"How are my boys?" A red-wigged lady cried as Michael, Brian, Ted and Emmett fell through the red front door to her outrageously conspicuously house. Brian had always found it amusingly ironic that the 'hideout' for the most wanted gang in Pittsburgh stood out like a sore thumb and still Stockwell and his cronies at the police department couldn't find them.
"Could be better Ma," Michael scowled going over to his mother and kissing her on the cheek before sitting at the table and asking what was for supper.
"Pasta with my famous Marinara sauce."
"Excellent, I'm so hungry," Ted, the quieter of the group, smiled before settling himself down at the table.
"Oh me too," Emmett Honeycutt beamed, clapping his hands together excitedly. "I always get hungry after a hold up."
"A hold up?" Debbie glared, watching as the most sullen and reckless of her lost boys also sat down to eat.
"Don't look at me," Brian said, scooping a healthy portion of Marinara sauce and minuscule amount of pasta onto his plate. "It had nothing to do with me," and in the same breath he added, "and do you have to cook pasta every evening, you know my rule about carbs after seven?"
"And you know how I feel about assholes after eight. Now, eat what I give you and be fucking grateful," she snapped back before turning her attention to the other three. "So, which one of you is going to tell me about this hold up?"
"It was just some kid, Ma. Leave it," Michael frowned, scooping more pasta and sauce onto his plate. Brian seemed to actually grimace as he watched the shortest man and his lifelong friend scoop calorie after calorie into his mouth and straight to his stomach.
Eventually, it was left to Emmett to retell the tale, with a few subtle exaggerations, but it wouldn't be an Emmett tale without them.
"And that's when this kid starts begging Brian to take him with us," Emmett finished grandly. "You should have seen it Deb, the kid was practically on his knees."
"You should have brought him along Brian," Debbie smirked, "I'm sure you'd have found some use for a eighteen year old twink."
"Please," Brian scorned, pushing pasta aimlessly around his plate, "that kid was country club, born and bred. He wouldn't be able to give a decent blowjob if his life depended on it."
"Mm-hmm," Debbie scowled. "If you've finished playing with your food," she snarled, snatching the plate away from him and collecting the other dirty dishes more carefully.
Brian just rolled his eyes and then looked up at Ted.
"So, Theodore," he said in a slimy, false voice, "what's the next plan?"
"This," Ted beamed, putting a flier on the table as Debbie offered the table dessert, they all declined as they went to crowd the piece of paper.
"It's for a parents consultation at the St James Academy," said Michael, completely unimpressed.
"Yes, I think despite Brian's scrupulous efforts to look young, not even he could pass as 18," Emmett said, clearly confused.
But Brian was just beaming. "You are a genius Theodore."
Ted smiled smugly, grateful that at least the unofficial leader of this gang had understood where he was going with this.
"He is?" Michael asked.
"Yes," Brian smirked. "Don't you see what this means?"
The blank looks on two faces prompted Brian to explain, "this stupid breeder event, is going to drag every rich family in the city away from their houses on the same day. If only we had a way of knowing what time the families would be away from their houses."
"Like," Ted slapped another sheet of paper onto the table, "a list of each appointment?"
"Ted," Brian said, his eyes shining like a child on Christmas morning. "I could kiss you."
"Yes, well," Ted shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. "It was nothing. I've also planned the best route to get to the most houses in the shortest space of time. If you see," he said, pulling out another piece of paper with a map on it and a thick red line marked clearly across it, "we'll start here at the Hanson Household," he pointed to one end of the line. "And finish here at the Taylor's."
"Excellent," Brian nodded. "I think we should have someone at the event too, just to keep an eye on things and make sure all the right people are there at the right times. I vote Ted, simply because he looks least like a fag."
"I second that motion," Michael said and the other two rolled their eyes. Michael always seconded everything that Brian said. Brian could have voted they all fly to space in a chocolate fueled jet fighter and Michael would have seconded it. That's what happens when you have a devoted best friend who longs to be your lover.
"Perfect, Mikey, you can drive and Emmylou and I will go into the houses." He ran a long finger over the map Ted and drawn out. "Can you still pick a lock Emmett?" He asked, looking up at the Queen.
"With nothing but my hands and a hair pin," Emmett confirmed, with a feminine flick of his hair.
Brian grinned, "you know boys," he put one arm around Michael's shoulders and the other around Emmett's, "I have a good feeling about this job." Then catching sight of the leaflet, he read aloud, "'parents consultations'. Christ, it's almost as though they're asking us to rob them."
