Chapter 49 - Mobbed At The Loft.

Surprisingly, it took a couple more hours before word got out about Brian's big reveal and the phone started ringing. Justin, Brian, Emmett and Daphne spent the time reading the full article that GQ's Scarlett Neill had published after their interview/dinner in New York. It was very well done and Brian came off looking great. The big guy himself was impressed with how flattering the article was. Brian almost didn't recognize himself after reading it.

Ms. Scarlett had played up the romantic nature of Brian and Justin's relationship a little bit too much, Brian thought, even though he came off looking very sympathetic and not at all like a child molester, which he had worried about somewhat. Justin, likewise, appeared very mature and brave for coming out at such a young age even in the face of his own father's adamant and sometimes violent disapproval. It was almost like they were characters in some epic love story, or something.

The only thing Brian didn't really care for was how 'coupley' Scarlett made him and Justin look. He still wasn't sure in his own mind about that aspect of this situation. But, the AdMan in him recognized that the image was all part of the package he was selling, and to that extent it was part and parcel of the whole concept. At least, that was how Brian was choosing to look at it. Since he admitted that was the image he needed to sell, he really had no grounds for objecting. But still, it all made Brian a little uneasy.

Emmett, being the big sentimental fool he was, was practically sobbing before he finished reading the whole article. Daphne meanwhile was busy kidding Justin about how the reporter left out the part about him being a horny seventeen-year-old who just wanted to get laid the night he'd met Brian. Justin was beaming from the mere fact that the article repeatedly referred to him as Brian's 'Partner' - Brian himself was actually quoted using the term. But everyone agreed the article as a whole was fantastic and exactly the thing to let Brian 'come out' in the classy, self-assured way he wanted to be seen.  

That was about when the phone started to ring. Daphne assumed the role of gatekeeper, answering the phone and dealing with the unwanted callers. They did get a few nice calls - from Jennifer, Cynthia, Debbie and a few others passing on sincere congratulations. But, the majority of the calls were from reporters, with a couple of people looking to become Brian's agent, a few companies renewing their requests for product endorsements and even just a few random acquaintances of Justin or Brian who thought they could horn in on the spotlight.

Brian did take the call from a gushing and appreciative Marty Ryder. Brian's boss was over the moon with praise for the Armani ads as well as the way Brian had parlayed the clout of the ads by coupling them with the GQ article and all the other media hoopla. Ryder was practically projecting dollar signs through the phone lines in his eagerness to pimp out Brian to sell ads for their other big clients. Brian politely turned these offers down but left Marty hopeful nonetheless that he could talk Brian around.

It wasn't until the calls from the crackpots started, that they finally switched off the phones.

When Justin had first been 'exposed' as the suspected Male Pregnancy, they'd received a couple of weird calls - religious types who called him an abomination and threatened he'd go to hell. There really hadn't been that many, though, and they died out soon enough when Justin showed no further evidence of wanting to promote himself. After the first spate of negative calls, Justin and Brian had simply learned not to answer when the caller ID said it was an unknown caller. The crazy calls eventually ended without further incident.

But none of those calls had even come close to the nasty, vituperative and frightening calls they started to get now. Perhaps it was the way Brian was promoting himself - refusing to act embarrassed or apologetic for who he was - but, something about this reaction was different from what they'd experienced before. The callers were definitely meaner. The language they used cut more sharply. After the third of THESE calls, Daphne, who wasn't usually easy to intimidate, refused to answer the phone any more. After that they forwarded the phone on to Cynthia at Brian's office and just hunkered down.

By five pm, from the window in the living room, you could see a line of news vans double parked the entire length of the block. There was a big crowd of people on the sidewalk in front of the building. When Justin took the initiative and flipped on the television, Brian's face seemed to be on every network channel. Some of the time it was a simple airing of the Armani ads that were expected to run off and on for the rest of the month. But, more often, Brian's face was plastered on a green-screen behind some newscaster's head as the reporter announced some new tidbit or factoid that they'd uncovered about the now-famous pregnant man. Most of these reports weren't as flatterimg as the GQ article had been. Brian ordered Justin to turn the damn box off and it was kept off the rest of the night.  

They'd known this was likely to happen, but it still wasn't all that pleasant to live through. Brian proposed going out and giving them their newsclip, the way they'd handled the media before when it was Justin in the spotlight, but Justin didn't want to try that yet. If he were completely honest, Justin was a little afraid to go out there with all those swarms of people, especially after the nasty phone calls. He convinced Brian to leave that tactic until the morning when, hopefully, the crowd would be smaller.

