The next morning, Brian wakes up early, runs a mile on his treadmill, shaves and showers and puts on a good suit. He buttons the jacket over the scarf, thoroughly smoothing out the lump. Then he goes to work.
He explains his absence with, "Something came up." It goes unchallenged. Most of his day consists of wooing a potential client, which he does in suave words and fancy presentations and finally in an unused office, where he cinches the deal with a cool look and a condom. Afterwards the client is disheveled, embarrassed, half in love. Brian buttons his pants and does the commission calculations in his head.
(He ponders insurance premiums, existing coverage, bills for long-time care.)
He leaves work early, which would get anyone else fired, but he's the company hero and his boss knows it. While his coworkers slump at their desks he goes to Woody's. It takes him exactly ten minutes and one point five drinks before he leaves again, attractive stranger in tow.
The guy is toned and tanned and spikes his dark hair with too much gel. He does what they all do and oohs over Brian's loft. And Brian does what he always does, which is to make witty one-liners without listening to himself speak.
The sex is good. The sex is usually good. And the man looks nothing like Justin.
It goes wrong only towards the end, when he's changing the sheets. For some reason the stranger hasn't left yet, even though he's fully dressed. Instead he taps Brian's shoulder and asks why he'd taken off all his clothes but kept that filthy scarf around his neck.
Brian grabs him by his cheap lapels and drags him through the apartment, almost cheerful as he dumps him in the hallway and closes the door on his squawking.
Later, he goes to the hospital. He makes an arrangement with a sympathetic nurse and stands out in the hall, watching through the glass, long after visiting hours are done. Justin's parents sit with him in shifts, but there's an hour or so around one in the morning where both of them are asleep elsewhere and he can keep guard undisturbed.
The nurse tells him that Justin's coma is now medically induced. He asks her without looking away from the bed about recovery chances, and he likes her because she doesn't feed him hopeful-Michael-platitudes. She tells him frankly that they won't know until Justin wakes up, but he could be brain damaged. He might not know how to walk or talk. He might not remember anyone.
Brian nods. The sight of Justin buried by all those machines is no less jarring, but he's better prepared for it now. That isn't really the kid in there, he thinks, not all of him, and he pats the scarf.
Next morning, Brian wakes up early, runs on his treadmill, goes to work, does everything much the same except he doesn't fuck anyone in the office. His cell phone is overwhelmed with voicemail, mostly from Mikey: where is he? Why isn't he at the hospital? Justin would want him there, even his mom agrees. Eventually Brian turns his phone off. He leaves work exactly on time and heads for Woody's.
And later, he goes to the hospital.
The night nurses learn to expect him. They make a fresh pot of coffee when he arrives and don't say anything when he pulls out a flask and spikes it. He promises to sue them for slander if they tell Justin's parents or his friends that he comes by.
He memorizes the colors of the machines if not the noises, for he never steps inside the room. Never stands at the bed, touching Justin's hand, watching for a response. Mostly he's quiet out in the hallway, but there are occasional triggers: an orderly comes at an unexpected hour to change the catheter and it seems so invasive, so insulting. Willful Justin is helpless before those prodding hands. Anyone could touch him.
Brian thinks he sounds perfectly calm when he tells the orderly to fuck off, and thinks he sounds calmer still when he tries to take a swing at a security guard. Fortunately the sympathetic night nurse has been watching him forgo the coffee and drink straight from the flask for the past hour. She lets him back in the building the next night, clearly unamused.
"Why are you wearing that?" she asks him later, because he's taken off his jacket and the scarf ends are resting against his stomach as usual. "Looks like a health hazard."
"It brings out the color in my eyes," he says. For some reason he isn't bothered when she asks. It feels right to have it visible here, where he can see it, where Justin can see it should he wake up. So they can both remember what Brian Kinney is.
Justin, in pieces. Justin the romantic. Brian watches the machines flash, breathing with their warning rhythm. It was a stupid prom, and before that a stupid fuck. Why does it have to have any goddamn meaning? Brian knows his uses. He can throw money at any problem and convince any company that only he knows how to sell them, he can pick up any pretty young twink he wants—but he can't stand fussing in a hospital. He can't play nervous husband. He can't.
