CHAPTER THREE

Justin awoke with daylight streaming in around him, bright autumn sunshine permeating every nook and cranny of the loft. Sighing contentedly, he groggily accepted that he was home again. The familiar contours of the bed and the room settled pleasantly around him, lulling him with a deep sense of satisfaction. Dimly, he remembered having a nightmare, some weird mental concoction about Brian being in the hospital, perhaps dying. It had been awful and frightening, but it was only a dream, ridiculously impossible. His reality was here, in this place, with Brian at his side....

Fuzzily, he rolled over, stretching, searching...and his quest came up empty. With an abrupt snap back to full awareness, he bolted upright, his eyes raking the room, staring down at his fully dressed body and the rumpled, still made bed.

Oh... Damn.... Not a nightmare, not some hellish image conjured from the depths of his guilty mind. Reality. It soaked into him like hot, heavy oil; he was drowning in it. Alarmed, he jumped up and dashed for the telephone, his fingers shaking, his mind failing to provide the proper numbers. Dumbly, he stood there with the receiver in his hand, wondering who he was supposed to call--Michael, the hospital, his mother? He hadn't called home last night, hadn't really planned to stay here. He should let her know he was all right. As if he'd ever be all right again.... But first, the hospital. They'd tell him something, wouldn't they?

In the end, all he got from the nurse was a guarded, "He's holding his own." His mother's voice was tight as she'd urged him to take care of himself. In an hour, he was showered and shaved, dressed in his same clothes, and heading back to the hospital.

This morning, there was no sign of Michael or Ben when he arrived. He managed to coax one of the ICU nurses to tell him everything she knew about Brian's condition, and his heart sank listening to the grim responses to his questions. As he had suspected, there wasn't a lot they knew yet with regard to a long-term prognosis. The immediate goal was simply to keep him alive, get him over the pneumonia, and then start to evaluate and rebuild his impaired faculties. The stroke had been relatively severe and there was a definite possibility he would never return one hundred percent to the man he had been. His right arm and leg had been affected, paralyzed totally for now. Whether he would have problems with speech and communication was yet to be determined. The pneumonia so far had not responded to the antibiotics he was being given, but it was too early in the course of treatment to expect improvement. There had been some encouraging signs before the pneumonia had set in, and already they were exercising his limbs and doing constant rotation to prevent spasticity. When you factored out all the mumbo-jumbo, all the 'ifs' and 'whens' and 'maybes', the bottom line was that they just didn't know whether Brian would live or die, or ever live a normal life again.

He had been sitting in the cubicle with Brian for about an hour, mostly watching him sleep, occasionally badgering the friendly nurse in charge to let him help with Brian's bedside care, picking up what training he could, when Michael slipped in and came to stand beside him.

"No change?" the older man whispered. Resting his hand on Brian's thigh, he bent over the bed and silently kissed Brian on the cheek. Justin regarded him warily. He wasn't sure which Michael this was, and he resented the possessiveness he was displaying.

"No...he's been resting quietly since I got here."

"Well, that's a good thing," Michael confirmed. "Yesterday he was restless as hell, and they said that wasn't good."

Justin knew what he said was correct, only he wished Brian would be more active and aware of his surroundings. It creeped him out to see the vital person he knew so still and silent. It was agony to sit and do nothing but keep watch over him, unable to communicate or make any kind of contact. Michael seemed to consider him anew. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Justin countered.

"Uncle Vic's minding the store." There was an edge to Michael's voice.

"I'll get notes from someone," Justin retorted, using the same tone.

They both heard a sound from the bed, a kind of snuffled, throat-clearing noise. Justin looked down into clouded hazel eyes that regarded them both with confusion.

"H-hadda...f-from bat..." Brian mumbled, wheezing and breathing hard. "Trine...s-seep..." He licked his dry lips in distress.

