Chapter 30 - Uncomfortably Numb

Kevan was on a roll. Literally. Ever since he'd discovered his prodigious powers of prestidigitation earlier in the week, the precocious baby had been working hard to perfect his skills. Right at that particular moment, Kevan was preoccupied with making the floor and the ceiling flip places over and over again.

Holy Diaperload, was he ever good at this trick, too! All he had to do was wiggle his legs a certain way and push his arms out at the right velocity and trajectory and . . . Voila! He did it again, this time making the ceiling disappear and the floor take its place!

Basically, at only six months old, Kevan was able to completely defy all the known laws of physics.

It was a powerful feeling. And fun, too! Hence the repeated peals of baby giggling that he just couldn't hold back even though he had a feeling that, being such a powerful and magnificent magician, it was a little beneath him to giggle.

Oh, who are we kidding? Kevan didn't know squat about dignified! He just knew that making the world roll around him was a doo-doo load of fun and so he did it as often as he could. Giggling all the while.

What's more, seeing as Kevan was an above average child in every respect, he wasn't content to just sit on his laurels. He wasn't content to just sit at all. He wanted to do so much more. If he could already control the movements of the planet without even barely trying, what else could he do? The possibilities seemed endless. That's why he was so driven to try new and even more daring feats of wonder. Which is also why he was not only sitting, but rolling around and squirming and wriggling and contorting his arms and legs and body in every possible combination he could come up with just to see what would happen. You just never knew what you were capable of until you tried, right?

And, of course, Kevan was proven right in these assumptions when, after minutes or hours or days of working at his craft, the precious baby boy managed to roll himself all the way across the fluffy white area rug in the Big Room and found himself on a hard, shiny, brown surface that he'd never experienced before. It wasn't soft or cushy like the carpet. His knees kinda hurt when he tried to push them against the brown. It was also cold against Kevan's belly. But the brown was also amazingly slippery. When Kevan started to resume his wiggling, he noticed right away that he could actually pull the whole room towards him by grabbing onto the brown with his chubby baby hands and pulling. Wow! This was really, really cool, Kevan thought. Now, when he couldn't reach something he wanted - like when his Uglyworm friend was too far away - he could just pull the room towards him and then the toy would be right at his fingertips. This was a wonderful development. Truly remarkable.

Doo-doo! Kevan really loved controlling the entire universe!

Brian woke to the *bam, bam, bam* drumming sound of his blood pulsing through his temples. He wasn't sure if it was the throbbing headache that was causing his stomach to roil like an arroyo after a thunderstorm or if that was a completely separate symptom. He tried to roll over so that the sunlight beating down on him wouldn’t beam directly into his face. It made him feel like an ant that was being tortured by a kid with a magnifying glass. Movement wasn't at all a good idea, though. Not only did every muscle in his body ache, right down to the pinky finger on his left hand, but turning over exacerbated the unrest in his gut.

Suffice it to say, Brian felt like shit warmed over.

After that, he lay as still as possible with his eyes tightly closed and tried to rouse his brain enough to piece together what the hell had happened to him. Without actually opening his eyes, that feat was a little difficult, but Brian was certain that as soon as he pried his eyelids apart he'd have only seconds to look around, find the closest toilet and run to it before the contents of his stomach would be violently rejected by his body. But without daring to look around him, all he had to go by were the sensations the rest of his body was receiving and that information just didn't compute. Judging by those standards, it wouldn’t surprise him if he was the only survivor in a fatal car crash. He felt THAT bad. Or maybe he hadn't survived. He felt like he imagined someone dying should feel. Although that really didn't account for the nausea. He didn't think dying in an horrific auto accident would make you sick to your stomach. It probably wouldn't cause the type of dry mouth that he'd just noticed either. In fact, even if he'd had his lips taped to the exhaust pipe of the industrial-sized dryer in the Chinese laundry down the street from his loft for an entire week, he probably still wouldn’t have this dry of a mouth. And did car crashes cause the type of headache that felt like tiny miners were trying to pick axe their way out from inside your skull? Brian didn’t think so.

Which left him with the only other plausible explanation - he was suffering from the WORST hangover he’d ever had in his entire long and often alcohol-infused life.

That thought led to the next question, namely, what the heck did he drink to get this bad and why, exactly, had he been on such a bender?

The fuzziness in his brain was not conducive to answering that question. He found that he really couldn’t remember anything about the night before. Or, to be completely honest, the night before the night before. Brian lifted his hand to scratch contemplatively at his brow and moaned at the pain the movement caused. But even that didn’t do anything to clear out the cobwebs in his brain enough so that he’d remember anything more. Which struck him as very strange.