"You got a reason why you come here in the middle of the night and hang out in the hall?" asks the nurse.
"Don't you have bed sheets to change?"
"Yeah, his." She pauses. "You ought to go in there, let him know you're with him. Hold his hand."
Brian says, "I already am," and presses his thumb into the largest stain.
-i-
Almost two weeks go by, and he remembers very little of them, because the routine is so familiar: treadmill, work, sex, Justin. He survives on three or four hours of sleep a night. After the first week he starts seeing Ted and Emmett at Woody's and Babylon. They clearly don't know what to say to him, and he for his part only sneers. His friends, sure. But friendship is not one of Brian's uses.
He overhears Emmett reasoning out his presence at the club, attempting some theory on hospital fears and sex-in-denial. But he says it to soothe himself, not Brian. To make excuses for the friendship. Brian has always been ruthlessly honest. Denial is pointless.
He's tired. He's angry. He wants to fuck. And he's making sure to evade Michael. Ted and Emmett, fine, whatever. They can rationalize him all they want, and he couldn't really give a shit. Mikey is different. So he doesn't answer his phone when Michael calls, and he doesn't answer the door when Michael knocks, and he avoids the diner.
Almost two weeks, and then one night he walks to the room Justin shares with other patients (other dying rejects, he thinks unkindly) and sees through the window that the bed is stripped. The machines are all off, and without their flashing he has nothing with which to time his breathing. Justin's scarf tightens around his throat.
"Hey," a woman calls, and he turns so off-balance he stumbles. The machines are off. The machines should not be off. He cannot stop this—
"He's not in there," says the night nurse behind him, regarding him with an unreadable look. "They moved him to his own room."
"And why," he asks, "would they do that?"
"Didn't someone tell you? He woke up this morning. The doctors thought he should have some privacy."
Brian taps his fingers against his hip. He must be very careful, very calm, and indeed there's only the slightest quiver of his eyebrow to suggest otherwise. "Woke up," he repeats, and remembers that his phone's been off all day.
The nurse says, "I'll take you to his new room if you want. He's probably asleep by now."
"Then I guess there's no point in me dropping by, huh? Just my luck, there's a wet T-shirt contest at Babylon tonight."
The nurse lets him walk a step or two and then calls, "He remembers you, in case you're wondering."
Brian stops.
"There's some short-term memory loss," she continues, "and some issues with his arm. Speech is pretty stilted but that's normal. He might get back to a hundred percent with physical therapy or he might not. Hard to say."
"He's a stubborn little bastard," Brian murmurs. "Does he remember anything about…?"
"As far as he's concerned, one minute he's trying on his tux and then next he's waking up in a hospital bed with the world's worst headache. Has no idea what happened to him."
"Good. Bad memories are bullshit." The scarf is still too tight around his neck. He reaches to pull it off, but thinks better of it. Thinks of several other things, in rapid succession: Justin slurring his words. Justin relearning to walk. Justin broken beyond what can be healed.
He leaves the scarf alone and heads for the door.
Annoyingly, the night nurse follows after him. "His room's the other way," she says.
"Someone somewhere must need a bedpan cleaned. I'd hate to be a distraction."
"Shut up," she says lightly. "You owe me. I shouldn't be telling you any of this. You're not his parents. Or wife."
"Thank God for that."
"Not to mention…"
"Oh, I'm sure you will."
"Your friend was complaining about you when I started my shift. About how you're frightened but won't admit it. Let me tell you, I was so close to telling him about these night sessions. Would have really ruined your reputation."
Brian glares at her. "I'm not frightened of anything," he says. "The kid was attacked. I wanted to make sure he was as strong as I thought. And what do you know? I was right." He's back in the lobby now, the exit only a few easy steps away. "His mom can hover over his bedside. Wouldn't do him any good to have another body in the way."
The nurse stops walking. '"The kid' asked for you," she says to his back.
Brian's hand is on the door handle. "Did he."
"First thing out of his mouth. His mom was with him, but he didn't say anything to her, not right away. 'Where's Brian?' That's what he wanted to know."
