decides to finish what he started.”


Justin helped Brian up off the floor and then guided him towards the front door. Neither young man said anything further as Brian shuffled down the driveway and along the sidewalk heading towards the Novotny home a few blocks away. The sun was just barely above the horizon when they arrived at the older brick home. Brian quickly found the door key where it was hidden under the garish cement birdbath shaped like a little naked boy pissing into a pond and let himself into the house. Justin could do nothing except follow along behind Brian and provide whatever comfort his presence could offer. Brian didn’t bother waking any of the house’s inhabitants. He just pulled the old crocheted afghan off a chair and then curled up to sleep on Debbie’s tattered old couch.


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


Brian stayed at the Novotny’s for more than a week that time. It took him two full days before he even felt up to leaving the house. Both Michael and Debbie bustled around and waited on him, smothering Brian with attention and care almost every second of the day. As soon as Brian felt a tiny bit better, though, Brian tried his best to ward off the excessive attention. He felt guilty that he was always relying on the kind woman and her son to take care of him. He didn’t have any money to give Debbie to pay her back for the food he ate or the medical supplies he used up. He felt like such a burden. But he had nowhere else to go. And, as much as he hated the way Debbie and Michael would smother him sometimes, Brian actually craved the attention even more.


After Brian returned to work, Debbie went with him to the bank, pretending to be his mother so he could open up a savings account. That should hopefully keep Jack away from Brian’s hard earned money. They used Debbie’s address so that not even the bank statements would end up at the Kinney house. Every single penny Brian made - including most of his tips - was promptly deposited into that account. Brian made sure from then on that he never brought home more than $25 in cash, just in case Jack decided to take a proprietary interest in Brian’s money again.


Over the rest of the summer, Brian worked extra hard. He became the hardest working busboy ever seen at the Liberty Diner. Jack’s little speech about how his son would never be a success had only served to inspire Brian to work harder. He was going to prove Jack wrong someday.


Working at the Diner also came with some unexpected side benefits. Since he was almost always at the Diner these days, Brian found himself immersed in the life of Pittsburgh’s gay community. It was an exciting place to be if you were a young gay man.


Brian quickly learned how much bigger his tips were if he flirted with his customers. And it wasn’t long before the flirting led to a bit more with one or two of the Diner’s more handsome patrons. Brian’s summer of hard work rapidly turned into one of sexual experimentation as well and the boy was thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. The pretty little brunet busboy was a quick learner, too. By the beginning of August, Brian had not only perfected his blow job skills and learned the joys of mutual masterbation, but had even tried out the wonders of rimming.


When Brian actually let a particularly nice looking stud pop his cherry in the alleyway behind the Diner, it was almost anticlimactic. The sex was okay at best and while his partner didn’t hurt him too much, he didn’t take any particular care with the novice boy either. So far, none of the emotionless sexual encounters Brian had engaged in had changed his opinion of sex at all - just like that first time with the Coach in the locker room shower, the sex didn’t really mean anything. It was just a means to get off. Brian couldn’t figure out why everyone seemed to make such a big deal about it. However that didn’t stop him from flirting - or doing a little more - if it meant he’d get bigger tips.


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


Brian followed the rest of the boys out of the locker room and joined the group huddled around the bulletin board mounted outside the Coach’s office. They’d all been practicing daily since the beginning of August and today was the day that the final fall team rosters were being posted. It was time to find out if all the long, sweaty, hot hours they’d spent on the field for the past month had been worth it.


At fifteen, Brian was going through another growth spurt and was almost, but not quite, tall enough to see over the heads of all those in front of him. Since he wasn’t in a hurry and he didn’t feel like trying to jostle his way through the pack, though, Brian tried to wait patiently until it was his turn to look over the lists. The team selections weren't going to change even if he was the last person in line.


He knew he was better than at least half of the other boys trying out for the team but since he was only a Sophomore it was unlikely that he would make the cut for the varsity team. He thought he at least had a shot at the JV team, though. In the last scrimmage game he'd even managed a hat trick - three goals in one game - and one of them was a beautiful header right over the defender's outstretched arms. If he got put on the lowly freshman/sophomore team after that he’d be pretty disappointed. There was no way that would happen though.


