Chapter 4 - The Crying Games.

‘Would you PLEASE stop bouncing and jiggling me and quit shoving those stupid rattling things in my face!’ Kevan wanted to scream.

Well, at least that’s what he would have wanted to scream if he could speak and understood the concepts of ‘bouncing’, ‘jiggling’ and ‘rattling’ or grasped the idea of language at all. But, since he didn’t get any of that, he was just really, really pissed off and wanted the yellow one to make him feel better. The bouncing, jiggling, pacing, babbling and attempts to distract him by wiggling toys and rattles in Kevan’s face weren’t exactly helping. If anything, all the additional annoyances were making the poor boy feel even worse.

At this point, poor Kevan was becoming discouraged. He'd been feeling bad forever (at least in baby time it seemed like forever, but in more linear concepts of time it had probably only been a week or two). The people things should have fixed this by now. He'd been communicating his distress as best he knew how - hence the almost constant screaming, wailing, waving of his fists and kicking of his legs - but nobody seemed to care! Why didn't they DO something already?

Kevan was starting to develop serious trust issues with his people things.

"Blah blah blah, Kevan. Blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah. Papa blah blah, Kevan. Blah. Blah blah blah blah. Blah! Blah blah! Blah, Kevan. Blah, Kevan, blah blah blah Papa. Blah!"

The yellow one had been babbling at Kevan with his noises for a long time now but it didn't seem like he planned to do anything else. 'Kevan' and 'Papa' seemed to be the two noises that were repeated the most, but for the life of him Kevan had no clue what those noises or any of the yellow one's other noises meant. Even the sound of the yellow one's voice - which at one time had seemed soothing to him - was grating on the baby's nerves at this point.

That was the exact moment that Kevan decided to just give up. His tummy hurt. He was exhausted and he simply couldn't handle any more stimulation of any kind. If the yellow one couldn't or wouldn't make his tummy feel better, he should just leave already!

Kevan broke out into his newest and most piercing scream to date and just had himself a good cry.

The yellow one sat down in the big brown chair, balancing Kevan loosely on his bony knees, and set off into his own version of wailing.

The two boys sat like that, together on the big chair, both of them crying their eyes out for a good long while. Kevan finally cried himself to sleep. As his little eyelids shut, he could still see the yellow one sobbing away.

"Sunshine?"

Brian was worried when he came home from the gym late on Saturday afternoon and couldn't seem to find Justin anywhere. The house was dark - not a single light was turned on inside. There was no sign of dinner having been started or food preparation of any kind having taken place despite the fact that it was after five pm. There were dirty clothes strewn about in the bedroom, dirty dishes piled up in the sink and general untidiness everywhere.

Brian had called out a couple times already but there was no answer. He was sure that Justin's car - Brian's old jeep - was parked in the garage. And since it was dark out already, Brian didn't think Justin would have ventured outside with the baby for a walk. So where the fuck were they?

Systematically opening every door and scanning every room thoroughly, Brian moved from the Greatroom in the front of the house towards the bedrooms in the rear. Finally, when he got to the nursery, the last room in the house, Brian heard the first stirrings of life.

Opening the door slowly since he wasn't sure exactly what he'd find, Brian carefully peeked around the doorframe. The room was pitch dark. Not even the night light or the glowing Japanese lanterns over the crib were lit. It was impossible to see anything inside. Nevertheless, Brian could sense movement and he heard a muted, breathy huffing noise that didn't sound at all good to him.

Reaching around to the wall switch, Brian flicked on the large overhead light. What he saw made him think that a tornado or some other natural disaster had blown through the tiny room. Baby paraphernalia was tossed everywhere all over the floor and any other horizontal surfaces: There were random scattered toys all over, both soiled and clean onesies and other baby clothes were wadded up in piles on the changing table, the diaper genie had fallen over and several reeking diapers were overflowing onto the carpet, and to top it all off, at least one bottle of breastmilk had apparently been spilled on the floor next to the diaper pail - the dirty bottle with the congealed remains of milk was lying on its side next to the greasy puddle of liquid.

Apparently hurricane Kevan had struck!

