rhiannonhero (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rhiannonhero) wrote,@ 2007-12-01 00:26:00 |
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Fic: QaF: Into My Arms: Part Four
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Into My Arms: Part Four
It seemed to Brian that death could move in slow motion, taking and taking, until nothing was left but something empty and open, like a gate to endless lucid blue skies and vast distances that not even birds know. Ben was like that now—a terrible, measureless emptiness disguised as a body in a bed; a body that had once been a baby, held close by his mother, and later a boy, the size of Belle, and God only knows what Ben was like then. Later, his body was loved and cherished by Michael. Ben, yes, he’d even been a body that Brian himself once fucked, and now that same body housed nothing but breath and heartbeats. Brian sat in the room with that shell only because Michael was there and Michael needed him.
The house was full of people now; Lindsay, Mel, Gus, and Jenny Rebecca had arrived in the morning, and when Brian had shown up sometime just after noon with bagels and coffee, everyone had been sitting around the kitchen table looking blank and well-scrubbed by recent tears.
Brian had greeted Gus with a silent hug, and he’d held on tight while Gus had struggled to keep his newly acquired manly composure. His son was as tall as him now, and had a beard now, early for his age, and a strong body, muscled like he’d been lifting weights.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call like I told your mother. I got the call to come here and it got away from me,” Brian said, keeping his arm around Gus’s shoulder.
“S’okay. It’s not like I’m not used to you forgetting to call.”
Brian breathed through the punch of shame in his gut. He put his other hand on Gus’s shoulders, too, and said, “Those other times weren’t okay, either. Gus, I’m sorry.”
Gus didn’t meet his eyes and Brian had to duck down to get Gus to look at him. “You don’t have to accept my apology, but I want you to know that I am sorry.”
“Okay,” Gus replied, shoving some hair out of his eyes, and moving out of Brian’s grasp.
Brian let it go at that; there was too much stress in the house to try to make his entire crappy career as an absentee father right with his son; besides, some things couldn’t be made right. Some things you had to just learn to carry the weight of without asking someone else to relieve you of the burden with a few empty words of forgiveness.
Brian had leaned against the kitchen counter, another cup of coffee in his hands, stooped over with exhaustion. “Where’s Deb?” he asked.
“She had to go home to check on Carl,” Lindsay offered, spreading some jam on toast for Jenny Rebecca, who sat at the table next to her mothers looking solemn and shocked. “He’s still suffering from gout, you know.”
“And Emmett?” Brian asked. He already knew that Ted was at the office but was planning on coming over after his meeting with the execs from Whittaker and Sons to say his final goodbyes.
“He’s stuck in an airport in Tampa,” Mel said, rolling her eyes.
“Drew was doing the announcing for the Buckaneers but now there is a hurricane coming through and all the flights are canceled and the rental cars are all gone in like a fifty mile radius,” Gus contributed.
Brian nodded, his eyes on Jenny Rebecca. She was ten now, short and thin, with a butch-dyke haircut that Brian suspected Mel convinced her to get. She preferred the nickname J.R., and was wearing a pair of jeans that looked nearly dirty and a plaid button down shirt which barely covered a t-shirt emblazoned with “Baby Dyke”. Despite the provocative shirt, J.R. looked every bit her age with dark eyes wide open and frightened, her face pale, and her fingers held onto her glass of milk a little too tightly like she feared that it might slip and break.
Brian cleared his throat, uncomfortable, wishing that he could bring her some kind of comfort or hope, but he’d never been involved much in her life, and like the situation with Gus, now wasn’t the time to try to change that.
“Michael?” Brian asked, nodding towards the hallway leading to Ben’s rooms.
“He’s been back there most of the morning,” Lindsay said, her eyes darting to Mel and then the children, as though she wasn’t sure what to say in front of them.
“He doesn’t want to leave. He’s afraid Ben’s gonna die when he’s not around,” Gus said, and Lindsay looked surprised, as though she hadn’t expected him to know that. “What?” Gus asked. “It’s obvious. Besides,” he looked away, shoving hair out of his eyes. “That’s how I’d feel if I were him.”
Brian closed his eyes and let his chin fall to his chest, a sudden pain wracking through him along with flashes of a baseball bat, blood in blond hair, the smell of hospital corridors, sterile and sick, and most of all, the feeling of a soft, bloodstained scarf around his neck.
Brian shoved away from the counter and turned to walk down the hall. Lindsay’s hand on his arm surprised him, but he let her hold him back long enough from him to say, “Someone needs to be there for him. It needs to be me.”
Lindsay glanced back around the kitchen, and Brian followed her eyes, saw Mel shake her head in disgust and shrug. Linsday let go of his arm and said, “Be gentle with him, Brian. He’s in pain.”
“Don’t you think I fucking know that,” Brian whispered, and it sounded like a bark instead of his voice.
“I do know that you know that. I just wanted to remind you. He’s so delicate right now; it scares me.” She tilted her head and he felt his mouth start to tremble with his own repressed tears. “I think it scares all of us, even you. Maybe, even, especially you.”
Brian swallowed and nodded.
When he’d knocked softly on Ben’s door, he waited until he heard Michael say that he could come in.
He sat there for hours with Michael, watching him go back and forth from a strange absent stare to tears that he wiped on his sleeve. Brian touched him when he knew he should, but otherwise he just waited.
At one point he heard Debbie in the hallway and he looked at Michael, saw the answer he needed, and headed out to meet her. “How is he?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.
Brian shook his head, and when she started to push past him, Brian had to grab her arm.
“Deb,” he said and he looked at her tenderly, telling her with his eyes what he knew she wouldn’t want to hear.
Her mouth opened and closed, and she looked toward the door of Ben’s bedroom with an expression of hurt and determination on her face.
“Deb,” he said again, and shook his head. “Don’t make this harder. He doesn’t want you there for this part. He wants to do it alone.”
The hospice nurse, who had entered just before Brian left to check on Ben’s vitals again, joined them in the hallway and said, “It shouldn’t be long now. Michael asked that we all wait in the living room.”