Michael's face crinkled with a smile. "Sure thing, pal. Whatever you say." He picked up a small damp washcloth from the bedside table and carefully wiped Brian's mouth with it, then ran it gently over the rest of his face, careful of the oxygen tube. Justin watched the ease with which he moved with a small twinge of envy, but he pushed it away and focused on the opened eyes.

Finding himself completely tongue-tied, Justin merely smiled, the sunniest grin he could manage under the circumstances. He felt as if speech had deserted him; it was one thing to talk to an unconscious Brian when no one else was around, but it was another entirely to try to come up with a reasonable bon mot in response to those eyes fixed on him, with Michael right there to boot. He felt like lapsing into a simpering Ted Schmidt, "Hi, how's it goin'?" or something equally ridiculous. "You look good..." "You look like shit" would be more like it. He couldn't say that. "Hi, I'm back... Hey, thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing... "

Brian lifted his left hand, pawing at air with an aimless motion, seemingly agitated. "Su-sshi... s-shit.... "

Justin latched on to the flailing limb, instinctively pulling it toward himself. "It's okay..." he assured, attempting to soothe. "...It's okay," he repeated.

Brian glanced over at Michael. There seemed to be a look in his eyes that said, What the fuck is HE doing here? or perhaps, You're responsible for this.... It was a moment shared by the two of them and Justin felt very much the outsider, like he had in the beginning, on the morning he had told them that they sounded like his parents. God, had they all regressed that far?

Then Brian turned back to look at Justin again and his expression made Justin tingle. It was one he had seen only rarely, a major softening, a natural and relaxed smile. Brian had looked at Gus like that on occasion.

"...O...kay..." he mouthed, as he wearily closed his eyes.

At that moment, inopportune as it was, two nurses popped into the cubicle. "We have to take Brian down for a chest x-ray," one announced, as she began to ready the bed for transfer.

Reluctantly, Justin released the hand he was still holding. "We'll talk later, all right?" he said softly.

Eyes still closed, Brian mouthed one word: "...L-later...."

But her answering smile was anything but warm. It was forced and perfunctory, a touch hesitant. Michael reached her first and gave her a hug.

"Hi, Ma."

She turned her full attention to her son, and her expression brightened. "I brought you some cannoli and a thermos of decent coffee. That stuff they've got in the machines here is for shit." Belatedly, she turned to Justin. "Hello, Justin. When did you get here?"

Obviously Michael hadn't talked to her last night or this morning, or else he'd deliberately withheld the information from her. Justin tried to act as if long months hadn't passed since he'd last seen her.

"Hi, Deb. Last night, Michael stopped by to tell me. I didn't know."

"You knew," Michael countered coldly. "Lindsay called you."

"Well, yeah, in the morning." Obviously put on the defensive, Justin's voice was ragged. "But, I mean, I didn't know before that."

Debbie looked at him strangely. "Well, you're here now, and that's probably good for Brian. How is he, honey?" she asked Michael, turning away from Justin.

"They just took him for a chest x-ray. I don't know, he seems calmer today."

"You went home last night and got some sleep?" she demanded to know.

"Yeah." Michael grinned good-naturedly at her mother-henning. "Ben made me. Sometimes he's worse than you."

"Good man," Debbie approved, rubbing Michael's arm absently with her hand. "He's a good man."

Justin could see the worry and anxiety in her eyes and in her mannerisms. Strange how attuned to her he still seemed to be. And strange, too, how much he had missed her without realizing it. He hadn't really thought about it since he'd left the Liberty Avenue gang, but seeing her again brought a tidal wave of homesickness. Despite her cool reception, he was grateful that she was there.

As Michael moved over to the small table provided for the families and proceeded to fix himself a cup of Debbie's coffee, she turned her attention to Justin.

"So. How have you been?" No Sunshine. An awkward politeness. Justin wanted to cringe.

"I'm back at my mother's," he volunteered. "Still studying hard." It sounded so banal, so superficial. Like two former acquaintances meeting after a long separation. The scant span of months suddenly felt like a chasm of years.