Brian had been drinking since his early teens - growing up with Jack and Joan Kinney meant there was always alcohol around and nobody really cared if Brian was tippling regardless of what the legal drinking age had been. Because of that, he’d learned by trial and error pretty early on what and how much he could drink without getting totally sloshed. Not to mention that he’d built up a pretty high tolerance for most forms of alcohol. He’d had his share of hangovers but to get this bad, he would have had to drink enough to send a good sized horse to the ER to get its stomach pumped. And Brian still couldn’t remember a fucking thing - not even the beginning of the evening, let alone why he’d been drinking enough to topple Mr. Ed. Something really didn’t feel right.

That’s as far as Brian’s contemplation of the situation got, however, before his thought processes were interrupted by an overly cheerful voice, practically screaming, “Good Morning, Baby! Did you sleep well? Time to ‘wakey-wakey’! I’ve got your eggs and bakey!”

Brian’s eyes involuntarily sprung open at this rude greeting. From where he was lying, curled up on his side like a sick hedgehog, the entire room seemed to be swirling around sideways with the edges up by the ceiling and down by the floor pulsing in time to the beating of his headache. In the middle of the swirling, whirling, too-bright room was a man who was leaning down towards him with his too-large face distorted as if Brian was seeing him through a fisheye lens. The man happened to be holding out a tray of some kind that was enveloped by the most vomit-inducing mixture of smells that Brian had ever encountered.

“Come on, Baby. Time to sit up. I made you everything you like for breakfast! Pancakes with bacon, fried eggs on the side and fresh squeezed orange juice. I hope you’re hungry,” bleated the voice, which seemed to come from too far away considering that the man’s face was only centimeters from his nose.

Brian simply gaped at the strange man whose disproportionately large nose and prominent toothy smile were distracting him from the horrors of the breakfast tray that the man sat on a nearby nightstand. It didn’t help at all that, from Brian’s perspective, the man was sideways to the world and the whole room was still swirling and tilting in a nauseating fashion. He wasn’t sure if it was the blindingly bright light coming through the window on the far side of the room or the guy’s too-white teeth but something was gleaming too brightly in his face. Brian cringed away from the scene in pain and once again shut his eyes.

The Fisheye Man seemed to think that Brian’s response was just an excuse for him to get all touchy-feely. The next thing Brian knew, two strong arms were grappling around him, jostling him out of the semi-comfortable spot he’d managed to curl into and hoisting him into a completely unwelcome and upright position. Brian’s head and stomach, however, apparently refused to leave their recumbent position.

“Open up those gorgeous hazel orbs for me, Baby, and give me a good morning kiss!” the voice demanded.

So Brian followed directions and opened his eyes. Only to note that this new perspective didn’t help at all with his hangover. And when the Fisheye Man leaned towards him, ostensibly to steal that kiss he’d been fishing for, Brian responded by projectile vomiting directly into the man’s skewed and now no longer happy face.

For the third time already that morning Justin opened his laptop and checked his email. There was still nothing. No response from Brian to the new message he’d sent that morning. No response to any of the several previous emails he'd sent or to the phone messages he'd left.

He was sure that something was wrong. Justin didn't know what it was, but the fact that Brian still hadn't responded to any of his messages just felt so off. Yeah, Brian had been angry enough that week before he'd left for Cancun, but not so angry that he would refuse to talk to Justin. And then that last night, Brian had been so sad and sweet and giving - Justin had thought that his partner was conflicted more than anything and probably just needed time to work through things. Now, though, he wasn't so sure.

“Hey, Sourpuss, your breakfast is getting cold,” Daphne startled Justin out of his lethargic contemplation of the blank email inbox.

“I'm not hungry,” Justin replied, sighing and desultorily tapping out another message asking Brian to please call him.

“Justin . . .” Daphne started out, but then decided she really didn't know what to say.

“Why won't he answer me, Daph?” Justin moaned and then collapsed, lying his head on top of his crossed arms which were propped up by the edge of the dining room table. “Does he hate me that much that he can't even bring himself to answer one lousy email?”

Daphne reached out and started to lightly massage her best friend’s shoulders. “I'm sure it's not that, Justin. He's probably just too busy or maybe his laptop is broken or something. There's got to be a million possible reasons why he hasn't written back. You know he loves you and Kevan. He’ll be back soon and you guys will work it out somehow. I know it,” Daphne reassured him.

“But that's the thing - I DON’T know it, Daph. He's never actually said he loves me. I mean, I thought he did. But maybe I was wrong . . .” Justin lamented, his muffled voice sounding even more pathetic.

“Stop it, Justin!” Daphne ordered with a painless slap to the sulking man’s shoulder. “You and I both know Brian adores you. He might not say it in so many words, but he shows you in other ways all the time. And the man is crazy about that little boy too,” Daph pointed over to where Kevan was rolling around on the Greatroom carpet with Uglyworm in his grasp. “Even if Brian WAS still angry at you for some reason, he would never abandon Kevan. I'm sure there's some really good explanation for why he hasn't answered yet and you two can laugh about it when he finally gets home.”

