A Time of Adversity
Julesmonster


“Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are.” Arthur Golden

Part One

Brian stared at the bills that had come in the morning mail and sighed. If he and Justin tightened their already tight budget any more they wouldn’t be able to feed themselves. They had already cut out everything but the bare necessities. Brian had even, after much persuasion from Justin, given in and begun shopping for groceries and toiletries at the Big Q. The worst part about that change was the loss of his Voss water, imported beer and guava juice. Two months after Brian had put everything on the line to stop Jim Stockwell from being elected mayor, they were still reeling financially.



Brian had risked everything, including his job at Vanguard. He didn’t regret it. At all. The way Justin had looked at him when he had begun helping him plaster anti-Stockwell posters to the wall was more than enough to make up for any inconvenience now. Justin had been proud that Brian had stood up for their community and Brian was proud of himself. So even if it took them years to get out of debt, he thought it was worth it.



It was the debacle with Stockwell and Gardner Vance’s reaction to Brian’s stance that had been the impetus for Brian to finally take the leap and start his own agency. They were just starting out, but he had brought over a couple clients and Cynthia was with him again. A newly clean and sober Ted was on board, keeping track of the numbers. Best of all, Justin had taken an active role in the new agency, becoming Brian’s partner and acting as a one man art department. And they were already seeing some interest from new clients. The only problem was that until everything was a little more settled, any money that came in went directly towards keeping the business going. New offices and all the equipment had been a huge investment. Brian and Justin both drew a small salary, but it was a pittance and probably would still be for another six months or more.



“Justin,” Brian called out. The blond was in the kitchen working on dinner. Since their new financial situation, they couldn’t afford to order take out or eat out at restaurants so Justin was relegated to kitchen duty. He didn’t seem to mind much. In fact, Brian rather thought he enjoyed the domesticity of it.



“What’s up?” Justin asked as he wiped his hands on a dish towel and walked over to where Brian was working at the table. There were only a couple pieces of furniture in the loft these days. Brian had sold off all the old furniture when the bills had come due for the advertising spots; only the bed had been spared. Since they still needed some place to work, Justin had bought a junky old kitchen table and two chairs from a thrift store for fifty bucks.



“Have you heard anything from Mikey about the proceeds from Rage?” Brian asked. He hated to do it, since he had always intended that any money Justin earned from that would go towards his education. But Justin had been expelled from PIFA because of his political stance and was now fully committed to building Kinnetik. Since Brian had made Justin an equal partner, it was best for both of them.



“He sends a check once a quarter when he gets our share from the publisher,” Justin said. “I don’t expect anything until next month,” Justin said. “Are we that desperate?”



“We are,” Brian sighed. “I thought we’d have another month before some of these bills came due.”



Justin looked over Brian’s shoulder and saw what he meant. “I’m not sure how a couple hundred dollars is going to help, but every penny of it is going into the joint account when it comes.”



Brian frowned. “What do you mean? A couple hundred dollars?”



Justin shrugged. “That’s all I’ve ever gotten. Well, the first issue made a little more, but not much.”



Brian frowned again. “Do you have the contract you signed with Michael and with the publisher?”



Justin nodded and went to the file boxes were currently being stored. He quickly located the right file and handed it to Brian before going back to the kitchen to finish dinner.



Half an hour later, Brian had read through every word of the contracts and was even more confused than he had been before. Rather than blurting out his suspicions, Brian helped Justin clear off the table so that they could eat. He was quiet through dinner and Justin left him to his thoughts. It wasn’t until they were in bed after a rather satisfactory round of fucking that Justin brought up Brian’s brooding.



“Can you tell me what has you so pensive?” Justin asked as he lay with his head on Brian’s chest.



Brian stroked his fingers through Justin’s hair with one hand and reached for his cigarettes with his other. After he lit one, he said, “Something isn’t right with what you’re getting for Rage.”



“What do you mean?” Justin asked as he sat up and took the cigarette from Brian’s fingers for a drag.



“I mean that Rage is making a lot more money than those checks you’ve gotten would indicate,” Brian said as he stole the cigarette back. “You and Mikey are supposed to be getting 40% of the net profits to split. Even after you take out printing costs and all the other fees the publisher tacks on, that should be a good chunk of money. Rage hasn’t had an issue that has sold fewer than 50,000 copies. At $5 a copy, you can expect that at least half of that is net profit.  That’s $125,000 in profit per issue. You should be receiving 20% of that, or $20,000 for each issue. And there have been five issues so far so it should be close to $100,000.”



“That’s… Brian, I’ve never…” Justin was stunned by what Brian said. “You think someone’s stealing from us?”