"Uh-huh." Her tone was noncommittal. She glanced over at Michael. "Eat one of those cannolis--you need the sugar for energy," she told him warmly. Reverting to her formal tone, she addressed Justin. "Help yourself--I brought plenty."

He realized he'd eaten nothing since dinner the previous evening, yet his stomach was too knotted to even attempt the sweet pastry. Tentatively, he said, "I'd like some coffee."

With a cannoli in one hand and a styrofoam cup of coffee in the other, Michael nodded down the hallway. "I'm gonna go call Ben."

"Sure, honey, go ahead." Debbie sat back down in her vacated seat as Justin emptied several packets of sugar into his cup.

Filled cup in hand, Justin walked over and gingerly sat down in the seat next to her. He sat sideways, facing her. "I've missed you," he ventured tentatively.

"You never made any effort to remedy that." She spoke and looked at him with the forthright bluntness that was her trademark. "Too bad it had to take a tragedy like this to bring you back."

He felt as if she'd slapped him in the face, and maybe she had. Exasperated, he wondered if people would ever stop beating up on him, then realized how childish the thought was. He knew he deserved it, but he still felt a need to defend himself. "I wanted to--" he began, but the look on her face stopped him.

"I've got a whole closet full of 'wanted to's," she responded. "Okay, I could see it if you wanted to end it with Brian, that's your right, but did you have to do it the way you did? And did you have to desert the rest of us in the bargain? You made a damned phone call to quit your job at the diner, no explanation, no nothing." To his surprise, he saw tears forming in her eyes and realized that he had hurt her, too. Another casualty in his pursuit of personal happiness.

Equally to his surprise, he felt the start of tears forming in his own eyes. He looked down. "I fucked up bad," he admitted, the first time he'd said it to anyone other than himself.

Her voice softened; maybe it was the tears, maybe the admission. "Yeah, well, I guess that's part of what being young is all about." Then she added, "You little shit." But the tone was warmer, a hint of the old affection in the words.

He glanced over toward Brian's cubicle, empty now of its patient. "I never stopped loving him, Deb."

"Have you had a chance to tell him that? If you haven't, I wouldn't wait too long. This might be your last shot."

He looked up at her sharply. "You talk like he's going to die."

She gave him a dumbfounded look. "You talk like he's going to live," she cracked out. "There ain't no guarantees of that. Not now." She frowned. "Hasn't anyone told you that?"

No... and yes... Only he'd been too thickheaded to see it, to really understand what they were all saying. His natural optimism had blinded him to the bitter truth, enabled him to sugarcoat the harsh reality. He...really...could...die. Right now. Today. Within minutes or within hours. And so much left unfinished between them, so much left unspoken. The gut-wrenching significance of the moment made him feel as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff, ready to go over and crash on the rocks below. He began to tremble; the coffee sloshed in the cup.

"Justin...? Hey, are you all right?" He heard Debbie's questions from somewhere far away, knew he had to get himself together and respond. But he also had to get to a bathroom and vomit. His stomach turned violently as he stood, blindly placing the cup on the table before rushing off.

He hesitated a moment, then reluctantly pushed into the lavatory. Only one of the four stalls was occupied, and from within that area he heard the unmistakable sounds of retching and coughing.

Absently, he reflected that he had always been grateful that he hadn't been cursed with a delicate stomach. Good Italian genes, he supposed. No matter what happened, he'd never felt the urge to hurl in times of crisis, and a good thing, too. Otherwise he, and Brian too, would have been involved in a lot more fights as kids than they had. Nothing a bully liked better than to see you toss your cookies out of chicken shit fear. The contemplation made him remember all the times that Brian had come to his defense, had been Superman to his Lois Lane, and that memory, turning bittersweet with the passage of time, made him sad.

He busied himself getting a paper towel and running it under the cold water tap, then he wrung it out and straightened it. He waited a moment, then the door to the stall opened and Justin emerged, grey-faced and bleary-eyed, not even noticing Michael at first, then looking surprised to see him there.

