"Hey … hey!" Brian felt a gentle shoving on his shoulder. "Brian. Wake up!"
"Fuck off," the older man muttered in response. "I'm asleep."
"Come on, get up," Justin insisted. Brian could feel the kid almost thrumming with excitement on the bed next to him.
"I swear to God," Brian scowled, "if you're waking me up early just because it's Christmas day, I will throw you out of the fucking window."
Justin stopped for a second, as that had been exactly the reason he had for bringing Brian from his sleep so he quickly changed to a tact he felt sure Brian would approve of.
"What if," the kid said, dropping his voice and pressing his lips close to the older man's ear so that the words seemed to explode, hot and steamy, in his ear, "I woke you up because I'm horny as hell and I have this, er … problem that I need help with."
Brian's eyes slid open and he turned to look at the kid sternly. "Well then, I guess I'll allow this intrusion into my sleep."
::
They'd all arrived downstairs knowing that there was no chance of presents … not real ones anyway. Brian had made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to give or receive any gifts. The others, however, hadn't said a word about the day, which had left them all determined to give each other something to commemorate the day. Michael had bought Ted a new calculator, he'd bought Emmett a cashmere sweater and, despite his warnings, he'd given Brian a gift … it turned out to be two tubes of lube and two boxes of condoms. Apparently, it had been some kind of ongoing tradition for a while now. Justin received nothing from Michael and it wasn't unnoticed by the others in the house.
Justin had managed to smooth out his picture of the house completely. He'd added a bit of color and managed to get Ted to buy him a frame without asking too many questions, so he presented it to the others as a gift to all of them.
"Oh honey," Emmett exclaimed, "that's wonderful."
"It's a perfect likeness, Justin" Ted agreed. "You should be very proud."
Michael just stared at the picture for a while before asking maliciously, "what is it?" Which earned him a glare from Brian and a sharp slap around the head from Emmett.
Ted gave everyone gadgets. They were useful and practical and Brian in particular found them intriguing. Justin had quickly figured out that, more than anyone else in this gang, Brian respected Ted. This was a man who could do things Brian couldn't and Brian respected that as much, if not more than, he respected the other's loyalty. He gave Emmett, Brian and Michael each the GPS system that tracked police vehicles and he gave them silencers to fit on the end of their individual guns. Then he gave all of them a fun present; a thong in the shape of an elephant.
"Er, thanks Theodore," Brian said, sarcasm soaking his words as he let the elephant's face fall back into the box and everyone else pretty much echoed his opinion.
Then Ted handed Justin his gift, a box containing two jump ropes and two fishing nets.
Justin chuckled a little as he showed it to Brian. "Thanks Ted," he grinned, giving the man a bit of an awkward hug.
Then, it was Emmett's turn to hand out the gifts. He had completely respected Brian's wish and wrapped up a box of 'nothing' for him to enjoy. He'd given Justin a box of homemade Christmas shortbread saying, "my aunt Lula's secret recipe. I know how much you love them."
For Michael, there was a stress ball and an improve-your-mood-a-meter, which although presented as a tongue in cheek present also sent a very clear message to the smaller man and for Ted, he bought a months' subscription to his favourite porn site.
"You don't fool us with all this talk of 'working'," he used his figures to quote the word. "We know what you're really doing when you're locked away in that bedroom of yours."
"You watch porn?" Justin asked and Brian thought it was sort of sweet how shocked he looked by that revelation.
"Not all of us are lucky enough to have a fuck machine in our beds," Ted said steadily.
"I think he means you," Justin told Brian with a smile.
"I know he means me," Brian told Justin with a smirk.
And then Justin and Emmett had set about preparing the turkey. Brian had tried to convince them not to do it. He'd tried to explain it was a pointless ritual but Emmett wouldn't hear of it and once he'd put his two cents in, everyone else did too. So now they were spreading Christmas cheer around the house. It was when Emmett turned on the stereo and the tacky Christmas songs started to bleed from the speakers that Brian decided he needed a drink.