“Yeah? And when will that be, huh? It's been almost two weeks already.” Justin finally sat up and turned to look despondently at his friend. “I'm sure he's not in any rush to get back here. He's off having the time of his life in some tropical paradise surrounded by his adoring fans and an endless supply of hot Latino cabana boys. Meanwhile I'm holed up here like a virtual prisoner because of HIS crazy stalker. I don't even have any privacy, what with you and Em taking turns babysitting me every night and the Hulk Brothers dogging my steps everywhere I go.”

“We're not babysitting you, Jus,” Daph insisted. “We just want to make sure you and Kevan are safe. And as long as that Tag guy is threatening you, you know you shouldn't be alone. And, by the way, all these safety measures that you find so annoying are just another way for Brian to show he cares about you. Brian was the one who set all this up, remember. As long as there’s still any possible threat to either you or Kevan, Brian won’t let up with his uber-protection thing.”

“Yeah, well, how do we know that this stalker guy IS still a threat? There hasn't been any sign of him in days. No new letters or gifts. Maybe he got the message already and gave up?” Justin suggested with a hopeful glance Daphne’s way. However the stubborn set to his friend’s countenance quickly damped that hope. “Damn it! How long do I need to be trailed around by my bodyguards until we’re sure he's history? Shit! It's just all so fucking complicated.”

Justin got up, intending to stomp away and go sulk in his bedroom where he had at least some semblance of privacy, but was distracted by his son’s antics. The baby had rolled himself off the plush white area rug onto the smooth wood flooring. Taking advantage of the slippery surface, the baby was doing this wiggling elbow crawl thing that seemed quite effective. He'd already managed to propel himself a couple of meters away from his starting point and looked like he was heading towards the hallway.

“Wow! Look at you go, Kev!” Daphne had joined Justin where the proud daddy was standing as he watched his son madly pulling himself along, seriously intent on some unknown baby errand. “This is so cool. He's crawling already! Well, sorta crawling . . . Although he looks more like those soldiers who have to squirm under barbed wire and stuff. He is pretty fast at it though - whatever you call it. Guess it's time to baby-proof the house, Dad!”

Justin groaned at the mere idea of all the havoc a crawling baby could wreak and sent out another mental SOS to his absent co-parent, pleading with Brian to hurry home.

A bright flash of light startled Brian. He opened his eyes, blinked again and again, but the view still seemed blurry and dim. There was someone sitting next to him on the bed. There was an arm around his back holding him up. There was something - a cell phone, maybe - waving around in front of his face. He wanted to grab whatever it was and make it stop moving around but he felt like he couldn’t move his arms. Then there was another flash of bright light originating from the object in front of him, and Brian once again shut his eyes to hide from the blinding brightness.

***

He felt his eyelids fluttering open but it was dark and he couldn’t see much of anything around him. He could tell he was lying down in a bed. There was someone else lying next to him, arms and legs draped over Brian’s own body. It wasn’t Justin though. This man didn’t feel like his blond. He didn’t smell like his blond. He didn’t make Brian feel safe or loved like being with his blond always did. Whoever this was shouldn’t be here, Brian thought. Had he brought someone home from from the club? That didn’t seem right. He wanted to get up and throw the guy out, but his body seemed frozen in place. And before he could summon enough wherewithal to do anything about it, the little bit of dim light there was in the room faded away.

***

Brian ‘woke up’ to find himself sitting in a chair. It was night outside the nearby window. The room was only dimly lit by the one lamp on the nightstand clear across the room. A shadowy figure moving around in the periphery of his vision caught his attention. The next thing he knew, the figure was approaching with a small bundle in its arms. The man - Brian could tell now it was a man - laid the blanket-wrapped form in Brian’s arms. He looked down and saw what appeared to be a swaddled baby.

“Isn’t our little Kevan so sweet?” whispered a voice next to Brian’s ear. “You two look so adorable together. I just have to get a picture of this for our photo album. Hold still, Baby.”

There was a flash of light that caused spots to dance in front of Brian’s eyes and then, before he could protest, the baby was taken away from him. Brian tried to hold on to the small form but his fingers wouldn’t do what his brain told them to do. Then the man was taking his baby away from him and walking away towards the door.

“Don’t cry, Honey. Kevan’s fine,” the man who was stealing away Brian’s baby said, the words providing no reassurance at all. “He’s just hungry. I’ll give him a bottle and then put him in his crib. And then, in the morning, when he wakes up, we can all play together. I just love our little family. Don’t you? We’re going to be so happy together. You’ll see, Brian. You’ll see.”

And then Brian was all alone and he couldn’t even seem to raise his hands to wipe away the tears that were flowing down his cheeks.   