Michael silently watched him move to the sink, then handed him the damp paper towel. "Here." He tried to shove aside a wave of sympathy for the Boy Wonder--he didn't want to feel sorry for him. He deserved feeling awful.

"Th-thanks." Justin swiped awkwardly at his face and eyes with the towel as Michael wet and wrung out another. Justin's hands were shaking.

Michael took the second towel and pressed it against the back of Justin's neck, holding it gently in place. "You'd better pull yourself together," he advised, trying to keep the empathy out of his voice.

Fresh tears filled the blue eyes. His voice quivered. "I... I don't want him to die."

The words sent a chill down Michael's back, as did his own familiar response. "He's not going to die."

"Your mom said--" Justin began.

"My mom doesn't know shit." Deja vu. Michael felt a hot stinging in the corners of his own eyes as he remembered, as he paraphrased the words Brian had said to him when Ben was so sick last spring. The ache in his soul deepened. How could he ever replace Brian Kinney if anything happened? He gulped and went on. "We've both got to be strong, now. You know that, you're a bright kid."

Some wellspring of tenacity, of fortitude, bubbled up as Justin's eyes met his. "I'm not a kid, Michael."

"I know you're not. You're old enough to fuck, and you're old enough to do what you want, and you're old enough to know how to betray someone. But what I think or what I know doesn't matter. What matters is that for right now, at least, Brian knows you're here and that you're fighting for him. That's all."

"I know I haven't given you any reason to trust me, but--"

"Doesn't matter," Michael repeated, insistent. "That's between you and him. But if you go in there thinking he's going to die, it's going to show, and that can't happen. Do you understand?"

Justin seemed to consider and to calm. He nodded emphatically.

Michael palmed the towel he was still holding at the back of Justin's neck and brought his hand around to carefully wipe it over his flushed cheeks. The Boy Wonder looked so totally downtrodden without his Batman... JT without his Rage. Michael stifled a sob of his own, and their eyes met and held for a moment of uncommon empathy. Somehow, Michael realized, they had to work together to get through this, for Brian's sake. He nodded slightly, a subtle acquiescence, man to man.

"I won't let him down." There was compliance and possibly deference in the softly spoken words as Justin drew himself up, composed now and steady.

Michael tossed the paper towel into the trash. "See to it." It was a demand. He turned and left the lavatory, not looking back to see if Justin followed him.

"Look, isn't that Mrs. Kinney?"

Michael turned to see. "Yeah, that's Brian's mom. Who's that with her?"

Justin knew. "Oh, my god, it's ...Tommy...I mean, Rev. Butterfield. Her priest."

Debbie looked, too. "This isn't Joanie's first time here, is it?"

"No," Michael replied, "she came the day before yesterday, too. After I called her. Why's she got him with her?"

They all knew the answer to that, yet not one of them voiced it for a moment. It was too horrible to contemplate. The pair had stopped down the hallway, while the priest fumbled in his cassock for something.

"Oh, no!" Michael exclaimed. "She's brought him to perform--"

"--the Last Rites," Debbie finished. She put a hand on Michael's arm as if to restrain him.

"No way!" Michael's eyebrows went up. For once, Justin found himself agreeing with Michael.

"Brian wouldn't want that. Especially not from him," he injected.

"Shut up, you two," Debbie hissed. "If it gives her peace of mind, what can it hurt? Michael, I'm ashamed of you. I raised you better than that."

"His mother thinks he's going to hell for being a queer," Justin proclaimed indignantly.

"She's never done anything but make him miserable," Michael raged. "She has no right to--"

Debbie poked at him. "She has every right, she's his mother! My god, Michael, she just recently lost her husband, and now her son is in ICU. Have a little compassion."