"Isn't it a little early for that?" Michael asked as his best friend re-entered the living room with a bottle of Jim Beam in one hand and a glass in the other.
"I'm just upholding a fine Kinney Christmas tradition," he shrugged, bypassing the glass and lifting the bottle straight to his lips. He took a long swig and Michael could see that he was aiming for blind drunk rather than a little merry. He gave a satisfied 'ahh' when he pulled the bottle from his mouth. "Now," he said pointedly, "it almost feels like Christmas. If only I had a son to kick around the floor, then the day really would be complete."
"You could kick Justin," Michael suggested, only half-joking.
Brian shot him a look that said 'shut-the-fuck-up' and flicked over the TV.
"Hey," Ted cried, "I was watching that."
"Tell me it wasn't something that wasn't going to bore me to tears and I'll put it back on," Brian offered.
"It was a very interesting documentary about …"
"Ah," Brian interrupted, flicking through the channels decidedly. Then, seeing the confused look on Ted's face he explained, "you said documentary."
"So?"
"So, never in the history of television has a documentary ever been interesting. Christ," he groaned as he flicked through channel after channel playing Christmas show after
Christmas show. "Is there any way to avoid this stupid fucking holiday?"
"You could become a Jew," Ted suggested.
"Yeah, but then there'd probably be rules against fucking men. And I'd rather endure Christmas than give up fucking." He took another swig of his whiskey and tried to pass it to Michael. "Come on Mikey," he encouraged. "Why don't you get into the Christmas spirit?" He joked.
"That's very clever," scorned Michael. "But getting wasted on whiskey by midday doesn't say Christmas to me."
"What about getting wasted on Eggnog?" Brian asked. "You wait here, I'll get you some." He pushed himself to his feet, his hunt for a decent non-Christmassy television program completely abandoned in favour of his hunt for a decent Christmassy alcoholic drink. He supposed that this could be deemed as entering into the Christmas celebrations.
He pushed open the dividing door between the sitting room and the kitchen and was immediately assaulted by an attack of glorious smells and aromas. The roasting turkey was mouth-watering, the vegetables stewing looked delectable and Justin and Emmett stood in the middle of the kitchen covered in flour and laughing hysterically.
"I don't think working together on this is going to work," Emmett said, brushing the flower from his apron and doing his best to get it out of the shorter man's hair.
"What the fuck is going on here?" Brian demanded.
"It's my fault," Justin said. "I had a bit of a mishap with opening the flour." He sounded like he was trying to be serious but he had the giggles and couldn't help chuckling when Emmett said that his shirt was ruined.
"It's a good job I wore old clothes this morning," Emmett decided cheerily. "I just had a feeling things were going to get messy."
"And they certainly did," Brian said, going over to Justin and brushing some of the flour of his cheek with his hand. "What was this mess going to be?"
"Christmas Cake," Justin grinned.
"And what the fuck is Christmas Cake?" Brian asked.
"It's like fruit cake but … Christmassy," Emmett explained with a wave of his flour-covered arms.
"Emmett's an expert cake maker," Justin added.
"Is he?" Brian looked sceptically around at the mess in his kitchen. "So far all he's proved is that he's an expert mess maker."
"Well, give me an hour, and get this klutz out from under my feet," Emmett said fondly of Justin, "and I can whip up the greatest Christmas cake you've ever tasted."
"Well, that wouldn't be hard," Brian replied, "I've never tasted Christmas cake."
"All the more reason to get it made," Emmett said determinedly.
"That's great Emmylou, but how do you intend to make this cake when all the flour is over the floor?"
"Oh darn that's right," he sighed. "Ooo, I know … Teddy?" He ran off to the other room to ask the techno-geek to pop to the store for him.
Brian waited for him to leave before turning his attention on Justin. "You really made a mess, didn't you?"