***

Brian drifted back to an awareness of the present and found himself standing in front of a mirror dressed in a cheap, poorly fitting suit. It was daytime again, and the room was filled with too much sunlight, making it almost as hard to see as it was when the room was dark. Brian blinked his eyes, but still nothing seemed to be completely in focus. For some reason his arms weren’t working right. Brian felt as if he were paralysed. He could see what was going on around him and he could feel his body being moved but he couldn’t make it move the way HE wanted.

“There we go. You look so handsome!” an overly-cheerful voice rang in Brian’s ears and two hands reached out, snugging the tie up more neatly under the collar of the dress shirt he was wearing. “I’m so excited. I want everything to be just perfect for our wedding! I just can’t believe it’s finally happening, can you? I’ve been dreaming about this day for so long and now it’s really coming true. You and I and Kevan can be a real family now.” The man making all these outrageous statements kept babbling on and on, humming the Wedding March under his breath whenever he wasn’t actually speaking, as he put on his own jacket and tie and then pinned a boutonniere to Brian’s lapel.

When all the dressing seemed over, the man turned and raised up on his tip toes, leaving a small kiss on Brian’s unresisting lips.

“Now, how about another picture before the rest of the wedding party arrives?” The man grabbed Brian’s arm and led him over to the far corner of the room. There was a tripod with a camera set up on it facing the armchair in the corner. Brian was seated in the chair, with the man perched on the arm and then there were clicks and flashes of light and . . . Brian’s attention wandered away. He didn’t want to be there for whatever was going to happen next.

***

The bursts of awareness were getting more frequent. Or at least it seemed that way to Brian, although he couldn’t be sure since time was being slippery and all he could really say for certain when he did manage to focus on whatever was happening in the present was that it was either night or day. This most recent episode of time seemed to be occurring during the day since he could see the blue sky and trees that lived outside the window of the room he was in. He was lying in bed still. He could see that the blanket had become tangled around his legs and was puddling around his hips. He was naked. He still felt totally enervated - as if there were incredibly heavy weights holding down all his limbs so that he couldn’t move. Even turning his head a little to the side when he heard noises felt like a gargantuan effort.

This time the noises seemed to be coming from the other side of the door. Brian heard a metallic clicking, then saw the doorknob turning and finally the door swung open. The man he’d seen off and on over the past - well, however long it had been since he’d been put into this room - came through the door, sat the tray he was carrying on top of the nearby dresser and then took a large bunch of keys out of his pocket. Taggart - the man’s name suddenly popped into Brian’s mind - quickly found the key he was looking for and promptly re-locked the door. Then he was approaching Brian with the tray of food.

Brian was able follow the man’s movements, turning his head to watch as Taggart placed the tray on the nightstand before he moved over and helped Brian to sit up with his legs draped off the side of the bed. Brian was actually rather glad to discover that he wasn’t really paralysed. He could move his arms a little once he was sitting up. They still felt heavy and awkward but he could move them slightly. Not enough to slap Taggart as the vile little man leaned over and kissed Brian’s lips though. Brian did turn his head away, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid the offensive press of damp lips. Taggart didn’t seem to notice the distaste in Brian’s gaze afterwards. He just went on with his tasks, greeting Brian with a sunny ‘Good Morning, Lover!’ and then tidying the bed covers.

Brian merely watched. He didn’t feel like he could do anything more in his current state. He wanted to cover himself up, to hide his nudity, not liking that this odious man was able to see him in his most vulnerable state. But the effort to move that much was too great, so Brian just sat and watched. He watched as Taggart moved a little tray table over in front of Brian. He watched as his tormentor arranged the plates of food he’d brought. And he watched as Taggart dropped a small white pill into the glass of orange juice that he then sat next to Brian’s plate.

“Fuc . . . ker” Brian huffed out the almost silent word under his breath.

Taggart turned and looked at Brian as if he was surprised to hear any sound at all coming from his previously placid victim. Brian quickly reined in his temper and tried to blank out his face, if it wasn’t already. He didn’t want to give away his discovery. Now that he knew what was happening to him, he needed to find a way to stop it. But he couldn’t do that if he was constantly being drugged up. He needed to throw this Taggart asshole off balance. And to do that, he needed a clear head.

When Tag later held up the glass of juice to Brian’s lips, the captive took a large mouthful of the liquid and then immediately let it all dribble out, drenching the contents of the tray and Taggart’s sleeve as well. While his captor was reaching for a napkin to mop up the mess, Brian managed to twitch his hand just enough to knock over the rest of the glass. The breakfast was ruined, which was precisely Brian’s intention. Taggart cursed, loaded the uneaten plates full of slop back onto his tray and stomped out of the room with an angry parting look thrown in Brian’s direction.

Brian just sat there and tried to look completely helpless and blank, hoping that his kidnapper wouldn’t realize his actions had been intentional and that Brian was more alert than he’d been since his arrival in this nightmare.