Mrs. Kinney and the priest glanced over at them as they bypassed the waiting room and headed for the nursing station. Mrs. Kinney's eyes lighted on each of them in recognition and acknowledgment; Tom Butterfield seemed to single out Justin with a peculiar expression on his face. Justin squelched an impulse to call out an improper remark.

Michael continued to frown. "I don't want Brian to get upset. God, she's giving up on him! He's not dying!"

Joan Kinney and Rev. Tom approached them. "Good morning, Michael," she said, then looked blankly at Debbie as if trying to recall her name. "Deb, isn't it? You're Michael's mother." Her eyes fell on Justin and there was a dawning recognition there. "I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, young man."

"Justin. We met once at Brian's loft." He smiled dutifully at her, trying to be polite, but his eyes strayed to the priest, Tommy, as he knew him, with an awkwardness that was almost painful. He was remembering that night at the baths, the four-way with Tom and another man named Glenn, remembering the heat and the passion, the connection he had felt with Brian, the two strangers superfluous to their shared orgasms. Remembering Brian's slick, muscular body radiating strength and possession, he wanted to cry.

As if sensing his turmoil, Tom reached out and put a hand on his arm. "Justin," he said softly. Nothing more, just the name, with an undertone that spoke volumes of understanding.

"These are Brian's friends," Mrs. Kinney was saying to her priest. To them, she added, "I've brought Rev. Butterfield here to administer the final act of contrition for Brian." Her eyes clouded and she suddenly looked lost and bewildered.

Empathizing, Debbie put a hand on her arm. "It's all right, Joan. We've all been praying for him."

Joan Kinney looked as if she'd been touched by a bug. She tried to be unobtrusive in withdrawing her arm as she seemed to pull herself together. "Yes, well, I'm sure that's good. The nurse says we can go in to him as soon as they're through, but he's not aware of much."

Michael could not contain himself any longer. "Mrs. Kinney, he's going to get well," he said forcefully, insistent. "There's no need for..." He trailed off, but his eyes rested on the priest at her side. Awkwardly, he realized suddenly that he had no legitimate position here; he could not bar her from the room, even if he wanted to. She was his mother, if not his legal representative, and that carried a certain weight, regardless of her relationship with her wayward son. "I don't think Brian would want--" He appealed to the man of the cloth, pleading for understanding.

"It's all about reassurance, Michael," Tom Butterfield assured him. "Would you deny your friend that?" His gaze swept over them all, resting on Justin as he spoke to Michael. "Don't worry. I know how to be...discreet."

Joan tugged at his arm. "Father Tom, I think they're finished. We should go in now."

Debbie's expression was sympathetic. "Would you like me to go in with you?"

"That's not necessary. I'm sure there's nothing you could do. You always did seem to forget that I'm his mother, not you." Joan's voice was bitter, old resentments coming to the fore. Without another word to them, she headed for Brian's cubicle.

As they disappeared around the corner, Debbie's face hardened. "I never did like that woman," she muttered, offended by the rebuff.

Michael turned to her. "You've been more of a mother to Brian than she ever has," he said softly. Preoccupied with Debbie, he suddenly noticed that Justin had stepped away, and was following the pair into Brian's cubicle. His mouth turned up slightly in a smile, pleased with Justin's doggedness. He knew the Boy Wonder wouldn't let them do anything to disturb Brian, that he'd make sure of it, and the knowledge pleased him. He relaxed and put an arm around his mother's shoulders.

They waited, and in a little while, Mrs. Kinney and her priest came out and spoke briefly with the nurse in attendance. As they left the area, bypassing the waiting lounge, Justin emerged from the cubicle and crossed to them. He was smiling grimly.

"Brian slept through the entire visit," he told Michael triumphantly, his tone that of a conspirator. "He didn't even know Tommy was there."

"Did he..." Deb began, then seemed to gather strength. "You know, administer the sacraments?"

Justin looked confused. "I don't know... he did some mumbo-jumbo in Latin." He had no basis for comparison, not ever having attended a Catholic service. He shrugged. "It seemed to please Mrs. Kinney, so I guess so."

