Sadly, I’ve reached the end of the rainbow and therefore I must regrettably declare this the LAST CHAPTER. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing!- Sapphire. WHITE ‘White light is made up of many different colours and you can see this when you spread the light out into a rainbow’— Amazing-space.stsci.edu VIOLET “Violet is calming after shock and fear” –Sensationalcolor.com “The positive side of violet is self-sacrificing, kind and just, with great mental strength”—Colour Energy, Colour Healing. “Violet represents entirety, fullness and completion”—Sensationalcolour.com A Month Later Brian’s POV “Why’d you let Sunshine come in today?!” Deb demanded furiously, moving to block the doorway as soon as she caught sight of me. She was sporting a ferocious look of disapproval and anger, which I normally knew better than to question. “You knew it was one of his ‘therapy days’! You knew he was gonna get sick!” I fucking knew it. She hadn’t called me here to help Justin; she’d called me here to ream me out. Shit. “He’s not a child, Deb.” I snapped at her, biting back the urge to tell her to mind her own goddamn business. “And he’s not sick. He said he felt well enough to work today, so why should I have stopped him?” I pushed past her irritably, scanning the diner for Justin. I didn’t see him anywhere. The diner was half-empty now; only a handful of customers, mostly hustlers preparing for their night shifts, remained. Mercifully, I didn’t see any of ‘the Gang’ or their associated entourage, which was one hell of a relief. “Where the fuck is he?” I demanded, turning to face Deb. When she didn’t back down or answer my question, I knew we were about to have a battle of wills. No, better make that an emotional holocaust. Just what I fucking needed. “Now you listen to me,” Deb began, leveling a finger with its violet-painted nail at my face in a way she knew I hated. “That boy needs proper care. And that means that you have to put his needs ahead of yours. Now, I know that’s just about fucking impossible for you…If his mother knew you like I do, she would never have let him-” Normally, I would have allowed Deb to rant on at me for a bit longer. Because normally, she was right and I usually deserved it. But the untruth and unfairness of what she was insinuating now- that I cared more about myself than I did for Justin- struck and wounded me so deeply that I surged up against the sheer injustice of it. “What he needs,” I spat, “is not to be babied and mollycoddled. He needs someone who appreciates how strong he is, someone who knows what he’s been through. Someone who’ll pick him up when he falls but won’t insist on carrying him. THAT’S what he needs, Deb.” I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from adding that she was incapable of giving him that. It was one thing to do it for Vic, but it was quite another to do it to Justin. There was no way she could know just how hard it was for me myself to give Justin what he required. Sometimes the urge to take him in my arms and never let go, to protect him from everything, was so strong I had to turn away…which felt like twisting the knife, adding salt to the wound. It was tough, tough love. Deb’s anger melted away into astonishment at my outburst, which turned slowly to humility mixed with guilt. I stood my ground and stared her down. Many of the diner’s patrons had looked up curiously at the sound of our little spat, but I didn’t fucking care. I wouldn’t have cared if we were onstage at the goddamn Oscars. “Where is he?” I repeated, trying to keep the anger and frustration out of my voice. “He’s, uh, he’s in the staff washroom.” Deb told me anemically. “I sent Kiki in there after him.” All of her wrath had drained away and she was left looking meek and deflated…a bit pathetic really. Feeling guilty for snapping at her so harshly, a put a hand out to her arm and gave her elbow an appreciative squeeze. I knew there would be a follow-up discussion about this later, probably accompanied by macaroni-tuna casserole, but I couldn’t bring myself to really care about it just then. I made my way back through the kitchen to the staff washrooms and pushed the door to the Men’s open. Justin was sitting on the floor next to one of the urinals with his arms resting on his knees and his head bowed so that the curtain of hair hid his face. Kiki (or was that Kevin?) was knelling beside him, rubbing his back soothingly. When (s)he saw me enter, Kiki bent to Justin’s ear and whispered something to him. He looked up at me and gave a weak, sickly smile. He looked like shit. “The Usual?” I asked, moving to crouch in frount of him. Kiki, who had always been petrified of me for some reason, silently got up and slunk away. I lifted the hair away from Justin’s sweaty forehead to get a better look at his face. ‘The Usual’ was the Justin’s term for the suite of aliments that when along with radiotherapy; nausea, vomiting, weakness, dizziness, disorientation, and a general feeling of overall shitiness. Since he’d started the radiation treatment four weeks ago, he seemed to be getting a handle on all the nasty side effects, but sometimes they crept up on him when he wasn’t expecting