This cab ride, Justin thought, seemed to be taking longer than the time his dad had insisted on taking the family across country to see the Pacific Ocean. What seemed like hours later, but was really a mere five minutes, Justin was tossing a twenty dollar bill at the cab driver and slamming the car door shut. He quickly crossed the street and headed directly to the diner’s entrance. 

He stopped short when he realized that he could hear Brian yelling from inside the diner. Taking a deep breath, Justin charged forward and entered the diner. What he found was utter chaos. 

Debbie was yelling at Brian to stop or she’d call Carl. Michael and Emmett were trying to pull Brian off of Ted; sadly, they were having no effect at all. Ted, unfortunately, was on the floor with Brian straddling him and holding him by his shirt collar. It looked like Ted might have a broken nose; there was blood trickling out of his nose and onto his dress shirt. His nose was also shaped oddly. 

Without registering what Brian was saying or even thinking about what he was doing, Justin ran forward and grabbed the hand that Brian had pulled back ready to hit Ted again with. 

“Brian!” he yelled, “Stop it! Stop it! He didn’t do anything wrong! We didn’t do anything wrong!” Justin pulled harder on Brian’s arm. This time, he got Brian’s attention. Brian viciously shook the arm that Justin had a hold of and Justin stumbled back, but held on. 

“Stop it, Brian! Just stop it! Let him up!” Justin harshly said again; he gave Brian's arm another rough shake. 

“Why in the world would I possibly want to do that?” Brian said. “Ted and I were just having a discussion about the night he fucked you. I wanted to know if he liked it as much as everyone else does. I think he was just about to tell me when you decided to interrupt. That wasn’t very nice, Sunshine. I would think you’d have better manners being from the country club set and all. Now, how about you let Ted and I finish our little conversation, hmmm?” 

“Brian,” Emmett suggested with a sweetly pleading tone, “Why don’t you let Teddy up? Justin is here now and he wants to talk.” 

“Fuck off, Honeycutt! This has nothing to do with you. This has to do with friends fucking friends!” Brian retorted and made to punch Ted again as Emmett reminded him that he didn’t like to be called Honeycutt. 

“Stop it, Brian!” Justin tugged Brian’s arm back again. “Ted and I did not sleep with each other. Please, Brian, let him go. Then, we can go somewhere and talk.” 

“Nope,” Brian denied the request, “I think I’d rather hear what my good friend, Ted, has to say about fucking friends.” 

“Brian,” Ted started, but quickly shut up when he was bestowed with the Kinney ‘death glare.’ 

Debbie interjected, “Brian, please, let Ted go. Listen to Justin. Let him go and go talk with Justin!” Brian just shook his head ‘no.’ “Brian Kinney, I will call Carl!” Brian shrugged and turned back towards Ted, who responsively drew back as much as the cloth around his collar would let him.

Justin pulled on Brian’s arm and felt him once again try to shrug Justin off. “Please, Brian. Let’s just go somewhere and talk.” 

“NO!” Brian nastily retorted and then reacted. He viciously shoved Justin off of him. Justin knew it wasn’t good by the looks on everyone’s faces. Later, the last thing he would consciously remember was the look of horror on Brian’s face and Deb screaming for someone to call 911. After that, everything went black. 

There were snippets of consciousness that Justin realized, when he finally woke up, that he could recall since the accident at the diner. He remembered being in the ambulance with Brian at his side. He remembered once briefly waking and sensing his mother holding his hand, and the worst headache he could imagine. He remembered his sister, Molly, talking to him. But, again, those were just snippets. And, for all he knew, they might not have been real. Although, he was very sure that he was now awake because his head was hurting like a bitch and there was something down his throat- and it wasn’t a good something.

Hearing someone groan, he slowly opened his eyes only to realize that the groan had been uttered from his lips and a few people now knew that he was awake. 

“Justin!” a female voice exclaimed. 

“Justin!” a pain laced voice gruffly said. 

“Mmmm,” was all he got out, but was relieved to see two faces above him: his mother’s and Brian’s. 

“Shhh, don’t talk, sweetheart,” his mother said. “You’ve got a breathing tube in your throat because of a mild complication. They’ll probably remove it as soon as we get a nurse. 

“They fucking gave you Tylenol,” Brian snarled in response to his mother’s words. “I told them! And still they fucking gave it to you!” 

“Brian!” his mother harshly whispered. “Why don’t you go get the nurse and let them know that he’s awake?” 

Brian nodded and removed himself from Justin’s line of vision. Justin turned his eyes back to his mother and arched an eyebrow in a very Kinney fashion.

His mother gave him a nose crinkling smile, turned to look at something, and then started speaking, “I wanted to make sure the door was shut. I don’t want him to hear what I’m about to say.” 

Justin gave her a slight nod to make sure she knew that he understood. 

She nodded back and continued, “He’s been here the whole time. He hasn’t left for anything: sleep, food, nor change of clothes- nothing. He blames himself. And, I guess in a way, he should from what Debbie says. But the look on that man’s face when we were waiting to hear how you were doing….” His mother paused and seemed to gather herself. “Well, I just want to tell you to not be too hard on him. I’ve never seen someone so distraught in my life…and that includes the night of your prom.” 

Justin raised his eyebrows to his hairline. That was a huge admission from his mother. One, he had to admit, he was sure he couldn’t conceive receiving even a year ago. He was pulled from his musings by the sound of a door opening. 

“Dr. Graham,” his mother said, “Justin is awake!” 

“Hello, Justin! I’m Dr. Graham. You’ve been a guest of mine for a few days. I’m sure you realize that you won’t be able to speak until we remove that tube, and, even then, your voice will be gravelly for a few days. So, we don’t want you talking too much, okay?” 

Justin nodded and tried to give him a smile. 

“So, essentially, you fell while trying to break up a fight. You hit your head on the corner of a table and were knocked unconscious. You had a slight concussion. Since you have a prior history of head injuries, we wanted to make sure things were okay. We admitted you overnight as a precaution. While you were here, you woke in the middle of the night complaining, not unexpectedly, of a headache. Since your records were still being looked over by the night neurologist, the on call GP ordered you a prescription of Darvocet sans your medical records. Unfortunately, Darvocet contains acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient of Tylenol. Well, as you can imagine, you gave us quite a scare. You stopped breathing on us a few times and you lost consciousness again. That’s why you have the tube. Would you like for it to be removed?” Justin nodded. “Good, then let’s get that tube out and do a few other tests. If all looks good, I think you can go home tomorrow.” 

“Oh, honey, that’s great news!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Isn’t that great news, Brian?” Brian didn’t answer, but he was watching Justin intently. 

The doctor gently removed the tube, but Justin found himself harshly coughing over and over.  The doctor, when he finally quit coughing, started to do a few other tests, but Justin stopped him. In a rough voice, he asked, “Would you mind giving Brian and me a minute? We need to talk.” 

“Let him do his job, Justin, and then we can talk.” Brian calmly said. 

“No, we talk now. Please excuse us.” Justin insisted. 

The doctor gave a slight nod. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”  Turning to Brian, the doctor reminded, “He isn’t supposed to be talking too much, okay?” Brian nodded that he understood.

“Thank you” Justin wanted to let the doctor know how much he truly appreciated this. 
	
Jennifer, leaving with the doctor, looked like she wanted to say something, but refrained.