Michael looked at Justin with grudging respect. "I'm glad you went in with them," he admitted reluctantly. Justin nodded evenly, accepting it for what it was. Michael blinked and rubbed a fist over his eyes. "I'm going to sit with him for a while."

Justin stepped over to Debbie's side. "Want to go down to the cafeteria, Deb? I'll buy you a Danish."

Michael sighed, knowing that their roles had been established, at least for now.

He was aware of being overheated, feeling as if he had just run a long distance on a hot summer day. His lungs were starving for oxygen, his chest heaving with the effort to draw breath. He could smell his own sweat and feel it running down his neck and sides, making him recall the track he had run in high school. Something--some unknown blackness--hung at the periphery of his reasoning, but he couldn't think straight, couldn't focus or concentrate. He felt as if there were molasses between his ears, and the thought, that particular phrase, brought a slight smile to his lips as he remembered his Nana, the author of the quaint saying.

He had not thought of her in years, his Nana Kinney, Jack's mother. She had died when he was about nine or so, but before that he had loved her like no one else in his besotted family. Amply padded, he remembered lying against her, using her as a giant human pillow, her gnarled fingers playing with his hair, twisting and stroking it with a gentle motion as she sang slightly off-key. She had her own distinctive fragrance, which years later he had discovered at a cosmetic counter bottled under the Coty label as "Tigress." They didn't make it any longer, and he hadn't smelled it in a long time. If he concentrated, he could still hear her striking laughter, loud and rumbling, breaking on a cough from the unfiltered cigarettes she always smoked. She had always made him laugh along with her, had always been able to draw a smile from him, no matter how badly he felt.

He thought he heard her laugh now. Was she here? Wherever 'here' was... He'd like to see her again; that would be good.

As his head began to clear slightly, the image, the memories, slipped away and he made himself open his eyes to confront whatever was beyond Door Number Two, today's reality. Not his long-dead Nana or the finish line of a high school track meet, or any of a half-dozen other imaginary scenarios that his mind tricked him into perceiving, but himself in a hospital bed, inexplicably bound to that narrow prison, his chest hurting, his head and senses blunted to minimal functioning. Christ, he felt like a fucking retard!

He wanted to stretch, to move his cramped limbs--he felt the pinch of a beginning charley horse across his shoulder blades, but nothing seemed to be working quite right. In a corner of his vision, he detected movement, then a familiar figure peering at him, moving closer.

Michael...hadn't Mikey told him he was sick? The memory was shadowy, like a black bear in a coal mine at midnight, as they used to say. Why was he sick? What was wrong with him? He felt as if he ought to know, but he couldn't pin it down.

Pin it down...pinned down...was he pinned to the bed, like a bug on a slide? Little straight pins in his feet and his hands...maybe that was it. Experimentally, he lifted his left arm and was gratified to see it rise from the blanket, but oh fuck, it hurt! It hurt his shoulder and it hurt his chest, and he gasped, trying to draw a deep breath and failing to expand his lungs more than a scant inch or two.

Desperate for more air, he managed to rock himself forward from the reclining position to attempt to sit up straighter, struggling to draw in more oxygen. He would have fallen all the way forward if Michael hadn't been there to catch him, bracing him with his arms to prevent him from pitching onto his face. Being fully upright made him even dizzier, or maybe it was oxygen deprivation.

His heart started pounding in his chest and a wave of nausea washed through him. And still, he couldn't seem to get enough air. He struggled against the confines of Michael's grip as panic rose up in a miasma of confusion and pain. Was he having a heart attack? The vise squeezing his chest sure felt like it, and the pounding in his head, and the numbness in his limbs.

"Brian! Brian, take it easy, calm down... " Mikey's voice boomed at him, the sound ricocheting in his eardrums. His struggles were making it worse, using up the oxygen faster than he could draw it in, but he couldn't stay still, couldn't stop the shaking that was both internal and external now, and he quivered uncontrollably.