Justin smiled a little embarrassedly. "I'll clean it up."
"Damn straight you will," he said seriously. "And then, go in the sitting room. Watch the shitty Christmas specials."
"I thought you hated Christmas specials," Justin pointed out a knowing gleam in his eye.
"I do," confirmed the older man. "But you don't. You deserve a Christmas, even if it's a shit one. Now, if you'll excuse me."
"Where are you going?"
"The gym," he answered. "I'm gonna need a good work out if I'm going to eat all this food you and Honeycutt have whipped up."
The gym was just another one of the vast number of downstairs office-type spaces that Brian hadn't known what to do with. Eventually, he just chocked it full of gym equipment and hadn't thought anything more of it. But now he was grateful for it. It was not only a great way to keep in shape but he could also kill a few hours every day in there. Or he could just go there to be alone for a while, when the world was just a bit shit … like now.
"Do you think maybe you should take a bottle of water with you?" Justin asked as Brian was about to leave. "Instead of," he pried the Jim Beam from the older man's viper grip and waved it in front of the older man's face. "Now," Justin patted him condescendingly on the chest, "go fight off middle-age."
Brian just scowled but he was finding it increasingly difficult to stay mad at the kid.
::
Ted had long since gone off into the big wide world to find Emmett some much needed flour. That was the problem with living miles from anywhere, popping to a shop took the best part of 45 minutes though Emmett was keeping himself busy concocting icing sugar Christmas trees and angles in the kitchen, not that anyone was allowed to enter the room. Anything you wanted from the kitchen, you had to ask for at the door and wait for Emmett to bring it to you. So as not to spoil the surprise.
Brian had been asking for his whiskey for about ten minutes but Emmett was refusing point-blank to retrieve it for him.
"I'm not having you drunk through my meal," was his reason and as far as Brian was concerned it was bullshit but he wasn't going to beg for it. He'd already tried just bursting in but Emmett had wedged both the partitioning door to the sitting room and the main door to the hallway shut with chairs.
"You could go through the French doors out the back," Michael suggested as his friend fidgeted angrily on the sofa.
"They're locked," Brian sighed. "I already tried that."
"You could just give up and enjoy the Christmas day feeling," Justin suggested. He'd been the one that insisted they watch 'It's a Wonderful Life', there's always one who suggests it, and he was currently trying not to weep as the film began to draw to a close.
"Or," Brian said, "I could just shoot the glass in the doors out and stroll in."
"Isn't that going a bit far?" Justin asked looking just briefly away from the TV before his attention was glued back to the screen. He was laying on his belly on the floor like a child, his chin resting on his hands and Brian was trying very hard not to kick the kid.
"I know," Michael said suddenly. "Why don't we make a Christmas wish? Like we used to at Ma's house."
"Fine," Brian said, "I wish this stupid fucking day was over." Then he paused, enduring the glares the other two were shooting him before deciding, "in fact, I just wish I could get some goddamn whiskey." He shouted the last bit loud enough so that Emmett would be able to hear and although Emmett did shout "patience, Kinney" in return, it was clear Brian wasn't going to be reunited with his old friend Jim any time soon.
Eventually, the film drew to a close and Brian turned over to watch something else, anything else, but Ted still wasn't back.
"Maybe we should call him," Michael said anxiously.
"Fine," Brian agreed, "but it's Christmas day. He's probably stood in a big queue at the Big Q behind hundreds of other shoppers who forgot to get cranberry sauce for their turkey."
"Still, it's best to be sure," Michael said, opening his cell and dialing Ted's speed dial number. "It's ringing," he confirmed.
"Were you expecting it not to?" Brian scorned. He couldn't help himself. He was in a truly shitty mood.
After five minutes of gabbing on the phone, Michael found Ted was indeed fine and was, like Brian had predicted, was just stuck behind hundreds of people who'd forgotten one vital, can't-live-without-it item of the Christmas dinner.