it. “Yeah.” He murmured, leaning into my touch slightly as I pressed the back of my hand to his cheek to assess its temperature. “It came on pretty suddenly. I really thought it would be OK today.” “It is OK,” I assured him, raking my fingers through his mane of hair to pull it off his face, “Don’t worry about it. Now, c’mon, I’ll take you home.” I stood up and took Justin’s hands in both of mine, waited for him to brace his feet on the tiled floor, and hauled on his arms to lift him to his feet. When he leaned heavily against me, I wasn’t sure if he’d done it intentionally or whether the change in altitude had occurred too quickly for him. Either way, I didn’t care. I steadied him with an arm around his waist and allowed him to remain propped against me as long as he needed. “You’re not gonna puke again, are you?” I asked, slipping a hand under his hair to massage the sides of his neck with my fingers. “Because you know there’s a strict ‘No Vomiting in the ‘Vette’ rule.” “How could I forget a rule with such alluring alliteration?” His response had come out as a muffled groan originating from somewhere in the vicinity of my shoulder. I laughed, and felt him give an ‘hmph’ of amusement. He pulled back from me slowly, and I put my hands on his upper arms to steady him. “Don’t worry,” he murmured, heaving a gloomy sigh. He patted his flat stomach, “I don’t think there’s anything left down there anyway.” I wasn’t quite sure I believed that enough to kiss him on the mouth, so I opted for his nose instead. Taking his hand, I lead him out of the washroom and back into the dining area. Deb looked extremely relived to see that he was still mobile, and made a move towards him with her arms outstretched. I shot her a look to remind her about what I’d just said about cosseting him. “Where’s you stuff?” Although I’d directed this question at Justin, I was actually addressing Deb. I despised it when people talked about me in my presence as if I weren’t there, so I made a conscious effort not to do it to anyone else. “I’ll get it, Sunshine.” Deb offered, obviously taking the hint, “I’ll just be two secs.” She disappeared into the back in search of Justin’s coat, scarf and shoulder bag. “Did she give you a hard time?” Justin asked quietly, leaning his head against my shoulder. Instinctively, I put an arm around him and idly twined his hair around my fingers. He curled himself into me, evidently deciding he would let me deal with the task of maintaining his upright stance. “You know Deb.” I sighed, shifting a bit to accommodate his weight, “Whadda you think?” “I wish she’d gotten mad at me instead of you. I was the one who insisted on coming.” I wanted to reply to this confession with “that’s what I told her”, but that would make it sound as if it Justin’s fault, which wasn’t fair either. There was no ‘fault’ involved here. So I decided against saying anything and just kissed his nose again instead. Deb came bustling back in holding Justin’s outer garments and bag. She insisted on helping him into his coat and made a fuss over the toggle clasps that ran up the frount. She wrapped the scarf lovingly around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, and told him to ‘have some chicken soup and get a good night’s sleep’. Christ- Deb was the Mollycoddling Queen…but she was so fucking good at it. I decided to let her get on with it; may be her Sunshine could have used a little motherly TLC just then. She picked up his shoulder bag and made a move to hand it to him, but I reached out and took it instead. I slung it over my shoulder, wondering what the hell Justin could possibly be carting around that made it so fucking heavy. Giving Deb a good-bye peck on the cheek, I put a hand on the small of Justin’s back and directed him out the door and into the street. Outside in the lamplight, his already pale completion seemed to glow ghostly white, contrasting sharply with the azure of his eyes, the red of his lips, and the saffron gold in his hair. I couldn’t help thinking he was beautiful- not the same kind of beauty as when he smiled brilliantly or when he was charged with sexual desire. This was different. It was a pure, innocent, fragile beauty. A secret beauty. One that only I knew about; one that only I could see. “Is Daphne gonna be at home?” I asked as I helped him climb gingerly into the passenger’s seat of the ‘Vette. If Daphne was out for the evening, I’d have an excuse to take Justin back to the loft. A chance to undress him and put him in my bed, to kiss and caress him into sleep, and may be even lie with his sleeping body in my arms for a while. But he nodded slowly, and the glimmer of hope flickered out and died. Tough Love. Soon, I thought. Soon, I would ask him to come back to live with me. For all the right reasons. If he was ready. God knows I was. I wanted Justin. I wanted him in my home, in my bed, in my body, and in my life. In me. Forever. ~~~ Two Days Later Justin’s POV “I can hardly see it anymore. It looks good.” Brian pushed my legs a little further apart with one hand to enhance his view of the thin white scar that meant and represented so much. He drew his fingertip along the length of it, a hair’s breath away from