Michael was pinning him back against the upraised pillows and fastening something over his face. Brian tried to resist; the idea of anything covering his mouth and nose, anything preventing him from trying to breathe, was more than he could bear. Was Michael, his trusted Mikey, trying to kill him? He tried to shove at the offending mask, but only managed to get one hand up halfway with an ineffectual swipe at nothing.

Then there was a cool rush of air directly into his tortured system and he gasped with the relief of it, suddenly quieting, concentrating on absorbing it. He was still gasping, still in pain, but it had abated slightly and some of the fear was beginning to recede as his hand rested on Michael's shoulder, his fingers cold and trembling but no longer resisting.

A large black woman in a blue smock and pants came into view. Angel of Mercy in Black and Blue, he mentally dubbed the vision, as she fiddled with something at the side of the bed. Michael looked at her in alarm. They talked, Mikey's voice tinged with concern, hers low-pitched and emphatic, but Brian couldn't quite make out what they were saying. He caught the words, "...fever broke..." and "...panic..." but most of it was oddly indecipherable. His eyes were getting heavy again and as his breathing eased somewhat he wanted only to drift back away on the ever-present black tide of oblivion. He felt something soft and dry blotting his cheeks and forehead, and he looked up once to see Michael with a large white cloth drying his face. He managed a slightly crooked smile as a memory stirred...

On New Year's Eve, they had planned to go out, cruising Liberty Avenue, just the two of them, but Vic got sick, some intestinal thing with a high fever, and Deb had to work the night shift, so Michael volunteered to stay home with his uncle and Brian, pissed, went out alone. Around 11:00, though, he stopped and got pizza and beer and hustled over to Michael's. A scene burned into his memory now, of going upstairs, standing at the doorway of Vic's room, watching Michael tending to Vic like some fucking Florence Nightingale, wiping his face and coaxing him to drink water. Inexplicable emotions flooded him, part jealousy, part affection, part yearning, for...what, he didn't know. But he had been touched by the image, oddly moved. And later, when they lay sprawled on the living room floor pouring gin into paper cups and watching the fucking ball come down in Times Square on the TV set, they had welcomed in the New Year with an incredibly poignant kiss and embrace, pressing their foreheads together. Brian had known, with drunken clarity, that if anything ever happened to him, it was Michael that he would want to see him through it.

Now, as Michael wiped the cloth over his throat, as his trembling subsided and his chest felt slightly less tight, Brian smiled at him with shining eyes. "...Love you," he murmured thickly.

The lines on Mikey's face smoothed out as he smiled back. "He speaks...!" He lay the back of his hand against Brian's cheek. "Love you, too. Rest now."

"Good... idea...." Brian closed his eyes and took a tentative breath. It didn't hurt so much. Weakly, he succumbed to the mindless oblivion and slept deeply.

The doctor led Michael out of the cubicle and stood with his arms folded across his chest. "We're moving Brian later today. I think he's ready to leave the ICU and go to a Neurology step-down unit."

Michael's heart did a jumpstart. It had been almost 24 hours since Brian had awakened, spoke clearly, and the nurse had proclaimed that his fever had broken. His breathing seemed to be getting easier and a subsequent x-ray had indicated that his lungs were clearing. He was still fighting full consciousness and was mostly delirious, but there was definitely improvement, from the pneumonia, at least.

"That's good, isn't it?" Michael wanted to hear the medical confirmation of his hopefulness.

"Absolutely." The doctor smiled. "I'm very pleased. It was completely touch-and-go there for a while. I don't mind telling you, I wasn't sure he'd make it at all." He seemed genuinely elated by the success, and grateful not to have lost his patient.

"Thank you, doctor... for everything."

"I'm assigning him to Dr. Palmer. He's one of the best neurologists on our staff, and he'll take good care of him, get him started on his stroke evaluation as soon as possible." He flashed another smile. "You and his other friends will finally have a proper room to visit him in. I know that will be an improvement."