::::
Brian stood on the porch of Michael and Ben’s home, smoking a cigarette and gazing at the edges of the darkening and relentlessly denying sky; the sun faded early on the horizon of the winter day. He watched as the stars started to come out, thinking of the vastness of them, the gate that Ben’s soul had already stepped through, and he wished that he could pray. Instead, he tossed the cigarette aside and took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it carve cleanly into his lungs, bringing tears to his eyes.
He heard them stirring inside and he opened the door, entered the living room, and saw Michael standing in the doorway to the hall, arms crossed on his chest, his expression shocked,surprised, as though even to the last he had been unable to believe.
“He’s gone,” Michael said, and then slid to the floor.
::::
The funeral took place on a bitingly cold day. The service was held in at the GLBT center as Ben had arranged. Afterwards, only a few of them took the long trek to the cemetery to see the body descend into the earth.
Justin and Jennifer held Belle’s hands firmly and Justin bent to speak quietly in her ear. She wore a black dress, black mittens, and black ear muffs; her dark curls hung down her back, and her big brown eyes would occasionally meet Brian’s in concern and confusion, and then look away.
Brian stood across from them, keeping his vigil next to Michael. The coffin was black and simple, and Brian remembered that he’d been surprised that Ben had gone the route of burial instead of cremation, but Ben had explained that Michael wanted them to be buried together, forever. Together in decay, together until some archeologists dug up their bones in a couple thousand years.
Michael held up bravely as the lesbian buddhist monk presiding said a few words, and then asked that each of them in turn to say something about Ben before the coffin was lowered into the ground. Michael stepped forward first, and Brian tried to pull him back, but Michael shook Brian’s hand off of his arm. “No, let me,” he said. “I want to do this.”
Brian met Justin’s eyes and his stomach clenched.
“Ben was my partner, my husband, but he was more than that,” Michael began, his voice quivering. “He supported me in everything I did. He was my co-parent, my lover, my best friend. He was the person that I always wanted to see when I woke up in the morning, the person that I knew would laugh at my jokes, and tell me that he loved me.”
Brian stared at Justin, whose eyes moved between Ben’s coffin and Michael’s face.
“He was a dad to my J.R. and he was the one who brought us Hunter,” Michael looked at Hunter and despite his trembling lips and breaking voice, he smiled.
Brian looked at Belle, standing so quietly by Justin’s side, her eyes taking in everything, her cheeks flush with the cold.
“Ben was everything to me, and watching him go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Michael’s voice cracked completely and he had to hold back a sob. Brian reached for him again, but Michael brushed him off. “But I was there until the end. He fought so hard. He was…” Michael stopped to take a harsh breath, and Brian looked at Justin and Belle again, his heart clenching in his chest, his throat burning with the lump he couldn’t swallow, and his breath coming in a short, choppy rhythm. When Justin suddenly looked up, his eyes locking on Brian’s, it was almost too much and Brian had to fight the urge to vomit. He put his hand to his mouth, biting his lip, fighting tears, and trying to breathe.
“He was my superhero,” Michael said, and Brian could hear the smile in his voice, even though he couldn’t risk looking up from the ground.
There was a long silence punctuated by noses blowing and then the lesbian buddhist priest said, “Brian, you’re next.”
Brian closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t. Nothing would get into his lungs, and he felt like he might collapse. If that were Justin in the coffin…or Belle…how could he go on? Would he be able to stand there and be as brave as Michael? He couldn’t even do it now for Ben. He shook his head helplessly, and the woman moved on, saying, “Gus? Any words?”
Gus said, “I loved him. He was awesome. He never treated me any different from J.R. It was like I was another one of his kids. I’m going to miss him. He was like a dad to me.”
Brian felt Michael’s arms go around him and he wrapped his around Michael, too, holding on tight, trying to be the strong one and failing, trying not to fall apart.
::::
Afterwards, they piled back to Michael’s house, and when Michael asked for some time alone, Brian stood in the backyard smoking and staring at the red sugar maple by the pond. He could see in through the picture window that Justin and Belle were staying close to Hunter and his wife, Allison. He watched Justin smile at something Hunter said and then reach out to touch his shoulder warmly, offering sympathy and friendship.
“Hey, kiddo,” Debbie said, surprising him.
Brian smiled and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close for a hug. She took his cigarette and inhaled, only coughing a little as she let it out. They stood together in silence for a long time, but Brian knew it couldn’t last.
“I see you looking at him and he’s looking at you, but I don’t see you together,” Deb said. “So, what the fuck’s going on.”
“We’re working it out,” Brian said, evasively.
“Listen to me, Brian. I’ve known you since you were just a little shit jerking off to Patrick Swayze with my Michael, and you know, and I know, that Sunshine in there is the best thing that ever fucking happened to you, and you were an asshole to let him go the first time…and the second time, for that matter.”
Brian smiled, looking at her in amusement.
“Don’t laugh at me, asshole.” She slapped his stomach harder than anyone else would in the same circumstances, and Brian winced. “Don’t mess up your life again. Don’t let him get away. When it comes to the end, don’t be alone. I want someone there for you, like Michael was for Ben, like Hunter will be for Michael. Don’t wind up alone.”
“Deb,” Brian said, softly, thinking of Ben’s empty body as it had rested in the bed, knowing that he’d already gone even as J.R. was strumming him her favorite song that she’d just learned on guitar and had wanted to play for him. “In the end, we’re all alone.”
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “Listen to me, you little shit, you don’t have to do this by yourself.”
He held her close and kissed her hair.
::::
Brian rested his head on the guest bed pillow next to Michael’s. He curled around his friend and held him close, feeling his breathing as familiar as a brother’s. He stroked Michael’s head with one hand and kissed his cheek.
“What are you doing still here,” Michael asked, exhausted and thready.
“Copping a feel from the grieving widow.”
Michael turned and kissed his mouth. “Thank you, but you don’t need to be here anymore. I’ve got Ma, and Hunter and Allison, and Mel and Lindsay, and J.R. and Gus.” He chuckled. “Ben always said this house was big enough to be a hotel but he wanted everyone to have a place they could come home to.”