Brian was secretly happy that Justin refused to engage the media circus. He actually wasn't feeling that well. It had been an incredibly stressful day and Brian was exhausted. The headache he'd suffered earlier had abated, but never gone completely away. As usual, his back was starting to ache after the long day and he felt that same, heavy, breathless feeling he'd experienced the past couple of nights when he'd been overtired. What he really wanted was for Em and Daph to leave so he could finally relax completely.

"Hey, Daph, Em," Justin eventually suggested, picking up easily on Brian's mood. "You two should probably head out now while it's still early. And you should definitely leave together, just in case. I doubt anyone would really hassle you, but I'd feel better if I knew you'd both made it home okay. You can text me when you get to your places so I'll know you're okay."

"Which, Daphne, dear," Emmett declared as he immediately stood up and started to gather his things, "is code for, 'get the hell out of here so I can service my hot model boyfriend's needs'. Come on, girl. I'll walk you home!"

"Thanks for being here, guys," Justin said as he showed them to the door. "It was nice to have the support. And it was a good distraction."

"Anytime, Jus!" Daphne gave her friend a hug as she headed out the door. "Good luck at school tomorrow. You will call me and let me know how it goes, right?"

"Definitely, Daph. Talk to you tomorrow. Bye, Em!" Justin gratefully slid the door closed behind the pair as they tripped down the stairs.

Justin locked the door and then puttered quietly around the loft for a few minutes before shutting off most of the lights and heading back to Brian on the couch.

"Hey, Big Guy," Justin said in a hushed voice, glad to see Brian had shifted around so his feet were up. "Would you eat if I made something?"

"No food," Brian whispered without opening his eyes.

"What can I do?" Justin pleaded.

"Nothing. I'm just tired," Brian responded, trying to make his voice louder and more convincing. "Well . . . Maybe more water and another Tylenol?"

Justin hurried off to the kitchen for the water and another dose of meds. "Brian, you really don't look good. . ." He tried again as he handed over the water. "Are you sure you don't want me to call Chiefy?"

"Fuck no! I'll be fine," Brian insisted. "Just . . . Stop hovering. Sit. Do something useful like rub my sore feet. I need a few minutes of quiet and then I'll be fine."

Justin didn't want to make things worse by arguing so he dutifully sat and took Brian's feet into his own lap. He got even more worried though when he saw how swollen they were tonight. It shouldn't have been this bad, since Brian hadn't spent all that much time on his feet today.

"Owww!" Justin almost jumped off the couch when Brian wailed with pain.

"Another contraction?" Justin asked immediately.

"No . . . Just Kevan happily kicking away at my ribs again. Fuck he's getting strong. And I didn't even let Em poke at him today. Well, at least not much."

"Hey, you," Justin warned, laying one hand on Brian's middle. "Stop being mean to your daddy."

"Justin. . ." Brian started to say something then stopped, but ended up voicing his request anyway. "I know it's still early but, could we maybe just go on to bed already. I'm . . . I'm really tired tonight." Brian admitted reluctantly.

"Yeah. I think that's a great idea," Justin concurred and moved to help his partner up.

Later, when they were comfortably curled up together under the warm duvet, Brian lying on his right side so that Justin could spoon in behind him, Brian pulled his blond lover's arms tightly around his middle, relishing the feeling of safety.

"Sunshine," the older man whispered confidentially. "Thanks . . . You know, for just . . . being here. It feels . . . nice."

"Where else would I be, Stud?" Justin said, squeezing his man tightly in his arms as he too drifted off to sleep after the unbelievably stressful day.

#######BBBBBBB########

"I'm really NOT sure about this, Brian," Justin complained for the tenth time that morning. "I think I should just stay home with you today. I won't be missing any actual classes - it's just orientation. And I'm really not comfortable knowing that horde out there is going to be dogging you all day."

"Enough, Sunshine! I'm not having you miss your first day of school. I don't want anyone thinking you aren't 'oriented' the right way!" Brian teased, tongue in cheek. "I'll be just fine. I've got Cynthia to play guard dog for me and I'm sure she's got your cell phone on speed dial so if anything does happen you'll be the first to know. Besides, I haven't stepped foot in the office for almost two weeks now. I need to make an official appearance. I promise not to overdo it."

"Are you sure?" Justin asked again, packing his sketchbook and a case of drawing pencils into his messenger bag.

"Yes, dear," Brian said in his best falsetto. "I'll drop you off at school. I'll go directly to the office, where Cynthia will mind me all morning and then I'll pick you up at noon. How much trouble can I get into in just three hours?"