Michael grinned self-consciously. "I'm sorry if we made nuisances out of ourselves."

"No you didn't, and anyway, we're used to it. Brian must be a good man to warrant such devotion."

Knowing that Brian Kinney would crack up at such an observation, Michael smiled and reflected that, despite Brian's claims to the contrary, he was a good man, a good friend. Michael nodded agreement as the doctor turned away.

Like we will recover... Nothing, he believed, could keep them apart forever--they were meant to be together. It sounded romantic and corny and maybe childish as hell, but he believed in the power of love, in finding one's soulmate, in kismet and fate. Fate had pulled Brian Kinney to his side that long-ago night on Liberty Avenue. Out of dozens of possible tricks he might have wound up with, his destiny had presented him with the one man who would change his life forever. Although their course so far had been like navigating a minefield, and their future would probably continue to present obstacles and rough waters, Justin believed in his heart that they had something rare and beautiful, and he was prepared to fight, if necessary, to preserve it.

In the bed, Brian stirred, his chin jutting out and moving from side to side as his eyes opened and he glanced around in confusion. Spotting Justin, he lifted his left hand in a feeble wave and tried to smile. Delighted at the reaction, Justin scooted forward on his chair and put his hand on Brian's arm, rubbing it in vague reassurance.

"Juss..." Brian mumbled, a vapid smile on his face. Then, in a very clear but husky voice, "Did you put the rest of that chicken in the 'fridge?"

Startled, Justin frowned. "W-what...?"

"Sittin' out...go bad...."

He realized that Brian was in another place and time, groggy from the drugs and the effects of the stroke. Quickly, he played along. "Yeah, sure, it's fine." He grinned. "You always like chicken, don't you?"

"Your...chicken. Good."

Justin's smile deepened. Did Brian mean, 'your' chicken, or 'you're' chicken, he wondered. Either, or. I'm a chicken, you're a chicken, everyone should be a chicken, too, he parodied as he gently squeezed the arm he stroked. "They're going to be moving you to a real room," he said with anticipation.

"Real room..." Brian repeated, nodding his head judiciously,"...real room..." It was obvious the words held no significance for him. He squinted, as if trying to think. "You set the alarm?"

"The alarm is set," Justin affirmed, once again going along. A pang of homesickness struck him; Brian apparently was lost somewhere when they had lived together in the loft. That was okay; Justin could play that scenario with ease.

"Good boy." Brian's voice was stronger as he struggled to sit up. He couldn't, of course; one side of his body wasn't working. Justin stood and leaned over him, pressing his shoulders back to the mattress.

"Take it easy, Tiger...don't try it yet. Just lie still." The temptation was simply too great--he leaned a little farther forward and pressed his lips to the cool forehead as he put his hands on either side of Brian's face.

Justin was wearing a loose shirt and he felt Brian's hand slip under the back hem and slide up his bare back, moist fingers leaving a damp trail that sent shivers through him. He arched his spine and giggled nervously at the unexpected advance. He looked down and saw a familiar teasing grin on Brian's face, that smug, impertinent smile he often wore.

Then Brian's expression clouded with confusion, and Justin saw his eyes draw over to his right as he gazed at his unmoving arm. "Whatta....fuck...?" Justin froze, not sure what to say or do. Brian's left hand was still resting on his back, between his shoulders, and Justin's hands were resting on Brian's collarbones, so he did the only thing he could think of and gave him a thought-stopping kiss to distract him from wondering why his right arm wouldn't move.

It was at that moment that a nurse and a male orderly stepped into the cubicle, wheeling a gurney. Swiftly, Justin stood and Brian focused his attention on the newcomers. At the sight of them, something seemed to alter in Brian's perception; he stirred restlessly and his brows knitted together in agitation. Warily, Justin took a step away from the bed.

"Brian? We're ready to transfer you to your room now, okay?" the nurse asked efficiently as she began to unhook the IVs from their stationary pole.