Brian squeezed gently.
Michael went on, “I love you, and I know you want to be here for me, but you should go home to your family.”
“Who said I had a family?”
Michael ignored him, saying wistfully, “Do you remember when I married Ben and you had that cake sent all the way to Canada?”
Brian nodded, feeling Michael’s stubble scrape along his own where their cheeks were pressed together.
“That was the happiest day of my life. Well, until J.R. came.”
Brian said nothing.
“Go home to your family, Brian.”
Brian kissed him again and breathed in his Mikey-scent. “I love you.”
“Go on. Get out of here.”
He left Michael sitting up in the bed with a half-smile on his face. He said goodnight to Gus and Lindsay. Mel and J.R. were somewhere else in the house, and Brian could hear Michael’s daughter crying from another room. Gus hugged him and said, “I like Justin, Dad. I’m glad I got to meet him.”
“Oh, you’ve met him before,” Lindsay said. “He was there the night you were born.”
Gus looked confused. “Really?”
“Oh, yes,” Lindsay said. “I’m sure Justin would tell you all about it. He named you.”
“He did?”
Brian shook his head, bemused. “Christ, I’d forgotten about that.” He looked at Gus, and really saw him. He had spent years striving, looking for that something big that would give his life meaning and shape, and now in the kitchen of Michael’s home, having just buried his best friend’s lover, he realized that night had been it, and now his son was standing before him in the very shape of those vanished years in between. Brian couldn’t look at Gus (or Belle for that matter) and call it regret, but it sure felt like a lot of wasted time.
He looped his arm around Gus’s neck and whispered in his ear, “I love you. I should say that more often than I fucking do. But I probably won’t…so just don’t forget.”
Gus grabbed him and hugged him hard.
:::::
The directions he’d scribbled from the internet led to a house in a neighborhood of nice older homes, just a few streets over from the run-down lower middle class neighborhood he’d grown up in. It was made of stone and wood, gardens of winter flowers planted to spruce up the place before the snow fell and covered any sign of them.
Brian swung into the drive, jumped from the car, his breath crystallizing in the air around him. The doorbell chimed and Jennifer Taylor opened the door, an expression of surprise and welcome on her face.
“Brian, come on in.” She reached up to kiss his cheek before leading him through a well-appointed living room and toward the kitchen. “We weren’t expecting you.”
Justin and Belle sat at the table pressing dough into Thanksgiving-shaped cookie cutters. Belle was holding up a turkey cookie, making it dance as it fell apart in her hand, laughing, and saying, “Gobble, gobble, Daddy. Gobble, gobble, gobble!”
Justin had a pilgrim in his hand, also still dough and losing its hands. He chased Belle’s turkey with his pilgrim. “Hold still, turkey. I’m going to catch you and eat you! Yum!” His pilgrim attacked Belle’s turkey and there was much laughter as Justin pulled Belle into his lap and planted wild kisses wherever he could reach over her squirming. “Delicious little turkey! A Thanksgiving feast of turkery-girl!”
Belle’s shining eyes landed on him and she shrieked with joy. “Brian!” Her legs hit the floor and like a torpedo she homed in on him, lunging at his legs and almost knocking him over.
Brian knelt down, wrapping her in his arms, burying his nose in her hair, and smelling the odor of sugar cookies and Belle’s own sweet scent.
“Brian,” Justin’s voice surprised but happy. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be with Michael.”
Brian looked up over Belle’s head, met Justin’s gaze, and stood up, leaving Belle trailing behind him, and Jennifer watching from the doorway. He grabbed Justin’s arms, hauled him up from the chair, and kissed him. He broke away long enough to find a door leading to somewhere with some privacy. In three strides, dragging Justin with him, he’d opened the door and pulled Justin in with him.
“Brian,” Justin said, breathlessly. “This is the pantry.” Justin’s hand moved and a long cord was pulled, lighting the small closet Brian had pulled them into.
“Who fucking cares?”
There, amidst the canned goods and sacks of potatoes, Brian cradled Justin’s face, kissed him gently at first, whispering against his lips, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He grabbed Justin’s collar and kissed him roughly, pressing Justin’s body to his own so tightly that Justin’s legs were twined with Brian’s, and they tilted dangerously into the cabinets, knocking some boxes of pasta to the floor.
“All I could think was, what if it were you in that fucking coffin…” Brian whispered, grabbing Justin’s ass and pulling him tight, pressing his hard cock into Justin’s hip.
“Oh,” Justin gasped, his hips grinding rhythmically into Brian’s.
Brian hushed him, humping Justin’s leg, and pulling Justin’s hair as he kissed him again.
Heavy breathing and grunting, food falling to the floor, and the sound of Belle’s voice arguing with Jennifer’s barely cut through Brian’s haze of need, being close to Justin all that he could think about, until they both moaned and came, their mouths open together, breathing one another’s breath.
::::
Jennifer and Belle had left the kitchen when they came out, disheveled and laughing. Justin suggested they both wash off quickly in the kitchen sink, and address the Belle issue, which they could both hear had escalated, before things got more out of hand. (“But I want to see him!” “Grandma already told you, honey, they’re busy talking about grown up things right now.” “Are they playing naked games?” “Excuse me, darling? I don’t think I heard you right.” “Grown up naked games! Are they playing them?” “Let Grandma get a drink, okay?”)
Brian kept his arm around Justin’s shoulders as they entered the living room. Jennifer had a glass of what appeared to be bourbon and was sipping it rapidly, rubbing her eyes, and forcing a smile for Belle as she repeated, “Darling, you’ll have to ask them. I can’t really say. I don’t know what they’re doing in there. And, no, you can’t go knocking right now.”
“Hi,” Brian said.
Belle turned interrogating eyes on them both. “Just you wait! When I’m a grown up and I learn how to play the naked games, you’ll have to let me play, too.”
Jennifer choked on her liquor and Justin’s shoulders started to shake with laughter. Brian said, “I think you’ll change your mind about that one, Belle.”
“Why? Do you have to kiss with your mouth open to do the naked games? I don’t want to do that. Other people’s tongues taste yucky.”