The next few days were spent planning every moment of the job meticulously. Brian was a perfectionist and that meant he wanted even the finer details completely clear in everyone's minds. They talked over it, did mental run-throughs and even rehearsed it a little. Emmett practiced unlocking every room in the house over and over again, which was annoying for Michael, Ted and Debbie when they were in the bathroom. Brian had simply told Emmett he was doing a good job as he continued to soap his dick.
Finally, the day came. Debbie had made a crazy amount of food as a send off meal.
"Christ Deb," Brian scorned, "are you throwing a party?"
She scowled back at him. "I just don't want my boys going hungry on the job," she said, pinching Michael's cheeks and kissing the red mark she'd left before allowing him to sit down. Brian smirked when he saw the lip mark left on his friend's face but he stayed silent. Let Michael find out by himself. Unfortunately, Emmett was nicer than he was.
"Erm, honey," Emmett said, touching his cheek gently as a clue to Michael.
"Shit," Michael swore under his breath. "Hey Ma, can I go to the restroom?"
Brian snorted. He loved that Michael still asked his mother permission to leave the table. Brian, of course, just got up and left when he wanted to. He didn't answer to anyone, not since he was about fourteen; he even has his own place away from this madhouse when he needed to get away from the 'family-feel' of it all. Brian, despite working closely in this team, was very much his own man. He was fiercely individual, even a bit of a loner and a misanthrope. Sometimes, he just became fed-up of people, that was what the loft was about; his own space for when people got too much for him.
Brian laughed out loud when Debbie refused her son's request to go to the bathroom and Michael was left to wash his face as best he could with nothing but the back of a spoon as mirror and the corner of a serviette.
"Hey, Mikey," Brian said casually, when Michael was finally happy with his face and had scooped some food into his mouth.
"Hmm?" The smaller man muttered, around his food.
"You missed a bit," Brian smirked, pointing at his own cheek.
"What!" Michael scowled, flipping his now sauce covered spoon over so he could try to see the state of his face.
"Ignore him," Emmett frowned, "he's just being an asshole."
But Brian was still grinning as he shrugged innocently and said, "I thought I saw something on your cheek."
The meal continued much in the same way, eating, light-hearted banter and last second changes to the plan. There was nothing about the evening that could have indicated that this would be the day everything would begin to change forever.
.
The job was going perfectly. Ted was in constant contact with Michael so that the driver would know if the houses were absolutely empty. Emmett was fiddling the locks in seconds and he and Brian were sweeping the house in less than a minute or two picking up everything worth taking and not leaving a single clue behind.
In fact, things couldn't have been going better. They'd been to every house on the plan and each break in had gone down without a hitch.
"Vehicle 1 approaching Taylor residence," Michael said down the cell phone to Ted as the other two listened in carefully. "Solo flier, can you confirm that the Taylor's are at the consultation?" Brian was desperately trying not to giggle in the passenger seat. It was always the same when Michael drove, they got transported into Marvel Comics with stupid nicknames and weird dialogue.
"The Taylor's," Ted hummed to himself, not playing the comic book game. "According to this they should be at Mrs Robertson's desk now and…" Michael, Brian and Emmett could almost hear Ted squinting to see if there were a couple sat in the chairs. "Yep," he confirmed just milliseconds later, "they're there."
"Excellent," Michael hung up the phone and smiled at the other two, "Taylor house is a go."
"'Is a go'," Brian quoted, "who do you think you are? A fucking thunderbird?"
Michael scowled. "Just get out of the fucking car and get the stuff."
"F-A-B, Michael," Brian scorned, as he gave a small salute and slid out of the jeep. Emmett was right behind him, and barely drawing any attention to themselves they strolled towards the house.
As they reached the door, Brian held out a hand in front of Emmett.
"Stop," he said. "Something's not right about this house."
"Don't be ridiculous, Bri," Emmett sighed, shrugging off the other man and pulling a hair pin out of his hair. "This is going to be a raving success and then we're going to go back to Debbie's and celebrate, whilst Teddy works on how to cash all our earnings without raising suspicious."
"Mm," Brian hummed, but something still wasn't right about this place. Every one of his instincts was telling him to get out of there but he couldn't place his finger on why. Just as he was about to suggest they leave it, he heard a click and the door swung open an inch.
"Voila," Emmett said proudly. "One open door, courtesy of Miss Emmett Honeycutt."
"Well done Miss Honeycutt," Brian whispered as he gently pushed the front door open. "Why don't you look upstairs? I'll check down here."