His free hand is on the scarf again. Where's Brian? Right where he belongs, with the damaged parts.
"And then all your friends came by, and he asked them. 'Where's Brian? Is he coming?' No one knew what to tell him."
"Tell him I'm getting my dick sucked at Babylon with the rest of these people. Tell him to get better real fast so he can come find me and take over."
"Why not tell him yourself?"
"You said he's sleeping."
Her eyes narrow. "I'll look the other way if you wake him up."
"Tsk tsk, and this substandard care is what my tax dollars are getting?"
"You should stay."
"I'm not his boyfriend."
"He asked for you."
"Yeah." Brian shoves open the door. "Did he slur it?"
From outside he can't hear her response. The spring heat bites through his jacket and into his skin. The scarf rests against him, keeping him warm.
-i-
"Asshole!"
It is—when? What day again? Brian has to blink a few times to remember that, oh yes, it's four-thirty in the morning and he's sprawled on his couch with a man moving between his naked legs. Justin woke up. Brian has just now thought to turn his phone back on, and it takes all of five seconds to go off. The guy sucking him off looks peeved, but things stop mattering when you're as high as Brian's gotten.
"'lo?" he says, holding the phone too close to his ear. "Mikey? That you?"
"Of course it's me. Where have you been? I've been trying to call you for days."
"Phone died."
"Justin's awake. You know, Justin, that teenager you've been screwing who's madly in love with you? The one who got his head bashed in at the prom you crashed?"
"The name rings a, mmh, bell." He grins into the phone, arches his hips. "Keep going," he tells whoever-the-fuck.
"It would've been nice if you'd visited him, like, at all."
"Like he'd have known I was there. He was unconscious, Mikey, not taking a nap."
"Well, he's not unconscious now."
"And I hope you were there to hold his hand."
"He doesn't want my hand, he wants yours."
"That's not all of me he wants," Brian sniggers. He opens his mouth in a silent gasp and flings his head back, sweating, all his muscles tensed. "It's a little late for you, isn't it, Mikey?"
"I'm packing. I've got a flight in an hour." The phone crackles. "Now that Justin's awake I'm going to Portland."
"Having another going away party? Uhn. I'll buy you the world's largest dildo. You can use it on David once you get the stick out of his ass. Ah-!"
"What? Brian, what are you doing? Are you high?"
"Have I ever told you how adorable you sound when you're mad?"
"You are! You're high."
"If you say so." His heart is pounding in his ears. Christ, he's so close, so…
"I can't believe you," Michael grouses. "You're going out every night and getting wasted, and meanwhile Justin nearly died—"
"I know." Brian shoves the stranger off his dick and stands up, abruptly. He's taken everything offered him tonight and he was offered quite a bit; it's all inside him now, wafting through him, curling through his lungs. Over the loud music that is only the sound of his pulse he snarls, "I never said I was a nice person."
But, and this is odd, Michael's voice doesn't sound angry as it comes over the line. "Yeah, you're a real monster," he says. "Except I can see the zipper running down your back. You're always boasting about how you're brutally honest. Why don't you just admit that you love Justin and you're scared to see him 'cause…?"
"Sorry, Mikey, gotta go. Enjoy Wyoming." Brian hits the end button, cutting Michael off mid-protest, and lets the phone drop. "Well?" he says, looking not so much at his current pick-up as through. "Weren't you busy?"
The guy complains, "This is weird shit, man." But he kneels when Brian sits down and gets back to work. Brian widens his legs and grabs the man's brown hair with both hands. He shuts his eyes. He bites his lip. He makes himself forget.
-i-
Only once, a couple nights later, does Brian nearly screw it up. He wakes up from a dream he can't remember, still half-high from hours ago (and the part of him that isn't high is drunk). He's naked and he's kicked all the sheets off his bed, yet he's sweating anyway. The scarf is tangled in knots around him. By now it's fraying at the edges and starting to look grey.
His phone is in his hand before he thinks to find it; his fingers dial the number he knows best. Together he and the scarf listen to the rings.