“Whose tongue have you tasted?” Brian asked, immediately, eyes narrowing.
“Janie Bishop at school.”
“Why?” Justin asked, a little too nonchalantly. Brian thought he’d have to up his skill level a little before Belle was an adolescent or she’d be on to him.
“She ate the last cherry sucker and said if I licked her tongue I could have the last taste of it.”
“Did it work?” Justin asked.
“No! It was slimy and gross!”
“Ah,” Justin nodded.
“So, do you?”
“Do you what?” Justin asked, playing dumb.
Belle rolled her eyes. “Do you have to kiss with your mouth open and use tongue to do the naked games?”
“I really think that I should leave you two alone with Belle,” Jennifer said. As she walked out of the room, she turned around, smiled at Justin, and said, “Oh, and darling, just remember…payback.”
“Belle,” Brian said, crossing the room to sit next to her on the couch. “We can answer any questions you have about the naked games, but let’s not do it right now, okay?”
Justin sat down next to Brian and said, “Yes, why don’t you take the next few days to think of everything you might want to ask, and then when we’re home in New York, we’ll talk about it. Okay?”
“Why can’t we talk about it now?”
Justin said, “Brian and Daddy’s friend just died and we’re sad. Especially Brian. He loved his friend very much.”
Belle’s eyes grew concerned, and she climbed into Brian’s lap, straddling him so that she could put her hands on either side of his face. “Does it hurt in your heart, Brian?” she asked.
His throat tightened and he was surprised that his lips trembled. Belle’s fingers touched his mouth, and her eyebrows drew down. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then whispered, “I used to have a Strawberry Shortcake bandaid that always made me feel better, but it came off at the pool and I lost it.”
“Yeah?” Brian whispered.
“I wish I had it. I would give it to you. It would help your heart a lot.”
“That would have been nice,” Brian said.
“We could pretend,” Belle said, her face brightening. She went through some elaborate hand motions, pretending to open a bandaid, and then pressed her hands against Brian’s chest. “There!”
Brian held her hand there for a few moments and then brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Thank you, Belle. I feel better already.”
::::
Brian lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling of Jennifer Taylor’s guest room bed. On the opposite side, he could hear Justin’s soft snores, and familiar sleep sounds. In the middle, there was a small girl with shampoo-fresh hair and soft pajamas with feet. Brian listed to the sounds of them breathing, watching the lights from cars passing by outside.
Somewhere, on Liberty Avenue, the next Brian Kinney was picking out which guy to fuck next. He was probably dancing, or snorting drugs, or getting his dick sucked by some guy whose name he didn’t know. But, if he was really fortunate, he might also be walking out of the club with someone he didn’t plan to meet, going home with a guy who would take his breath away, discovering a fuck that he didn’t want to end. And if he was really fucking fortunate, the guy the next Brian Kinney took home might feel the same way.
And, if the next Brian Kinney ever managed to kick down the doors to his prison cell, the next Brian Kinney might someday find himself almost forty-five years old, in his lover’s mother’s guest room bed, with a kid next to him, and his lover snoring in sleep.
Brian hoped the next Brian Kinney would be so lucky.
::::
Epilogue:
Belle’s mouth was open as she slept in her booster seat in the back of Justin’s rental car. They were parked at the edge of a cliff that Brian had once planned to drive off of years ago in another life. They’d been sitting for quite some time in silence, crappy Christmas carols on the radio, the only thing they’d been able to get on the car stereo at this altitude.
Brian had been thinking of it for days now, and it wasn’t just because the last email that Ted had sent with its buried nugget of AA wisdom had truly hit home to him: the more you have on the inside, the less you need on the outside.
Belle and Justin were leaving for New York tomorrow while Brian stayed behind to wrap up a few things at Kinnetik, sign a few documents to make Natalie Johnson the official attorney in fact for all decisions regarding Babylon. He wanted to do it now, with Belle in the car, and the city glowing white in front of them. He wanted to do it in the darkness not because he didn’t want Justin to see his face, but because what he wanted to say was part of that secret mystery of life, like the moon’s scarred face or the shadows at night.
He turned to face Justin, getting his surprised attention. He took Justin’s head and said, “So, if you’ll have me, I’d like you to be my husband.”
Justin made a garbled swallowing noise that ended with a strange whispered yelp.
“Is that a no?”
Justin sputtered, and reached up to bang on the light in the car, staring at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious. You’re just saying this because Ben died and you’re freaked out.”
Brian grabbed Justin’s hand tighter and leaned in. “I’m saying this because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, because when I die I want Belle to be able to say that I was like a dad to her. Because when I was standing there next to Ben’s casket and thinking of if it were you, I thought I was going to stop breathing, it had me so fucking scared.”
Justin blinked and pulled his hand away. “And these seem like good reasons to get married to you?”
“Don’t they seem like good reasons to you?” Brian said, his voice shaking with his sincerity.
“It sounds to me like you’re scared and wanting to hold onto something.”
“I thought you said you knew me longer than I’ve known myself,” Brian said. “If that’s true, then you already know that I’ve never held on to anything or anyone out of fucking fear. I hold on despite it.”
Justin looked up at him, eyes full of fear and hope.
“When I think of you or Belle in that coffin, I want to run away from you so fucking fast. I want to never see either of you again. That’s the first thing that I comes to my fucking mind, Justin. I look at Michael and how much pain he’s in, and my first fucking thought is that if I never love anyone that much, then it won’t happen to me.”
Justin swallowed audibly, looking away again, staring out the front window of the car. “And your second thought?” he asked.
“My second thought is that it is too fucking late for that.”
Justin smiled softly and looked down at his hands. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Belle shifted in the backseat and they both looked over their shoulders at her, but she was still asleep.
“Justin, just say you’ll marry me. You don’t have to go through with it now, or even ever, but for now, just say fucking yes.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
“Do it? I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” Justin laughed and Brian grabbed his head and pulled him across the gear shift, kissing him until they were both laughing and breathless.
::::
The End
(A sequel shall be forthcoming!)