"Yes sir," Emmett whispered back.
"And be on the look out, I'm sure something's not right."
Emmett just rolled his eyes before creeping upstairs, this wasn't the first time Brian had a bad 'feeling' about a place and so far his instincts had been 100% wrong. Brian watched his friend prance up the steps silently before turning his attention to searching the living room.
There was a small ornate box with intricate designs on it. Brian opened it and saw a gold Rolex watch and some earrings, he pocketed them immediately and shut the box up before moving on. He looked through the cupboards but mainly they were photo's and video's labelled 'Justin and Molly' followed by various years and dates including Christmas, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Birthdays. Fucking breeders, Brian frowned as he shut up the cupboards. He snuck around the rest of the room but only picked up another pair of earrings and bracelet. The television was too big to take out with just the two of them but he unattached the cable box and slid that into his bag. But that was all there was. He hoped Emmett was having better luck upstairs. He moved slowly around looking for any potential hideaways or cubbyholes, when he heard a high pitched scream of terror and then a woman pleading.
"Please Craig. Please, think about what you're doing!"
Brian froze to spot for a second, hoping to god he sound wasn't coming from upstairs, but when he heard a man reply,
"I'm sorry Jenifer, the boy needs to understand this." Brian knew that this exchange was coming from the joining room.
"But Craig…" The woman began.
"Silence!" The man roared back and then there was another scream, before some rustling sounded from the kitchen, the sound of draws being yanked open and rummaged in. Brian crept closer to the door until he could watch comfortably through the crack in the open door without being seen. He watched as a man who looked in his late forties, held a knife towards a blonde kid that … shit! Not just a blonde kid, the blonde kid from the alley the other night.
"What kind of trouble have you got yourself into now?" Brian muttered as it finally became apparent what the man, Craig, had been looking for when he produced a gun and pointed it straight at the kid allowing a blonde woman to take the knife and put it away safely. She was tidying! A man was holding a gun to a theif in her kitchen and she turned her back and tidied. It reminded him so much of his past when his mum used to tidy to distract her from the horror of her actual life. But this wasn't like that.
"Shit," Brian muttered, as he saw the fear in the kids eyes. It reminded him a bit of himself when he first started out on the street; scared shitless, no idea how to survive, doing anything you can.
"Craig! NO!" The woman screamed, throwing herself between the man with the gun and the kid, in a kind of way only a mother can in front of a child and that's when things clicked into place in Brian's head. 'My father would rather see me dead than a fag,' that's what this kid had said. Brian had dismissed it as teenage over-exaggerating but as he drank in the scene ahead of him, he had to admit that maybe the kid had been telling the truth.
"Out of the way Jennifer," Craig insisted, "the boy has to realise that all fags die."
And then Brian really did see himself in the kid. How many times had he faced his drunken, abusive father as a child? Admittedly, Ol' Jack Kinney had never pointed a gun at him but Brian was sure that if Jack had had a gun, he'd have shot him.
"That boy is your son," Jennifer screamed.
"No son of mine would do that disgusting thing in this house," Craig spat.
"It's called fucking dad," the kid said.
"It's called perversion."
"The only perversion was you walking in," the kid shot back. "You were supposed to be at my school finding out how I was getting on but of course you wouldn't go. You don't give a flying fuck about me!"
"That's it," Craig snarled, he reached out a hand, pulled his wife aside and cocked the gun pointing it straight at his son's head.
He wasn't sure why he did it; maybe it was because the kid was a fag, maybe it was because the twink was entirely fuckable, maybe it was because the kid reminded him of himself. Maybe it was because he was taken over by a moment of temporary insanity but whatever it was, he found himself reacting in a way he would never have expected. He kicked the kitchen door open and shot Craig in the hand causing him to drop the gun immediately. Then he grabbed the kid's sleeve and dragged him behind him before edging them both backwards into the living room.
"What are you doing here?" Justin whispered breathlessly.
"Saving your ass, what's it look like?" Brian answered calmly keeping his gun pointed firmly at Craig, who was spitting,
"Who the fuck are you?"
"Your worst nightmare," Brian replied calmly, "a fag with a gun." They'd made it through the kitchen door and into the sitting room but there was still a long way to the front door. He kept them edging backwards towards the front door, with Craig and Jennifer edging forward.