The most pathetic sight in that disastrous room however, was the apparently heartbroken blond teen sitting in the big comfy armchair. His hair was a mess. There were bright yellow stains of an indeterminate nature running down the front of his t-shirt. His eyes were an unattractive puffy red and the rest of his face was covered with tear tracks and snot. On his lap was an equally unkempt, but thankfully sleeping, baby boy.

As soon as the light was turned on and the blond youth realized he'd been found out, the muted sniffling turned into full-fledged sobbing.

Truly, Brian didn't think he'd ever seen a more pathetic sight in his entire life. This couldn't possibly be the same strong, capable young man he knew as Justin Taylor. Could it? What on earth could reduce his bright, always optimistic Sunshine to this sniveling, crying mess? Maybe this was some incompetent imposter?

"Sunshine," Brian asked again, his voice unsure, as if he couldn't really believe what he was seeing.

The crying man looked up at Brian and then broke out into an even louder wail of misery.

"Justin," Brian said quietly, trying to keep his voice calm and soothing in case this unpredictable mirage was easily scared or enraged. "What the fuck happened, Justin?"

"The Baaaaaaabbbbbbbyyyyy," the snot-nosed apparition moaned with another freshet of tears dribbling down his already drenched and splotchy face.

Brian looked down at the seven week old infant lying so peacefully in Justin's lap. What the hell? How could such a little angel cause this much havoc?

Then, out of the blue, a truly horrible thought popped into Brian's mind and he almost panicked. Justin couldn't mean . . . No! The baby had to be all right! Had the baby been hurt. Or worse? Fuck! No! It just couldn't be! But from the way that Justin was crying his eyes out and the stillness of the infant in his lap, Brian momentarily thought the worst.

Brian quickly knelt next to Justin's knees and reached over for his son, frantically feeling the tiny neck to confirm that the little bundle had a pulse and was still breathing. To Brian's relief, the rough jerking movement triggered a typical 'startle response' from the sleeping infant. Brian's heart started beating normally once again at the sight of the little arms raising into the air and he breathed out a tension filled sigh.

"Fuck you, Justin! You just fucking scared the holy shit out of me. With you crying like that and all, I thought . . . Hell!" Brian broke off into a stream of curses, sank back on his heels and then wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of one hand. "What the fuck happened in here? It looks like world war three started in this room."

"I c-c-c-can't . . . c-c-can't d-d-do this, Brian! I can't! He won't eat. He just shits all the time and cries and c-c-cries and I don't know how to make him stop. He never fucking s-s-sleeps. It's fucking impossible. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing! I can't do it! I CAN'T! I just fucking can't do it anymore."

At that point Justin was overcome with another debilitating bout of tears that prevented any further explanations. Brian decided the best thing was to just leave him be for a few minutes. He picked up the baby - who, by the way, seemed to be sleeping just fine - and deposited him in the crib. Then Brian spent five minutes or so clearing up the worst of the clutter. He replaced the bag in the diaper pail and carried the full one to the trash can out back. He even picked up the baby bottle and put a towel down over the wet spot, although he'd have to come back later to really get it cleaned.

By the time the room was sufficiently tidied up, Justin's crying had subsided. The occasional sniffle was all that remained. Swallowing his trepidation, Brian carefully approached the possibly unhinged young man. He was reassured when Justin didn't make any threatening movements. Taking heart from this positive sign, Brian dared to reach out and touch the boy's shoulder in a reassuring manner. That also went well. Justin continued to just sit there with a dazed and slightly confused expression on his still tear stained face.

Brian felt a little braver at the lack of any overtly frightening behavior and decided to try and guide the exhausted looking young man out of the nursery and across the hall to the master bedroom. Hopefully, whatever was wrong with the lad would remedy itself provided the subject was kept quiet in a relatively stress-free environment. It seemed likely that a nap might help, too. Justin didn't put up any resistance. He followed Brian over to the big King sized bed, crawled under the covers when Brian held them up, and was sound asleep within seconds of his head touching the pillow.