::::
Into My Arms: Part Four
It seemed to Brian that death could move in slow motion, taking and taking, until nothing was left but something empty and open, like a gate to endless lucid blue skies and vast distances that not even birds know. Ben was like that now—a terrible, measureless emptiness disguised as a body in a bed; a body that had once been a baby, held close by his mother, and later a boy, the size of Belle, and God only knows what Ben was like then. Later, his body was loved and cherished by Michael. Ben, yes, he’d even been a body that Brian himself once fucked, and now that same body housed nothing but breath and heartbeats. Brian sat in the room with that shell only because Michael was there and Michael needed him.
The house was full of people now; Lindsay, Mel, Gus, and Jenny Rebecca had arrived in the morning, and when Brian had shown up sometime just after noon with bagels and coffee, everyone had been sitting around the kitchen table looking blank and well-scrubbed by recent tears.
Brian had greeted Gus with a silent hug, and he’d held on tight while Gus had struggled to keep his newly acquired manly composure. His son was as tall as him now, and had a beard now, early for his age, and a strong body, muscled like he’d been lifting weights.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call like I told your mother. I got the call to come here and it got away from me,” Brian said, keeping his arm around Gus’s shoulder.
“S’okay. It’s not like I’m not used to you forgetting to call.”
Brian breathed through the punch of shame in his gut. He put his other hand on Gus’s shoulders, too, and said, “Those other times weren’t okay, either. Gus, I’m sorry.”
Gus didn’t meet his eyes and Brian had to duck down to get Gus to look at him. “You don’t have to accept my apology, but I want you to know that I am sorry.”
“Okay,” Gus replied, shoving some hair out of his eyes, and moving out of Brian’s grasp.
Brian let it go at that; there was too much stress in the house to try to make his entire crappy career as an absentee father right with his son; besides, some things couldn’t be made right. Some things you had to just learn to carry the weight of without asking someone else to relieve you of the burden with a few empty words of forgiveness.
Brian had leaned against the kitchen counter, another cup of coffee in his hands, stooped over with exhaustion. “Where’s Deb?” he asked.
“She had to go home to check on Carl,” Lindsay offered, spreading some jam on toast for Jenny Rebecca, who sat at the table next to her mothers looking solemn and shocked. “He’s still suffering from gout, you know.”
“And Emmett?” Brian asked. He already knew that Ted was at the office but was planning on coming over after his meeting with the execs from Whittaker and Sons to say his final goodbyes.
“He’s stuck in an airport in Tampa,” Mel said, rolling her eyes.
“Drew was doing the announcing for the Buckaneers but now there is a hurricane coming through and all the flights are canceled and the rental cars are all gone in like a fifty mile radius,” Gus contributed.
Brian nodded, his eyes on Jenny Rebecca. She was ten now, short and thin, with a butch-dyke haircut that Brian suspected Mel convinced her to get. She preferred the nickname J.R., and was wearing a pair of jeans that looked nearly dirty and a plaid button down shirt which barely covered a t-shirt emblazoned with “Baby Dyke”. Despite the provocative shirt, J.R. looked every bit her age with dark eyes wide open and frightened, her face pale, and her fingers held onto her glass of milk a little too tightly like she feared that it might slip and break.
Brian cleared his throat, uncomfortable, wishing that he could bring her some kind of comfort or hope, but he’d never been involved much in her life, and like the situation with Gus, now wasn’t the time to try to change that.
“Michael?” Brian asked, nodding towards the hallway leading to Ben’s rooms.
“He’s been back there most of the morning,” Lindsay said, her eyes darting to Mel and then the children, as though she wasn’t sure what to say in front of them.
“He doesn’t want to leave. He’s afraid Ben’s gonna die when he’s not around,” Gus said, and Lindsay looked surprised, as though she hadn’t expected him to know that. “What?” Gus asked. “It’s obvious. Besides,” he looked away, shoving hair out of his eyes. “That’s how I’d feel if I were him.”
Brian closed his eyes and let his chin fall to his chest, a sudden pain wracking through him along with flashes of a baseball bat, blood in blond hair, the smell of hospital corridors, sterile and sick, and most of all, the feeling of a soft, bloodstained scarf around his neck.
Brian shoved away from the counter and turned to walk down the hall. Lindsay’s hand on his arm surprised him, but he let her hold him back long enough from him to say, “Someone needs to be there for him. It needs to be me.”
Lindsay glanced back around the kitchen, and Brian followed her eyes, saw Mel shake her head in disgust and shrug. Linsday let go of his arm and said, “Be gentle with him, Brian. He’s in pain.”
“Don’t you think I fucking know that,” Brian whispered, and it sounded like a bark instead of his voice.
“I do know that you know that. I just wanted to remind you. He’s so delicate right now; it scares me.” She tilted her head and he felt his mouth start to tremble with his own repressed tears. “I think it scares all of us, even you. Maybe, even, especially you.”
Brian swallowed and nodded.
When he’d knocked softly on Ben’s door, he waited until he heard Michael say that he could come in.
He sat there for hours with Michael, watching him go back and forth from a strange absent stare to tears that he wiped on his sleeve. Brian touched him when he knew he should, but otherwise he just waited.
At one point he heard Debbie in the hallway and he looked at Michael, saw the answer he needed, and headed out to meet her. “How is he?” she asked, her voice soft with concern.
Brian shook his head, and when she started to push past him, Brian had to grab her arm.
“Deb,” he said and he looked at her tenderly, telling her with his eyes what he knew she wouldn’t want to hear.
Her mouth opened and closed, and she looked toward the door of Ben’s bedroom with an expression of hurt and determination on her face.
“Deb,” he said again, and shook his head. “Don’t make this harder. He doesn’t want you there for this part. He wants to do it alone.”
The hospice nurse, who had entered just before Brian left to check on Ben’s vitals again, joined them in the hallway and said, “It shouldn’t be long now. Michael asked that we all wait in the living room.”