Finally, the crowd around the bulletin board started to thin. The happy boys who'd made the team they had aimed for whooping and boasting, accepting the accolades of friends as they hurried off to spread their good news. The disappointed boys moving off quietly to nurse their injured pride alone. By the time Brian got to a spot where he could actually read the lists, there was only a handful of other boys still waiting with him. He boldly moved forward and quickly scanned the names on the list. Then Brian frowned. He scanned the names a second time and his frown deepened. Then Brian carefully read through the individual names one at a time, making sure he didn't miss a single one. Even then he could hardly believe it.


Brian's name wasn't there at all - not even on the sophomore team - he'd been cut from the soccer program altogether.


Brian stood there staring at the list until everyone else had left. He stood there until even the last of the boys had left the locker rooms and the entire area around the athletic facilities was unoccupied, except for the quietly waiting blond youth who'd been hovering just behind Brian the entire time. Then Brian ripped the list down off the wall and turned towards the coach's office with the crumpled paper in his fist.


Brian stomped into the building, wrenched at the office door handle and pushed the door open so violently that it slammed into the wall behind and cracked the plaster. Coach Tad looked up from his desk in confusion. His look turned into gloating anger as soon as he identified his visitor.


"What the fuck do you think you're doing, Kinney?"


Brian tossed the wadded up paper onto the Coach's desk. "It's wrong. You made a mistake. Fix it!"


"I didn't make any fucking mistake. My decisions about the soccer team rosters stand."


"You made a mistake. I was one of the best players out there," Brian replied, his voice low but brimming with a cold rage that made the small hairs on the back of Stephens' neck stand up.


"You might have skills, but you've got a lousy attitude, Kinney, and I don't want you on my team."


"You think my attitude is bad now, hm? You ain't seen nothing yet," Brian smirked at the older man with such an ice cold hatred that Stephens involuntarily took two steps backwards away from the seething youth. "You see, Coach, if my name isn't on the varsity team roster in ten minutes, you're going to look back on my attitude right now and WISH for the good old days when my attitude was at least marginally under control. Because in another ten minutes my attitude is going to get really, really bad."


"So bad, in fact that I'm likely to walk right up to the Principal's office and confess how you've been forcing me to have sex with you over and over again since last spring. And believe me, when they take me to the hospital to be examined, there's enough evidence there to prove somebody has been a bit rough on my sweet little fifteen-year-old ass in the very recent past. It'll be more than enough to get you sent away for life as a pedophile."


"That's a lie. You . . . You wouldn't dare," Stephens growled at the boy who was daring to threaten him.


"Are you willing to bet your whole fucking life? I've got nothing to lose here. But you? Even if you don't end up in jail, your teaching career will be over for good. And, either way, I'll also have plenty of time to tell my homophobic, angry, drunk, Irish father about the faggot that molested me - I'm sure you two will have bunches to talk about."


"So, Coach Stephens, do you want to rethink your statement that there wasn't any mistake on that first draft of the roster?" Brian's icy glare pelted hatred at the older man until Tad Stephens collapsed into his chair from the almost physical pressure of the heartless sneer.


The coach looked up at the serious determination on the countenance of the boy who was now towering over his desk and swallowed hard. This wasn’t the shy, easily intimidated neophyte he’d charmed into sucking him off just a few months earlier. This kid had some major cojones. And, even if the kid couldn't prove anything, Stephens knew that the scandal alone would ruin him. He didn't doubt for a minute that the kid's Mick father would happily beat the crap out of him even if the allegations weren't true. He was so fucked.


Stephens didn't really have to think about it at all. He took the balled up roster that had been tossed on his desk and carefully placed it into the recycling bin next to the printer stand. Then he silently turned towards the computer set up on the left corner of the desk, clicked a few times with the mouse and typed something briefly. A sheet of paper almost instantly started to feed through the printer.


"Congratulations, Mr. Kinney," Coach Stephens said as he handed the newly printed roster to the boy waiting in front of the desk. "Welcome to the varsity soccer team."


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


Chapter End Notes:

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