When Justin finally woke up it was daylight outside. He rolled over to look at the clock on the bedside table, noting in passing that he still had on all the clothes he’d been wearing yesterday, and was surprised to find that it was already after ten am. Brian wasn’t in the bed next to him, which meant that he was probably up with the Hell Child, aka Kevan.

Justin felt better rested than he’d been in almost two months now. He knew he probably should get up and go see if Brian needed help with the Sobbing Spawn of Satan, but the bed felt so damn comfortable and it was so incredibly peaceful here that he simply couldn’t force himself to move. And, even with one full night of sleep under his belt, he was still suffering from the effects of a huge built up sleep deficit. The softness of the bed and the warmth of the thick duvet began to lull him back to sleep almost at once.

“Time to ‘Rise and Shine’ Sleeping Beauty,” an annoyingly cheerful voice jarred Justin out of his serene almost-back-to-sleep state. “You’ve been sleeping for like fifteen hours, Sunshine, which means it’s more than time for you to get up and move around a little before you start to develop bed sores or some shit like that.”

“Don’t want to,” Justin huffed like the recalcitrant teenager he was. “Go away!”

“Nope. I’m not that easy to get rid of little boy. Besides, if you get up I’ll feed you . . .” Brian teased, and then turned with a sexy wink over his shoulder and strode out of the room, confident that food would get the boy out of bed even if nothing else could stir him.

“Not fair . . . You know I can’t resist food,” Justin yelled after the sexy retreating back of his man.

Brian’s laughter drifting down the hall was the only response Justin received.

Fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and almost completely coherent, Justin finally ventured into the kitchen to see if Brian had been telling the truth and really did have something edible for him. He was gratified to find a large platter piled high with flakey, buttery croissants, palmier pastries and lemon-poppyseed muffins. The carafe of coffee nearby was still hot and smelled delicious. There was even a pitcher of orange juice on the counter along with a selection of various jams for use with the pastries. Justin naturally assumed he’d died in his sleep and this was Nirvana.

By the time Brian walked into the room carrying a seemingly happy and gurgling Kevan on his hip, Justin had the majority of one jelly-coated croissant stuffed in his mouth and was buttering up a second.

“Whoa! Better slow down there, Sunshine. There’s only so many pastries you can cram into that bubble butt of yours,” Brian kidded but smiled at the sign of his Sunshine’s revitalization.

“I’m fucking ravenous!” Justin replied, disdaining Brian’s advice. “I feel like I could eat this entire plate of pastries, then go back to bed for another twelve hours of sleep. Even then I don’t think I’d be completely myself, thanks to your obnoxious offspring over there.” Justin stuck his tongue out at Baby Kevan, although his anger and frustration over dealing with the baby the day before had almost completely disappeared now that he’d got some sleep and was being fed. Mostly he was just embarrassed by his meltdown at this point.

“He’s your offspring too, Sunshine,” Brian reminded him.

“Not when he’s being a little Drama Princess, pooping on me, screaming in my ear and refusing to sleep, he’s not. Then he’s all yours!”

“Over-react much?” Brian shook his head at the vitriolic speech directed at his angelic little boy. “Kevan’s been a perfect little man for me today. Okay, so he DID wake up four times last night, which I agree is a little excessive, but he doesn’t have any control over that. And this morning he’s been a little trooper. We got up early, walked over to the bakery and got your breakfast supplies. Then we popped into this running store we happened across, where I found a great jogging stroller,” Brian pointed towards the sleek, black, aerodynamically designed contraption now waiting by the front door. “When we got back, you were still sleeping, so I put Kevan in the new stroller and we went for a two mile run. He seemed to love the movement and the fresh air and slept pretty much the whole time. Then we came home and woke you up, Princess, and he hasn’t cried once all morning!”

“Of course he hasn’t - the little traitor! Not for Daddy Dearest. Not for the perfect, magical, can-do-no-wrong Brian Kinney - able to charm any man, woman or infant with just one smile . . . Well, just don’t get too complacent, SuperDad! That little baby over there may look harmless, but just wait until you’ve been the one to stay up with him every night for weeks on end. Wait until he cries for three hours straight until you wish you could tear your ears off just to get a little, tiny bit of quiet. Wait until you’ve changed thirty or forty slimey green and yellow diapers that are completely unnatural and smell like something you never wanted to know about died in them. Then we’ll talk, Mr. Kinney.”