::::
Brian stood on the porch of Michael and Ben’s home, smoking a cigarette and gazing at the edges of the darkening and relentlessly denying sky; the sun faded early on the horizon of the winter day. He watched as the stars started to come out, thinking of the vastness of them, the gate that Ben’s soul had already stepped through, and he wished that he could pray. Instead, he tossed the cigarette aside and took a deep breath of the cold air, feeling it carve cleanly into his lungs, bringing tears to his eyes.
He heard them stirring inside and he opened the door, entered the living room, and saw Michael standing in the doorway to the hall, arms crossed on his chest, his expression shocked,surprised, as though even to the last he had been unable to believe.
“He’s gone,” Michael said, and then slid to the floor.
::::
The funeral took place on a bitingly cold day. The service was held in at the GLBT center as Ben had arranged. Afterwards, only a few of them took the long trek to the cemetery to see the body descend into the earth.
Justin and Jennifer held Belle’s hands firmly and Justin bent to speak quietly in her ear. She wore a black dress, black mittens, and black ear muffs; her dark curls hung down her back, and her big brown eyes would occasionally meet Brian’s in concern and confusion, and then look away.
Brian stood across from them, keeping his vigil next to Michael. The coffin was black and simple, and Brian remembered that he’d been surprised that Ben had gone the route of burial instead of cremation, but Ben had explained that Michael wanted them to be buried together, forever. Together in decay, together until some archeologists dug up their bones in a couple thousand years.
Michael held up bravely as the lesbian buddhist monk presiding said a few words, and then asked that each of them in turn to say something about Ben before the coffin was lowered into the ground. Michael stepped forward first, and Brian tried to pull him back, but Michael shook Brian’s hand off of his arm. “No, let me,” he said. “I want to do this.”
Brian met Justin’s eyes and his stomach clenched.
“Ben was my partner, my husband, but he was more than that,” Michael began, his voice quivering. “He supported me in everything I did. He was my co-parent, my lover, my best friend. He was the person that I always wanted to see when I woke up in the morning, the person that I knew would laugh at my jokes, and tell me that he loved me.”
Brian stared at Justin, whose eyes moved between Ben’s coffin and Michael’s face.
“He was a dad to my J.R. and he was the one who brought us Hunter,” Michael looked at Hunter and despite his trembling lips and breaking voice, he smiled.
Brian looked at Belle, standing so quietly by Justin’s side, her eyes taking in everything, her cheeks flush with the cold.
“Ben was everything to me, and watching him go was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Michael’s voice cracked completely and he had to hold back a sob. Brian reached for him again, but Michael brushed him off. “But I was there until the end. He fought so hard. He was…” Michael stopped to take a harsh breath, and Brian looked at Justin and Belle again, his heart clenching in his chest, his throat burning with the lump he couldn’t swallow, and his breath coming in a short, choppy rhythm. When Justin suddenly looked up, his eyes locking on Brian’s, it was almost too much and Brian had to fight the urge to vomit. He put his hand to his mouth, biting his lip, fighting tears, and trying to breathe.
“He was my superhero,” Michael said, and Brian could hear the smile in his voice, even though he couldn’t risk looking up from the ground.
There was a long silence punctuated by noses blowing and then the lesbian buddhist priest said, “Brian, you’re next.”
Brian closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t. Nothing would get into his lungs, and he felt like he might collapse. If that were Justin in the coffin…or Belle…how could he go on? Would he be able to stand there and be as brave as Michael? He couldn’t even do it now for Ben. He shook his head helplessly, and the woman moved on, saying, “Gus? Any words?”
Gus said, “I loved him. He was awesome. He never treated me any different from J.R. It was like I was another one of his kids. I’m going to miss him. He was like a dad to me.”
Brian felt Michael’s arms go around him and he wrapped his around Michael, too, holding on tight, trying to be the strong one and failing, trying not to fall apart.
::::
Afterwards, they piled back to Michael’s house, and when Michael asked for some time alone, Brian stood in the backyard smoking and staring at the red sugar maple by the pond. He could see in through the picture window that Justin and Belle were staying close to Hunter and his wife, Allison. He watched Justin smile at something Hunter said and then reach out to touch his shoulder warmly, offering sympathy and friendship.
“Hey, kiddo,” Debbie said, surprising him.
Brian smiled and wrapped her in his arms, pulling her close for a hug. She took his cigarette and inhaled, only coughing a little as she let it out. They stood together in silence for a long time, but Brian knew it couldn’t last.
“I see you looking at him and he’s looking at you, but I don’t see you together,” Deb said. “So, what the fuck’s going on.”
“We’re working it out,” Brian said, evasively.
“Listen to me, Brian. I’ve known you since you were just a little shit jerking off to Patrick Swayze with my Michael, and you know, and I know, that Sunshine in there is the best thing that ever fucking happened to you, and you were an asshole to let him go the first time…and the second time, for that matter.”
Brian smiled, looking at her in amusement.
“Don’t laugh at me, asshole.” She slapped his stomach harder than anyone else would in the same circumstances, and Brian winced. “Don’t mess up your life again. Don’t let him get away. When it comes to the end, don’t be alone. I want someone there for you, like Michael was for Ben, like Hunter will be for Michael. Don’t wind up alone.”
“Deb,” Brian said, softly, thinking of Ben’s empty body as it had rested in the bed, knowing that he’d already gone even as J.R. was strumming him her favorite song that she’d just learned on guitar and had wanted to play for him. “In the end, we’re all alone.”
She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. “Listen to me, you little shit, you don’t have to do this by yourself.”
He held her close and kissed her hair.
::::
Brian rested his head on the guest bed pillow next to Michael’s. He curled around his friend and held him close, feeling his breathing as familiar as a brother’s. He stroked Michael’s head with one hand and kissed his cheek.
“What are you doing still here,” Michael asked, exhausted and thready.
“Copping a feel from the grieving widow.”
Michael turned and kissed his mouth. “Thank you, but you don’t need to be here anymore. I’ve got Ma, and Hunter and Allison, and Mel and Lindsay, and J.R. and Gus.” He chuckled. “Ben always said this house was big enough to be a hotel but he wanted everyone to have a place they could come home to.”
Brian squeezed gently.