"Right," Michael said, hanging up. "Well, that's a relief."
"I for one was worried sick," Brian mocked.
Michael scowled at his friend. He shouldn't have been surprised. Brian was like this at Christmas every year and Michael knew it must be hard to have fond memories of a day that you'd spent mostly in your room hiding from alcoholic parents but sometimes he just wished his friend would try.
"I'm gonna call, Ma," Michael announced, "wish her a Merry Christmas." And with that he disappeared up to his room.
"And then there were two," Brian breathed out slowly, producing a cigarette from his jeans' pocket. "Want one?"
"Sure," Justin nodded taking the cig and popping it in his mouth as Brian expertly lit it. He took a long drag and breathed the smoke in perfect rings into the air. "It took me ages to learn that," he grinned. "But I persevered, long hours behind the gym at school when I was ditching class."
"Do your parents know you were such a rule-breaker?"
"Probably not," Justin grinned. "Until this happened, they thought I was their perfect little pride and joy."
"How wrong they were," Brian drawled and if Justin didn't know better he'd have sworn there was a hint of pride in the older man's voice.
"It didn't matter though, I still got 1500 on my SAT's."
"1500?"
Justin just nodded a smile dancing across his face as he couldn't fail to note how impressed the older man sounded.
"You could have got into any college you wanted with a score like that."
"Probably."
"So what the fuck are you doing here?"
Justin shrugged a little before deciding it was "having an adventure. Anyway," he said, looking up at Brian seriously, "you're smart. Ted's really smart. You could have both gone to college, why didn't you?"
"I never sat my SAT's," Brian said. "I'd run away from home, school and convention long before that milestone. And Theodore did go to college." Brian smiled a little and some memory. "But he got in with a bad crowd."
"You?"
"The best of the worst," Brian confirmed. Just then there was a loud buzzing that rang through the house. Justin jumped furiously but Brian just groaned.
"Fucking Theodore," he said, pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "He must have forgotten the code at the entrance gate. Go let him in, Justin."
"Why can't you go?" Justin whined but Brian just shot him a look that said 'watch-your-fucking-mouth' and Justin sighed and got to his feet.
::
It was maybe five minutes before Brian noticed anything was a bit weird about the situation. He was still sitting alone in the sitting room, he hadn't heard the whirring of gates opening and … well, hadn't Michael not long got off the phone with Ted and said he was going to be a while? Something didn't add up. Where the fuck had Justin got to? What was taking him so long to open the gates? Brian didn't want to be seen to be too anxious, so he just got to his feet slowly and strolled up the stairs to his room. He'd be able to see the whole front yard and drive from there. As he reached the top of the stairs he heard Michael telling his mother, he had another call.
"Hello," Brian heard Michael say down his cell. "Hey Ted. Okay, you're just leaving? Fuck! Christmas Day shopping is a nightmare. See you soon."
Brian's stomach felt like it had dropped out from underneath him. 'Just leaving', so who the fuck had buzzed at the gate. Who had he sent Justin out to? Why hadn't he fucking checked? They were always supposed to check if someone buzzed. He'd just been so sure it would have been Ted but of course it wasn't Ted. Ted wouldn't suddenly forget the code.
He was the one who'd made it up for fuck's sake.
"Shit!" Brian cried, turning on his heel and legging it down the stairs. "Shit, shit, shit!"
"What the fuck's going on?" Michael demanded, coming out of his room to see his best friend fly past like a greyhound out of its stall and straight down the steps. "Brian, why are you in such a hurry?"
But he didn't have time to explain. He'd sent Justin out to the gate without even checking who was there. It could have been the police, another gang member, anyone and Justin hadn't come back. He hadn't come back! He'd been out there more than five minutes. What if something happened to him? How would he live with the guilt, knowing he as good as sent the kid to his death? No, shit. FUCK! This could not be happening. He flung open the front door with only one thing on his mind; Justin.