Brian watched the surly twink throughout the preceding rant with an indulgent grin on his beautiful lips. He obviously thought Justin was exaggerating. Kevan never seemed that bad when he was around. Maybe Justin wasn’t as good around kids as Brian had always thought he’d be?

“Whatever, Justin. I still think you’re over-reacting. Anyway, now that you’re up, you can take over,” Brian intentionally let the subject drop and moved on to something much more interesting to him - himself.

“I set up a workout date for this afternoon with Ben Bruckner - you remember him from the CK Launch? I ran into him the other day at the gym. He offered to work out with me and help me get back into shape,” Justin turned back around till he was facing the counter at this point, seemingly disinterested. He made a show out of preparing a third pastry and a second glass of juice for himself while Brian continued to talk about his new workout buddy, detailing their entire new workout regime.

“I remember Ben,” Justin commented from behind his croissant. “He seemed nice and since he’s a college professor he must be pretty smart, I guess.”

“He’s okay. I think Ben will be a big help in my exercise program, though. He’s completely into all this health food stuff and naturopathic supplements and shit. It must work since he’s in great shape himself. He even turned me on to these meal supplement bars from Norway or Sweden or somewhere,” Brian walked over to the jogging stroller and pulled out a brightly wrapped pink and yellow packet of some kind, tossing it over so that Justin could examine it. “According to Ben, I can substitute one of these puppies for a meal and I’ll still get all the nutrition I need without any of the empty calories. They’re called ‘Kalteen Bars’. Ben’s going to get me a whole case of them. Hopefully that will solve my dieting woes AND you won’t have to worry your little blond head about me skipping meals or dying of starvation or whatever you were fretting about the other day.”

“I still don’t think you should be exercising too much or dieting without talking it over first with Chiefy or Doctor Dahl, Brian,” Justin insisted. “You don’t want to overdo it so soon after the C-Section or do anything that would hurt Kevan.”

“I’m a big boy, Justin. I’m sure I can take care of myself without a doctor’s supervision. And I would never hurt Kevan - you know that! I promise to eat these nutrition supplement bars so that you don’t have to worry. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

Justin shrugged and turned his attention back to the remains of the platter of food. He was finally beginning to feel full. Maybe just one muffin? Definitely!

“So, anyway, I’ll just put Kevan in his crib, grab my gym bag and then I’m off to meet Ben,” Brian announced, already heading down the hall.

“No, no, nonono! No fucking way, Brian,” Justin dropped the uneaten portion of his muffin and zipped down the hall until he was blocking Brian’s way. “You are not leaving me with that crying nightmare child again today. No fucking way! I’ve got two midterms tomorrow and I haven’t been able to get ANY studying at all done for the past two weeks because of your progeny. I also have a painting due on Thursday and a ten page essay due Friday. I am heading to the library for the day and YOU are going to spend the day with your perfect little angel.” Justin dashed off towards the back door, pulling his school bag off the hook by the door and was halfway out the door before Brian realized what was happening.

“But, Justin, what about the gym. I’ve already got plans to work out with Ben,” Brian protested.

“Fuck your workout Brian! See ya!” Justin slammed the door behind him and literally ran for the Jeep.

“Shit!” Brian muttered, huffing an annoyed breath and contemplating ways to punish his blond brat once the boy did get home later. “Oh, well. Looks like it’s just you and me for the day, Sonnyboy,” Brian added with a smile as he entered the nursery and laid the little bundle of boy in the crib. “We’ll show your Papa how it’s done. Right?”

Justin was laughing to himself as he pulled the Jeep out onto the street and used the remote to close the gate behind him. Brian had NO idea what he was in for. It was about time for him to learn though. Operation ‘Educate Daddy Dearest’ was progressing nicely.

“Now, on to Operation ‘No Diet For Daddy,” Justin chuckled out loud as he looked over at the carton of ‘Kalteen Bars’ sitting on the passenger seat. “Step one, drop off these little goodies at Ben’s place. Step two, sit back and watch the fun! Fuck I’m good!”