Michael went on, “I love you, and I know you want to be here for me, but you should go home to your family.”
“Who said I had a family?”
Michael ignored him, saying wistfully, “Do you remember when I married Ben and you had that cake sent all the way to Canada?”
Brian nodded, feeling Michael’s stubble scrape along his own where their cheeks were pressed together.
“That was the happiest day of my life. Well, until J.R. came.”
Brian said nothing.
“Go home to your family, Brian.”
Brian kissed him again and breathed in his Mikey-scent. “I love you.”
“Go on. Get out of here.”
He left Michael sitting up in the bed with a half-smile on his face. He said goodnight to Gus and Lindsay. Mel and J.R. were somewhere else in the house, and Brian could hear Michael’s daughter crying from another room. Gus hugged him and said, “I like Justin, Dad. I’m glad I got to meet him.”
“Oh, you’ve met him before,” Lindsay said. “He was there the night you were born.”
Gus looked confused. “Really?”
“Oh, yes,” Lindsay said. “I’m sure Justin would tell you all about it. He named you.”
“He did?”
Brian shook his head, bemused. “Christ, I’d forgotten about that.” He looked at Gus, and really saw him. He had spent years striving, looking for that something big that would give his life meaning and shape, and now in the kitchen of Michael’s home, having just buried his best friend’s lover, he realized that night had been it, and now his son was standing before him in the very shape of those vanished years in between. Brian couldn’t look at Gus (or Belle for that matter) and call it regret, but it sure felt like a lot of wasted time.
He looped his arm around Gus’s neck and whispered in his ear, “I love you. I should say that more often than I fucking do. But I probably won’t…so just don’t forget.”
Gus grabbed him and hugged him hard.
:::::
The directions he’d scribbled from the internet led to a house in a neighborhood of nice older homes, just a few streets over from the run-down lower middle class neighborhood he’d grown up in. It was made of stone and wood, gardens of winter flowers planted to spruce up the place before the snow fell and covered any sign of them.
Brian swung into the drive, jumped from the car, his breath crystallizing in the air around him. The doorbell chimed and Jennifer Taylor opened the door, an expression of surprise and welcome on her face.
“Brian, come on in.” She reached up to kiss his cheek before leading him through a well-appointed living room and toward the kitchen. “We weren’t expecting you.”
Justin and Belle sat at the table pressing dough into Thanksgiving-shaped cookie cutters. Belle was holding up a turkey cookie, making it dance as it fell apart in her hand, laughing, and saying, “Gobble, gobble, Daddy. Gobble, gobble, gobble!”
Justin had a pilgrim in his hand, also still dough and losing its hands. He chased Belle’s turkey with his pilgrim. “Hold still, turkey. I’m going to catch you and eat you! Yum!” His pilgrim attacked Belle’s turkey and there was much laughter as Justin pulled Belle into his lap and planted wild kisses wherever he could reach over her squirming. “Delicious little turkey! A Thanksgiving feast of turkery-girl!”
Belle’s shining eyes landed on him and she shrieked with joy. “Brian!” Her legs hit the floor and like a torpedo she homed in on him, lunging at his legs and almost knocking him over.
Brian knelt down, wrapping her in his arms, burying his nose in her hair, and smelling the odor of sugar cookies and Belle’s own sweet scent.
“Brian,” Justin’s voice surprised but happy. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be with Michael.”
Brian looked up over Belle’s head, met Justin’s gaze, and stood up, leaving Belle trailing behind him, and Jennifer watching from the doorway. He grabbed Justin’s arms, hauled him up from the chair, and kissed him. He broke away long enough to find a door leading to somewhere with some privacy. In three strides, dragging Justin with him, he’d opened the door and pulled Justin in with him.
“Brian,” Justin said, breathlessly. “This is the pantry.” Justin’s hand moved and a long cord was pulled, lighting the small closet Brian had pulled them into.
“Who fucking cares?”
There, amidst the canned goods and sacks of potatoes, Brian cradled Justin’s face, kissed him gently at first, whispering against his lips, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He grabbed Justin’s collar and kissed him roughly, pressing Justin’s body to his own so tightly that Justin’s legs were twined with Brian’s, and they tilted dangerously into the cabinets, knocking some boxes of pasta to the floor.
“All I could think was, what if it were you in that fucking coffin…” Brian whispered, grabbing Justin’s ass and pulling him tight, pressing his hard cock into Justin’s hip.
“Oh,” Justin gasped, his hips grinding rhythmically into Brian’s.
Brian hushed him, humping Justin’s leg, and pulling Justin’s hair as he kissed him again.
Heavy breathing and grunting, food falling to the floor, and the sound of Belle’s voice arguing with Jennifer’s barely cut through Brian’s haze of need, being close to Justin all that he could think about, until they both moaned and came, their mouths open together, breathing one another’s breath.
::::
Jennifer and Belle had left the kitchen when they came out, disheveled and laughing. Justin suggested they both wash off quickly in the kitchen sink, and address the Belle issue, which they could both hear had escalated, before things got more out of hand. (“But I want to see him!” “Grandma already told you, honey, they’re busy talking about grown up things right now.” “Are they playing naked games?” “Excuse me, darling? I don’t think I heard you right.” “Grown up naked games! Are they playing them?” “Let Grandma get a drink, okay?”)
Brian kept his arm around Justin’s shoulders as they entered the living room. Jennifer had a glass of what appeared to be bourbon and was sipping it rapidly, rubbing her eyes, and forcing a smile for Belle as she repeated, “Darling, you’ll have to ask them. I can’t really say. I don’t know what they’re doing in there. And, no, you can’t go knocking right now.”
“Hi,” Brian said.
Belle turned interrogating eyes on them both. “Just you wait! When I’m a grown up and I learn how to play the naked games, you’ll have to let me play, too.”
Jennifer choked on her liquor and Justin’s shoulders started to shake with laughter. Brian said, “I think you’ll change your mind about that one, Belle.”
“Why? Do you have to kiss with your mouth open to do the naked games? I don’t want to do that. Other people’s tongues taste yucky.”