There are several things he plans to say to Michael while in this hazy, drifting state. He woke up, for one. Goddamn it, for another. I don't want to sleep sober because I'm afraid of what I'll see. And, because he is honest: Fuck you, Mikey. Fuck your yelping about how there's nothing better than faggots in love. You shit. You liar.
But the voice that bleats out a groggy, "Hello?" is far too high-pitched to be Mikey's. "Whosit?" Emmett yawns at the other end of the line. Brian stays quiet, perplexed.
"Hel-loo? What kind of awkward boy is going to breathe into the phone at this hour? Some of us need our beauty sleep." Emmett sighs. "Y'know, this looks so much hotter when it happens in porn."
Something parts in Brian's head, the drugs or the drink making way, and he swallows a sober curse. Fabric rustles as Emmett wakes up enough to remember the caller I.D. "Brian…?" he asks. Concern seeps into his voice. "You ok? If, uh, if you wanted Michael he's in Portland, remember? I figured he left you his new number. Hey, I went by the hospital this afternoon and Justin asked—"
Brian hangs up.
-i-
He watches from the hallway window, a spectral presence as Justin gets better day by day. Usually he's asleep when Brian's there, but sometimes he'll still be at physical therapy, pushing himself to exhaustion catching a ball or picking up a pen, over and over. His right side has taken the brunt of the attack, his right hand especially; Brian watches Justin curl it against his chest at any minor surprise, any door slam or raised voice. Instinctively the kid pulls into himself, jutting his good shoulder forward for protection.
Justin is nothing if not determined. The night nurse tells Brian this, frowning at him like she always does. Every morning he throws himself out of bed and into therapy, too busy to say hello to visitors. He gets frustrated easily: Brian watches him fail at picking up paperclips until finally he scowls and knocks the whole container off the table. He looks older than he should, but also painfully young.
Still, even in his blackest moods Justin is propelled by some inner force. The moment the paper clips scatter he's on his hands and knees, trying to pick them up.
Brian watches.
Justin is hurt. Justin jumps at loud noises and spills water in his lap trying hold a mug. But Justin is obstinate, always. Brian is reminded that he never actually wanted the kid in his life. He wanted another quick fuck. It was Justin who wouldn't leave him alone, no matter how much shit Brian made him take.
He came back. He kept coming back. He faced down his parents and his teachers and his Neanderthal classmates. He did that much.
(He walked along Liberty Avenue, bewildered and unnerved but there, and Brian scooped him up and brought him home and was his first. Pushed into him—and Justin took the whole of him, even as a virgin his body wanted everything Brian gave—looked into his eyes, told him, "You'll remember me. No matter who fucks you. You'll always think of me.")
In this way a month goes by, and the scarf…Brian is used to the tug of its limbs on his frame. Life could keep unchanged forever. He is so, so tired, and he doesn't care if he never sleeps again. In fact, he'd very much like to stay awake. Even in a dump like Pittsburgh there's an endless stream of men to fuck and drugs to take and—and in Babylon, Brian has found, the back room goes on for an eternity of color and noise.
He doesn't hang out with Ted and Emmett. He doesn't respond to Mikey's emails. He stops by to see Gus only when he knows Lindsey's too frazzled to lecture. He goes to Babylon and has sex, and each time he orgasms the world goes fuzzy and familiar and he knows that who he was is who he is and who he'll always be.
Then Mikey comes back to Pittsburgh and, naturally, ruins everything
Their reunion is less than auspicious. Brian is in the process of being sucked off by two men at once (the fun part is he doesn't remember exactly when the second guy showed up) and doesn't really have time for Mikey's moralizing, or his pouts. Fortunately Babylon's back room is Brian's domain, not Michael's. He's seen its nooks and crannies from behind the safety of his closed eyes. His best friend is easy to lose.
That night he's so itchy in his own skin that he snorts poppers in the hospital proper. Usually he saves it for the parking lot, at least, but it's raining and Michael's back and Justin is thrashing in bed with a nightmare.
Dangerous, dangerous. Brian's exposed with Michael around. The keeper of all his childhood secrets was there to see him crying in a hospital hallway. Dangerous.