"Don't take my son," Jennifer was begging. "Please, take everything else, just don't take my son." Craig stayed silent. He had his bloody hand craddled to his chest and he was advancing on Brian and Justin but he wasn't begging for his son to be returned, he wasn't going to do anything and even though Brian knew he'd he'd fucked up badly, he didn't regret shooting that fag-hating son of a bitch. But the point was he had shot him and then shown him and his wife his face and was now in the process of slowly kidnapping their son. He'd jeopardised everything and everybody. Why? Because he hadn't been able to watch a grown man shoot his own queer son in the head.
They were just reaching the centre of the room, when Emmett galloped down the stairs to be greeted by Brian Kinney, stewarding the kid from the other night towards the door, whilst pointing a gun at a man with a bloody hand.
"I heard a shot! What the fuck did you do?" He asked.
"Don't ask inane questions," Brian scowled, throwing the kid to his friend. "Here, take him to the car and this." Brian handed the bag with the stolen goods in it to Justin.
Emmett just nodded, taking Justin gently by the shoulders and guiding him to the jeep. Brian followed, walking as quickly as he dared with his gun still trained on the other man.
When he reached the front door, he slammed it shut and made a dash for the jeep. As soon as he leapt in, Michael pulled away with tires screeching and smoke tracks behind them.
"Shit," Brian scowled, looking in the wing mirror to see the tire tracks perfectly copied on the road. They may as well have written 'Mikey, Emmett and Brian were 'ere' like they did when they were kids. "Now I'm going to have to dump the jeep."
"Never mind the jeep," Michael growled. "What about this?" He nodded towards the kid, who was shivering in the backseat, with tears leaking from his tear ducts.
"You cold sweetie?" Emmett asked, looking around for something to warm up the kid with.
"Here," Brian said, slipping his leather jacket from his shoulders and passing it to Emmett who immediately placed it on the kid.
"What the fuck happened?" Michael demanded.
"I don't know," Brian said uselessly. "I was getting the shit and then there was all this shouting. His dad was gonna put a cap between this kids eyes because he's a fag."
"Christ, you just attract danger, don't you?" Michael glared at the kid, who was wrapping himself up in Brian's leather jacket. "And you," he glared at Brian, "why the fuck did you get involved?"
"You try watching a hate crime murder unfold and then ask me that question!"
"But now you've put us all in danger!" Michael seethed, "for the sake of looking out for a twink with a nice ass."
"I'm sure the twink with a nice ass has a name," Emmett said before turning to the kid and asking gently, "so baby, what is your name?"
"Don't name it," Brian scowled, "it'll only make you want to keep it."
"Keep him," Emmett growled, "and in case you didn't notice you were the one who kidnapped him Mr Kinney. That makes him your responsibility. You can't just dump him somewhere."
"Why the fuck not?" Brian growled.
"Because the police will find him and make him talk," Emmett said, noticing that the kid was still shivering he rubbed his shoulders through the jacket.
"He knows too much," Michael muttered his agreement. "I knew should have let me finish him off when I had the chance."
"Fuck you Michael, we don't need a kid's blood on our hands."
"Well we can't do it now," Michael growled, "we've fucking kidnapped him. If he turns up dead somewhere the police won't stop until they fucking find us. Maybe if he just disappears without a trace the police will cool off in about, oh I don't know, four of five years."
"D-does that mean I c-can st-stay with you guys?" The kid asked, struggling to get his words out through his chattering teeth.
"Oh baby," Emmett sounded concerned as he put his arms around the twink. "You're freezing."
"He's probably in shock," Brian frowned. "Lie him down as best you can and keep his legs elevated."
"Sounds more like one of your favourite positions," Michael scowled.
"Will you just shut the fuck up and drive," Brian snapped back.
"Fine," Michael frowned, "but I'm not taking him back to my mom's house."
"Where the fuck else is he gonna go?"
"You're gonna have to keep him in the loft with you until we can find out how much trouble we're in."
"At my loft?" Brian exclaimed.
"It's the only place," Emmett agreed. "We'll drop you two off first and then take the rest of this stuff to Debbie's but I think we're going to have to run this time Brian."
"Fuck!" Brian yelled, causing everyone in the car to jump. He quickly mumbled an apology as he ran his hands down his face. "This couldn't have gone worse, could it?"
"No, I don't think so," Michael said. "Unless you shot his dad or something."
Three members of the car stayed guiltily silent and Michael knew what that meant. He didn't scream of yell he just muttered something at Brian and put his put down a little more on the accelerator pedal.
"So," Emmett grinned, "now that we're keeping him," he glanced down at the pale, shaking kid stretched across the backseats with his legs in the air. "What's your name, Honey?"
"J-Justin," he stammered. "Justin Taylor."