“Whose tongue have you tasted?” Brian asked, immediately, eyes narrowing.
“Janie Bishop at school.”
“Why?” Justin asked, a little too nonchalantly. Brian thought he’d have to up his skill level a little before Belle was an adolescent or she’d be on to him.
“She ate the last cherry sucker and said if I licked her tongue I could have the last taste of it.”
“Did it work?” Justin asked.
“No! It was slimy and gross!”
“Ah,” Justin nodded.
“So, do you?”
“Do you what?” Justin asked, playing dumb.
Belle rolled her eyes. “Do you have to kiss with your mouth open and use tongue to do the naked games?”
“I really think that I should leave you two alone with Belle,” Jennifer said. As she walked out of the room, she turned around, smiled at Justin, and said, “Oh, and darling, just remember…payback.”
“Belle,” Brian said, crossing the room to sit next to her on the couch. “We can answer any questions you have about the naked games, but let’s not do it right now, okay?”
Justin sat down next to Brian and said, “Yes, why don’t you take the next few days to think of everything you might want to ask, and then when we’re home in New York, we’ll talk about it. Okay?”
“Why can’t we talk about it now?”
Justin said, “Brian and Daddy’s friend just died and we’re sad. Especially Brian. He loved his friend very much.”
Belle’s eyes grew concerned, and she climbed into Brian’s lap, straddling him so that she could put her hands on either side of his face. “Does it hurt in your heart, Brian?” she asked.
His throat tightened and he was surprised that his lips trembled. Belle’s fingers touched his mouth, and her eyebrows drew down. She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, then whispered, “I used to have a Strawberry Shortcake bandaid that always made me feel better, but it came off at the pool and I lost it.”
“Yeah?” Brian whispered.
“I wish I had it. I would give it to you. It would help your heart a lot.”
“That would have been nice,” Brian said.
“We could pretend,” Belle said, her face brightening. She went through some elaborate hand motions, pretending to open a bandaid, and then pressed her hands against Brian’s chest. “There!”
Brian held her hand there for a few moments and then brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Thank you, Belle. I feel better already.”
::::
Brian lay in the dark, staring up at the ceiling of Jennifer Taylor’s guest room bed. On the opposite side, he could hear Justin’s soft snores, and familiar sleep sounds. In the middle, there was a small girl with shampoo-fresh hair and soft pajamas with feet. Brian listed to the sounds of them breathing, watching the lights from cars passing by outside.
Somewhere, on Liberty Avenue, the next Brian Kinney was picking out which guy to fuck next. He was probably dancing, or snorting drugs, or getting his dick sucked by some guy whose name he didn’t know. But, if he was really fortunate, he might also be walking out of the club with someone he didn’t plan to meet, going home with a guy who would take his breath away, discovering a fuck that he didn’t want to end. And if he was really fucking fortunate, the guy the next Brian Kinney took home might feel the same way.
And, if the next Brian Kinney ever managed to kick down the doors to his prison cell, the next Brian Kinney might someday find himself almost forty-five years old, in his lover’s mother’s guest room bed, with a kid next to him, and his lover snoring in sleep.
Brian hoped the next Brian Kinney would be so lucky.
::::
Epilogue:
Belle’s mouth was open as she slept in her booster seat in the back of Justin’s rental car. They were parked at the edge of a cliff that Brian had once planned to drive off of years ago in another life. They’d been sitting for quite some time in silence, crappy Christmas carols on the radio, the only thing they’d been able to get on the car stereo at this altitude.
Brian had been thinking of it for days now, and it wasn’t just because the last email that Ted had sent with its buried nugget of AA wisdom had truly hit home to him: the more you have on the inside, the less you need on the outside.
Belle and Justin were leaving for New York tomorrow while Brian stayed behind to wrap up a few things at Kinnetik, sign a few documents to make Natalie Johnson the official attorney in fact for all decisions regarding Babylon. He wanted to do it now, with Belle in the car, and the city glowing white in front of them. He wanted to do it in the darkness not because he didn’t want Justin to see his face, but because what he wanted to say was part of that secret mystery of life, like the moon’s scarred face or the shadows at night.
He turned to face Justin, getting his surprised attention. He took Justin’s head and said, “So, if you’ll have me, I’d like you to be my husband.”
Justin made a garbled swallowing noise that ended with a strange whispered yelp.
“Is that a no?”
Justin sputtered, and reached up to bang on the light in the car, staring at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious. You’re just saying this because Ben died and you’re freaked out.”
Brian grabbed Justin’s hand tighter and leaned in. “I’m saying this because I want to spend the rest of my life with you, because when I die I want Belle to be able to say that I was like a dad to her. Because when I was standing there next to Ben’s casket and thinking of if it were you, I thought I was going to stop breathing, it had me so fucking scared.”
Justin blinked and pulled his hand away. “And these seem like good reasons to get married to you?”
“Don’t they seem like good reasons to you?” Brian said, his voice shaking with his sincerity.
“It sounds to me like you’re scared and wanting to hold onto something.”
“I thought you said you knew me longer than I’ve known myself,” Brian said. “If that’s true, then you already know that I’ve never held on to anything or anyone out of fucking fear. I hold on despite it.”
Justin looked up at him, eyes full of fear and hope.
“When I think of you or Belle in that coffin, I want to run away from you so fucking fast. I want to never see either of you again. That’s the first thing that I comes to my fucking mind, Justin. I look at Michael and how much pain he’s in, and my first fucking thought is that if I never love anyone that much, then it won’t happen to me.”
Justin swallowed audibly, looking away again, staring out the front window of the car. “And your second thought?” he asked.
“My second thought is that it is too fucking late for that.”
Justin smiled softly and looked down at his hands. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Belle shifted in the backseat and they both looked over their shoulders at her, but she was still asleep.
“Justin, just say you’ll marry me. You don’t have to go through with it now, or even ever, but for now, just say fucking yes.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, let’s do it.”
“Do it? I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” Justin laughed and Brian grabbed his head and pulled him across the gear shift, kissing him until they were both laughing and breathless.
::::
The End
(A sequel shall be forthcoming!)