the skin, making me shiver. “Good enough to fuck me?” I asked hopefully, as if I thought there was the tiniest speck of hope that he might change his mind if I caught him off guard. Brian shot me a look of intense irritation and gave the inside of my thigh a light, but admonitory smack. I’d asked that question at least seven times this week, and God knows how many times since the surgery. “But why?” I asked, trying not to sound too desperate. I knew I was pleading again, but I didn’t care. “I want you so badly! I need you inside me, Brian. I can’t take this anymore! This has got to be hell for you, too. Please…” Brain looked at me for a moment, the irritation dying away and being replaced by a look of patient authority. He had always been patient with me, and with this particular issue I must have stretched him to the absolute limit. I’d tried everything; begging, demanding, pleading, enticing, bribing, and guilt-tripping. I refused to give a fraction of an inch. He ran his hands up my back and crawled up my body, forcing me to lie back down on the bed. He completely covered my body with his, pressing us as close together as our separate entities would allow. “Now, I’ve told you, Little Boy,” he told me patiently, gently, as he tapped a finger on my nose, “I won’t fuck you until you can get it up properly.” “But why?” I asked again, brokenly. I didn’t care that I sounded childish and demanding and whiny. I wanted him, needed him, so desperately. And I knew he was doing this for me, but it just made no sense- for him or for me. “I don’t understand.” “It’s not fair for you.” He was looking at me suddenly as if he were the one begging; begging for me to understand it, to accept it. I didn’t. “But I want it.” I tried to reason, trying again to keep the desperation, now bordering on hysteria, out of my voice. “I don’t need to be hard for you to fuck me. And I don’t care if I don’t cum, so why should you care? I…I want you so much, Brian.” Brian slid his face down right beside mine, the stubble of his cheeks and chin rubbing and scraping against the side of my face, his lips brushing against my neck and jaw. His hair was in my eyes and in my mouth, his scent was filling my nostrils. It suddenly wanted nothing more than to lie here with him, like this, for the rest of my life. For the rest of eternity. I wanted to give myself to him; heart, mind and soul. He was very close, as if he were somehow diffusing into me. As if he was all around me and inside me and flowing through me. “I want it to be beautiful.” I felt his mouth form the words against my ear, and heard his almost soundless voice, barely more than a breath of wind against a brilliant white silence. I was swallowed up by it, consumed, my whole life, everything, focused on his whispered words. “I want us to feel it together, for everything that is us to be together. To ride it out in each other arms and to feel and taste our love on each other’s bodies. We’ll be so beautiful, so perfect. You and me. I want it beautiful.” He fell silent and all that was left was his warm breath and calm breathing, like the gentle roll of waves against a far off shore. In my mind’s eye, I saw the brilliant white silence turn to light and suddenly pass through something, shattering it into thousands of tiny rainbows. I was that light; I was white but simultaneously full of colour. But without Brian, I would never see it, I could never show it. He shattered me into colour; made me into something special. He made me into something beautiful. After a long, long time, I seemed to return to myself, as if I’d actually physically left my body for a time. I realized that I was crying and I couldn’t remember why. I felt Brian’s arms holding me, his hands caressing me, and the warm weight of his body against mine, protecting me. I felt his body leave mine and a moment later, he was sitting and pulling me into his lap. “Hey, hey ,hey.” He said softly, gently, smearing the tears from my face with his fingers, “What’s with the waterworks? What’s got you so upset, Sunshine?” “I’m just…” I began, having absolutely no idea how to begin to explain what I was feeling, “I’m just happy.” “You’re just happy.” Brian repeated with a soft, affectionate laugh. He pulled me more tightly against him, and I felt his lips on the neck and face and shoulders. “You’ve got a fucking weird way of showing it, Kiddo.” He settled me into the crook of his arm, and wiped the residual tears away with his fingertips. I knew he was completely confused and more than a bit alarmed by my sudden emotional breakdown. But he was Brian, and he took it in his stride. “Tell me why you’re so happy all of a sudden.” He spoke quietly, running his fingers, feather-light, up and down my chest and neck, loving me with his touch. A movement on the wall suddenly caught my eye. The wintery sunlight, peeping through a gap in the blinds, had caught the reflection of a drop of water on the leaf of a potted plant. The light had separated, had shattered, into a tiny rainbow that played along the wall as the droplet swayed slightly. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. “I’m happy…because the storm is over. I can see the rainbow.” THE END