[Six]

Justin pours Officer Thomas some coffee.

"So far I have 'it was very dark.'" He glances up at Brian and Justin, eyebrows raised, pen poised.

They have been sitting in the kitchen for nearly fifteen minutes, and Brian has said no more than five words tops. Justin sighs and takes his seat next to Brian, reaching over to grab onto his hand, resting on the tabletop. Justin squeezes. "Yeah, it was."

"So…" Thomas sits back in his chair and drops the pencil he is holding. It clacks against the wooden table and rolls along, stopping only when it knocks to a sudden halt against Brian's mug. "It was dark, huh? You couldn't see anything about 'em?"

Brian still says nothing. He busies himself with the coffee mug, using his pointer-finger to nudge it by the handle this way then that, and back again until it has revolved 180 degrees. The pencil is jarred into movement again and rolls off the table. Officer Thomas pulls out a pen. Justin frowns. "It really was dark. He was up on our roof."

"Don't you think that's a touch odd?" He is either referring to the prowler being on the roof or Brian and Justin's inability to see him. Whichever the case, yeah, it is odd. "I don't know whether I should look for John Reed or a traveling circus performer." He grins at his little joke.

"It wasn't John Reed," Justin says. Brian slants his eyes over to him, pissed off. "Well, it wasn't! John Reed can't run like that."

More silence. Brian clears his throat and shakes Justin's hand off of him. "He was tall."

Officer Thomas bends over his dog-eared yellow notepad and scribbles it down. "Yeah? How tall? Taller than you, Brian?"

Brian bites the inside of his cheek. "No." Justin starts, about to say something. "What?" he asks.

"Nothing." Justin shakes his head. With swift fingers he pulls the sleeve of his worn grey sweatshirt up to cover his palm. "It was just really dark, that's all."

Officer Thomas gives the pair them a beady, questioning once-over. "Over six feet, would you say?"

Justin licks his lips and considers. "It was very dark."

Brian nods, stretching into a yawn. He moves both arms out with him in the stretch, tilts the chair on its back legs. "It was." Brian pushes the chair back onto all four legs and throws his arm around Justin's shoulders at the same time.

"Yeah, I've got that down already." Justin leans in closer to Brian and they both stare at Thomas with identical blank expressions. Understandably, the officer is a little weirded out. "Uh. Did you see this guy at all, or are you just thinking that they ran up on the roof? I mean, when you couldn't find them."

Brian's breath hisses out irritably from between his gritted teeth. "He ran off before we got a good look at him, all right?" His fingers start drumming restlessly against Justin's bony shoulder blade.

"So what you boys are telling me is that an unidentified male - although it could be a female, you don't know 'cuz it was dark out – tried to break in and you both ran after him, but he climbed up the roof? Oh, and it was dark so you couldn't see him or how tall he was. Because it was dark. Very dark."

Justin's sort of amused. Aside from being offended, that is. In reality he knows that Officer Thomas is giving Brian all the shit, not him, because Brian kinda deserves it.

"It wasn't a female," Brian insists, leaning over the table and jabbing his right index finger into the table for emphasis. "No broad I know can run that fucking fast."

"Dunno, Brian. I've seen some women in the Olympics run pretty fast. Them female Scandinavian track runners, now they are fast. Those girls can run like the wind."

Justin is unamused, and Brian looks ready to kill Thomas. They are both way too high strung, Justin knows that, but he's not going to do anything to stop it. Not anymore. "Excluding the possibility that a female Scandinavian runner AND pole-vaulter - you know, so she could jump the ten feet up to the roof – decided to break into our house, what else do you think it could have been?"

Officer Thomas isn't smiling. "I don't rightly know, Justin. I really don't. But until you two can give me something good to go after, I'm just going to head on back to the station and file this, okay?"

All of Justin's fervor melts as Thomas puts away his notepad and stands up from the table. "Okay, I was out of line with the whole Scandinavian pole-vaulting thing, but you have to understand that this fucker was trying to break in. He could have… killed us. Or kidnapped Gus. Whatever." He shakes himself at the thought of anything happening to Gus. He can't think about that. It Justin him physically ill to think about that. "Just… keep an eye out, won't you?"

Thomas nods slowly. "Sure I will, Justin." He turns and leaves the kitchen, and Justin follows so he can see him out.

Officer Thomas is long gone for a minute or two when Gus suddenly appears at Justin's side. "Guess what?" Gus asks Justin, tugging on his sleeve excitedly. "Officer Thomas said I could have one of those walky-talky radio things they have leftover at the station."

Justin feels like crying and he doesn't know why. "That's great Gus."

"He said he'd bring it by next time," Gus goes on, but Justin isn't looking at him. "Wassa matter?"

"Nothing." Justin sniffs and tries to pull himself out of the fucked-up reverie he's lost in. He gives Gus a watery smile. "Hey, did you know that when I was about your age I used Molly's baby monitor for a walky-talky?"

Gus' eyebrows furrow. He's not sure why he should care about that. "Really?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking that until Officer Thomas comes we could find your old baby monitor and use that as a walky-talky? It only works one way, but it would be cool." He stops, anxiously gauging Gus' reaction. "What do you think?"

"Sure! Where is it?"

Brian leans against the doorway of the kitchen and watches Gus excitedly take Justin's hand as they go off in search of the baby monitor.