But he thinks he can weather the worst of it. He stays away from Justin for the next couple of days, just in case. Even when Michael drops by the loft and says he's going to stop by the hospital, Brian isn't worried. A nasty comment, a sneer, and what can Mikey do but get upset? He'll leave and Brian's last secret will be safe and he can go to Liberty Avenue, home of everything that isn't the trauma ward. Screw Mikey's patronizing shit. Was Mikey a step behind no matter how fast he ran? Did he soak his hands with blood trying to find a pulse? Did he get shoved into a corner of a screaming ambulance, getting high off car fumes, numb all the way through?
Michael is powerless, because he wasn't there and didn't see. Brian is in control, because he was and he did. He's confident of this, so confident he saunters into Woody's without a thought, cruises a little, drinks a lot; lets Michael berate him about isolating himself, Michael who's resorted to a life of snobbery in Portland, that's fucking rich; puts a hand to his chest when he says he's fine and because he can feel the scarf underneath his shirt it's the truth. He's so goddamn stupid he strolls off to the bathroom and comes back minutes later to Mikey yelling at him, "Are you just gonna fucking stand there?" and in confusion he looks past his very powerful best friend and Justin Taylor stares back.
-i-
Ten minutes ago, at the bar, Michael called him a fall-down mess. Brian had laughed at the indignation in his voice. Now he'll need to take the jeering and hang himself with it.
Justin's at Woody's, in a sweatshirt and loose jeans, cowering at one corner of the bar. After a month his hair's grown back enough to cover the scars, but his bad hand is tucked against his chest. The bar is filled with curious queers, it's absolutely the lion's den, and yet here Justin is! Bracing against the human tide! The silly idiot.
What else can Brian do but take him home?
Michael drives them both back to the loft. Justin sits up front, Brian in the back, and no one speaks. Brian bites his lip so hard it hurts. He's being smothered. There are hands squeezing around his neck. Questions broil through him, settle in his mind like silt. When did they let Justin out of the hospital? What the hell did he think would happen if he went to a gay bar so soon after the most infamous gay bashing in years? Why is Brian so god forsakenly sober, with all he's had to drink and snort?
Then they're at the apartment and Michael is gone and Justin wants to talk about his injury as if nothing happened. He doesn't remember anything, so he talks casually about what others have told him of Chris Hobbs's beating, grinning like it's a good joke. All the while Brian has his hands pressed so tight around a glass of water his fingers hurt. There's an ocean's worth of space between the two of them. "If he'd hit me another inch over I'd be a vegetable," Justin comments, and Brian thinks, oh, is that all?
"They had to drill through my skull to release all the blood."
"Cool." He's going to vomit.
"They said I might never be able to draw again."
"Yeah, well," Brian says. Brian babbles, pacing about the room. If he can build a wall of words he'll be safe from Justin asking—
"Why didn't you come see me?" He sounds so polite, the martyr taking his lashes. Meanwhile Brian kneads his hand against his chest, searching out the spilled and salvaged blood.
"I'm not your occupational therapist," he says. "I'm not your mother holding your hand. So there was really nothing I could have done for you."
He says it meanly. He says it knowing he's hurting Justin word by word. He says it because it's the truth, no matter what he does or wants or dreams about.
Silence, for a bit. None of it matters. Justin doesn't remember his prom, the best night of his life. Maybe Brian's been carrying the stains of his memories, too.
"Daphne says we danced. She says we were amazing."
"We were alright."
Justin beams. But just as quickly it falters. "Shit," he whispers. "I wish I could remember that."
(That white smile, those teasing eyes. Brian wrapping the silk scarf around Justin's slender neck. Oh, enough, enough of all of it.)
Justin keeps talking, describing the attack like a narrator in an old film. It's distant from him, the victim, all thanks to brain damage. But Brian sees the concrete, sees the cars, sees the bat. Sees the bored malice on the faces of the other students as he and Justin danced. Did Justin not notice? If outcasts want to survive they have to invent their own rules. Brian saw it. Sees it still.