“It gets worse,” Brian said quietly. “Your contract with the publisher states that payments would be made monthly, not quarterly.”



Justin was quiet as he thought about everything Brian told him. “You’re saying that if I had been receiving my fair share for the past year, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in. I could have been helping with the debt and everything all along.”



“I’m saying that I think someone is fucking stealing from you,” Brian said angrily. “I could give a shit about paying off the debt.” Justin gave him a look and Brian relented. “Okay, it would be nice not to have to worry about being able to pay the bills every month. But we’ll get there soon enough with or without this money. The point is that it isn’t right that you’ve been screwed out of your share of the profits.”



Justin nodded slowly. “So what do we do about it?”



They both knew that Michael was the most likely culprit. He had been eager to handle the business aspect of their partnership. The funds from the publisher came to him directly and he was supposed to split the proceeds between them.



“First thing tomorrow, we are calling the publisher and telling them that they need to send your percentage directly to you,” Brian said. “And then we’ll see.”



Justin nodded. “Maybe it was just a clerical error. Or somebody at the publishers.”



“Maybe,” Brian said. “We’ll see.”



Brian crushed out the cigarette butt and pulled Justin into his arms so that they could settle to sleep. Sleep was a long time in coming for either man, however. All Justin could think about was how hurt Brian would be if Michael was behind this. All Brian could think about was the new car Michael had bought and the improvements he had recently made to the store.



BJBJBJBJBJ



The next morning, they met in Brian’s office and made the call to the publisher together. “Hey Jake, it’s Justin Taylor here. I had a couple questions for you. My partner Brian is here as well.”



“Hey Justin,” Jake said cheerfully. “I saw the proofs for the next issue and they look spectacular.”



“Thanks,” Justin said. “I’m glad you think so.”



“I’m guessing that you didn’t call about that however,” Jake said. “What’s up?”



“We were wondering if you could do a couple things for us,” Brian said. “We’re getting ready for a meeting with our accountant and Justin misplaced his check stubs from his percentage. Could you fax over an accounting of the payments that have been made to Red Cape?”



“Sure,” Jake said. “I’ll have my assistant do that right away. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.”



“That’s great,” Justin said. “Also, can you send my next payment directly to me?”



Jake paused. “Is there a problem with you and Michael?”



“No problem,” Justin lied. “I just thought it would be easier on Michael if he didn’t have to bother with my portion.”



Jake sighed. “I never quite understood why he insisted that it be set up that way.”



“I thought that you guys were the ones who requested the single payment?” Justin said.



“No, we have no problem cutting two checks,” Jake said. “I’ll make the change before they mail out your next payment this week.”



“Thanks, Jake,” Brian said. “And the next time you’re in town, we should definitely go to dinner.”



“Plan on it,” Jake said before hanging up.



Justin turned towards Brian. “Michael definitely said that the publisher insisted on a single check.”



Brian nodded. “Let’s wait and see what the report says and then we’ll have to discuss what we’re going to do about it.”



“You mean confront him?” Justin asked.



“Maybe it would be better to do this through a lawyer,” Brian said irately. “I’m not sure I could see him right now without wanting to punch him.”



“I think we both deserve to hear his reasoning for this,” Justin said. “And no matter what, he’s your oldest friend. I think he deserves at least a chance to explain.”



“I don’t think it will do any good,” Brian said. “Fuck! How could he do that to you?”



Justin huffed a rueful laugh. “He hates me. He always has. I can understand it to some degree. As far as he’s concerned I stole you from him. I suppose this was just his way of getting back at me.”



Brian looked confused. “What do you mean, he hates you?”



“Brian…”



“What?” Brian said with confusion.



“Michael has hated me from the very first day,” Justin said with a sigh. “He’s always made snide remarks. And he’s done his level best to keep us apart.”

Brian nodded. “That’s just how he is. Like you said, he was jealous. But I thought he got over that when you two started to work on the comic together. You seemed to get along great then.”



“As long as it was about the comic, sure,” Justin said. “But that was only because I was doing something for him. The comments never really stopped, even before Ethan. Once the Rage Party happened and I left with Ethan, even working on the comic was like torture. He never let up. But he was always like that when we were alone. Brian, trust me on this, he hates me.”



“Why would you do the comic at all, then?” Brian asked.



Justin shrugged. “Because he’s your friend. I thought it would be a way for him to get over everything and see me as a person he could respect. Maybe we could get along for your sake. It resulted in a temporary truce, but obviously it was all a lie. He set this up from the beginning.”



Brian leaned back in his chair and ran his hands over his face in frustration. “It certainly looks that way. How could I have missed something like this?”