"A lot, I'm sure!" Justin accused but decided to stop being such a mother hen. "Okay. If you're sure about this, then let's get it over with."

Brian pulled open the door and ushered Justin out to the elevator. As they rode down together in the elevator, Justin's casual jeans, tee and canvas sneakers contrasted starkly with Brian's well tailored Armani elegance. Somehow though, their very differences were what made them fit together so well. That, and the comfortable, familiar ease they had in each other's presence. Without realizing it had happened, Brian HAD actually settled rather well into the habit of being a couple. Imagine that!

They paused just inside the front door, gathering their resolve. Brian looked questioningly at Justin who nodded back. Brian reached out with one hand to grasp the door handle and grabbed Justin's hand with the other. Then, without giving himself time to rethink anything, Brian pulled open the door and dragged Justin out after him.

Justin was correct that the crowd had shrunk a little bit from its proportions of the night before, but it was still a crowd. Brian's height gave them a small advantage - at least most of them couldn't loom over the pair like they would have if Justin had been on his own. Brian held up one hand, gesturing to the crowd to move away so that he and Justin could get out of the doorway enough to close the door behind them.

"Good morning, everybody," Brian shouted over the clamor. "If you could all just quiet down a bit and maybe take a couple steps back."

A few of the more experienced reporters, the ones who'd been following Brian and Justin around from the beginning, were quick to comply, helping to push back the more unruly newcomers. It took a minute or two for the chaos to resolve itself enough so that Brian could be seen and heard by almost everyone. When he was happy with the arrangement, Brian smiled and waved again to get everyone's attention.

"Thank you. So, how's everybody doing this morning?" Brian asked with his most charming fake smile, eliciting a tittering laugh from the mob. "First of all, I'd like to apologize to all of you for the little misdirection that Mr. Taylor and I perpetrated on you earlier in the pregnancy. But, you really can't blame us if we simply let you follow your own assumptions, now can you? As my Grandpa Kinney used to say, 'When you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'!' But mostly you!" Brian chuckled to let his listeners know it was only a joke and they all laughed along, somehow not minding that Brian had just called them all 'asses'.

"Now, I'm sure you all have questions. I'm sorry but I don't think there's any way we'd ever get through them all this morning, though. So, until I get around to hiring a publicity team," Brian again chuckled to let everyone know this too was a joke, "you'll just have to take it easy on me. I AM pregnant, you know! Now, for the time being, the editors at GQ have agreed to handle interview requests and forward other questions to me. Other than that, we have no further comment for you this morning. Thanks for stopping by!"

This was the part where Brian usually did something silly like swooping Justin into his arms for a big kiss. However, Justin didn't want Brian trying anything like that considering how bad his back was feeling these days. So, before Brian could swoop this time, Justin jumped up onto the top step of the stoop in front of the building, making him as tall as Brian for a change, and took over as the swooper.

He grabbed Brian's shoulder, spun him around so the bigger man's back was to the crowd, wrapped his arms tightly around Brian's neck and kissed him deeply. Brian didn't resist in the least. The gathered masses thought it was so cute the way little Justin had to climb up a step in order to kiss his man. There was a round of laughter, accompanied by endless camera flashes, and then the catcalls started. Justin waited until the ruckus had died down a little before ending the kiss, waving with an embarrassed blushing look and then leading Brian down the block towards the spot where the Jeep was parked.

It wasn't quite as simple as it had been before. There were a lot more non-reporters around this morning. They were the ones that weren't satisfied with the requisite photo op and sound bite. These lookey-loos didn't move off as soon as the duo was done giving their impromptu statement. These guys kept following along as Brian and Justin inched their way to the car. But even with this additional diversion, the two eventually made it to the Jeep and pulled out onto the street heading towards the University District. 

Fifteen minutes later they were pulled up in front of the main Admin building at PIFA. Before he got out of the car, Justin leaned in for another kiss and then asked, "Did you really have a Grandpa Kinney who said all that shit?"

"Of course I had a Grandpa Kinney," Brian assured his doubting companion. "But . . . He died before I was born and I never fucking spoke to the man. I'm sure he WAS an ass, though, at least he was if he was anything like my father, so it could have been true!"

"You, Brian Kinney, are just too adorable this morning!" Justin insisted, thinking he could get away with the endearment since he'd be immediately exiting the car.

"And you, Justin Taylor, are a brat!" Brian retorted, not willing to let Justin have the last word. "Now, get out of here. Have fun at school with your little friends and I'll pick you up right here at noon."