Sees himself sliding into the Jeep, satisfied as the hyena with its kill. His territory marked in white silk, for him to piss on or throw away. Brave Brian Kinney, going to prom on his own terms!
Sees Justin walking away, swinging his arms, lost in his own fantasy world.
Sees the figure come up behind him, tense, moving fast, holding the bat.
Sees himself lunge out of the car, sees himself run, sees Chris Hobbs walk faster, sees the bat lift on the upswing. And…
Justin!
Sees the smile. Sees Justin smile as he turns to look.
"It wasn't your fault," says Justin softly. Brian won't meet his eyes. Justin doesn't know anything about fault, about blame. He's a romantic. True love, happy endings. But the problem with happy endings is they don't end anything. The noises don't quiet. The sights don't settle.
At least the bloodstains on the scarf never washed out. That sort of integrity Brian can appreciate.
But Justin thinks he's being honest, too. When Brian won't face him he walks around and faces Brian. "It wasn't your fault," he says again, and touches his shoulder.
When they embrace Brian is surprised to feel flesh under his fingers. Skin instead of fabric. He grips Justin to him and the body is living and the kid is alive.
And he will castigate himself again, for getting into a Jeep, for calling out, for that smile. Because he is always honest.
-i-
He thinks at first that he should take off the scarf, now that Justin is back. Now that he can touch him again there's no need for substitutions. Things can go back to normal. Except that Justin still flinches every time someone coughs near him. Except Justin would probably have a panic attack in Babylon. Except nothing feels normal. But these are minor details, more or less.
Brian stands in his bathroom balling the scarf in his hand, staring at himself in the mirror. His body feels barren without it. He remembers Justin talking in his living room, shrugging off the assault, and knows that nothing has been saved.
He wraps the scarf around his neck: a challenge to Justin, to Mikey, to his own reflection. A challenge and a shield.
And that shield proves useful in the next weeks. He can congratulate himself on being prepared. When the judge lets Chris Hobbs off with community service, Brian isn't fazed. His response, gluing the judge to a toilet, is a prank straight out of high school, something only Mikey picks up on; he tells himself it's enough because he's wearing the scarf. Penance is still being served.
When Justin's mom tells him to stop seeing her son and all he can muster is a lame, "I care about him," he knows he's made a good choice. When Ms. Taylor says outside her house with her voice shaking, "It was because of you he was almost killed," and all he can do is stare dumbly at her, mouth open, he knows he was right.
He doesn't argue with her. She says he's taken her son away and it's true, but it's also bullshit. He didn't ask for their lives to become so entangled. He cares about Justin? Maybe, but that was a mistake, because Brian never cares, doesn't even know what caring means. To him it looks like Mikey whining over control-freak David, or Ted letting some drug addict break his heart. Caring is why his bitch mother put up with his bastard father all his life, and that was a sacrifice that served no one.
He doesn't know how the mess started but it's being cleared away now, and that's a good thing. He can cut Justin out like a cancerous mass, he can go back to being the Brian Kinney who never got pitying looks from his friends, he can forget about the prom and never give the scarf back, to anyone.
Maybe Brian cares about Justin. But Justin is strong enough to fight his own demons. He'll have to be. There's nothing more Brian can do.
-i-
There is freedom in severing ties, not heartache. It's easy to cast off baggage. Most people cling to it, but Brian douses his with lighter fluid and doesn't hesitate to strike the match.
(And if he's still wearing the scarf it means only that he needs to remember not to let wide-eyed virgins fall in love with him.)
Mikey says he's single and staying in Pittsburgh, but Brian is protected. They go to Babylon and he doesn't feel like dancing and Mikey complains that he'd always dance with Justin, but Brian is protected. He helps Lindsey put together a baby swing for Gus and she says he should call Justin's mom, but Brian is protected.
Justin shows up at his front door, jumpy from the walk over, and tries to slip inside. Brian tells him to go away, watching the fright close in on his face. Justin protests, shrilly. He can't hear what Brian hears, the crack of the bat and it was because of you. He stands howling, "But why?" at the door for five minutes after Brian slams it in his face.
Brian is protected by his cruelty.