“You?” Justin huffed. “I’m the one who trusted him to handle the money. I never once thought to make sure he wasn’t cheating me.”



BJBJBJBJBJ



When the fax came through, their worst fears were confirmed. According to the publisher’s accounting, they had paid out more than $240,000 to Red Cape Comics over the past year. Justin had received less than $1500 from Michael.



“Now what?” Justin asked.



“Now we head over to beard the lion in his den,” Brian said grimly. “After that…” Brian shrugged. “We could press charges.”



As that thought hung in the air between them, the two men grabbed their jackets and explained where they were going to Cynthia before heading out. They would walk, since Brian’s Jeep had been a company vehicle and had gone away with his job at Vanguard. They had been walking a lot over the last couple months. Luckily, the shop wasn’t far from Liberty Ave.



Justin shook his head as they walked. “I couldn’t put the man in jail, no matter how much he’s stolen. I do want that money. We’re barely making ends meet right now.”



“So if he doesn’t pay up, we hire a lawyer,” Brian said. “What will happen to the comic if you two dissolve the partnership?”



“Under normal circumstances, one of would have to buy the other out,” Justin said. “With this, who knows? I know that I could probably still produce the comics without him. I may not have as much experience with comics as he does, but I’ve learned a lot over the last year and could certainly finish out the story lines we have going right now. If he bought me out, he’d have a harder time finding an illustrator. Especially since it will get around that he screwed me over.”



“Let’s see how this goes,” Brian said. “We’ll give him an opportunity to make things right. If he doesn’t, then we can bring in the lawyers.”



A few minutes later, they walked into the comic shop and Justin took a good look at some of the improvements that had been made over the past few months. He’d never thought much about it before, but now… Justin wondered how much of his money had been put into this shop. Had he paid for the gaudy new display cabinets? Had his money funded the new paint job or the purchase of all those new comic related toys?



“Hey Brian!” Michael gushed as soon as he saw the brunet. He didn’t even look at Justin. “What’s up?”



Brian put the copy of the publisher’s accounting he’d brought with him on the counter in front of Michael along with copies of the four checks he had written to Justin. “Explain this.”



Michael frowned at Justin, already blaming the blond for Brian’s attitude, before looking at the papers in front of him. Both Brian and Justin could tell when he realized what he was looking at because he paled noticeably. “These… These aren’t…”



“They’re right,” Brian said. “Jake forwarded them this morning. They’ve paid more than $240,000 to you over the last year. You, in turn, have kept that money and lied through your teeth while paying Justin a pittance.”



“He didn’t deserve any more than that,” Michael said defensively. “He just drew the pictures. It was my story! It was my fucking dream!”



“We both came up with Rage,” Justin said angrily. “And I worked my ass off to make it a success.”



“I don’t care who came up with the idea,” Brian said calmly. “The two of you created the fucking thing together. And you both signed a contract to share equally the rights and proceeds from it. Michael, according to my calculations, that means you now owe Justin $118,000. If you pay up in the next thirty days, we won’t charge interest.”



“I’m not paying that fucking twink anything,” Michael shouted. “I don’t have that kind of money!”



“Sell off some of these useless fucking toys that you probably over paid for,” Brian said. “It’ll at least be a start.”



“I’m not selling anything, and I’m not paying him anything,” Michael said stubbornly. “He’s a user. He used me and now he’s using you. Again!”



Justin was seething, but he had no chance to defend himself because Brian was already doing so. “He fucking helped you go for your fucking dream, you selfish asshole! And now he’s helping me achieve mine.”



“He’s a fucking stalker twink who just won’t go the fuck away,” Michael retorted. “I told you that you should have left him to die.”



Justin suddenly knew why Brian had punched Michael at the party at Mel and Lindsay’s a while back. He grabbed Brian’s arm before he could hit the man again. “He’s not worth it.”



“You stay the fuck out of this,” Michael turned on him.



“Stay out of it?” Justin laughed harshly. “I’m pretty sure it was me you stole money from and just admitted you wished was dead. I think I’m right smack dab in the center of this. You fucking lied to me and to Brian. You stole my money. Brian and I are struggling to make ends meet; we had to sell off our fucking furniture! And you never once thought…” Justin paused and collected himself. “We could press charges and get your ass sent to jail for embezzlement, but we decided not to do that. Don’t fucking make me regret that decision.”



“Fuck you,” Michael said.



“No, fuck you,” Brian said. “After all the shit you and I have been through, this is how you treat my partner? Well fuck you. You’ve got a month to get the money together. You’ll be hearing from our lawyer. Let’s go Sunshine.”



Justin nodded and followed Brian out of the shop.