EXPERIENTIA DOCET Sunt lacrimae rerum There are tears for things This Chapter 16 in the "EXPERIENTIA DOCET" series. Narrated by: Brian Kinney Featuring Emmett Honeycutt, Daphne Chandler, and others Series Rated NC-17 and contains no warnings or spoilers. Summary: November 2003 Brian tries to figure out what he wants – if he’s willing to try and win Justin back. Realizing what he wants, Brian begins to plan on how to go about it. Disclaimer: no profit made… The Boys are not mine. No matter how much I’d love to have them… * * * * * * * Justin left today. I stood there as his fucking plane taxied down the runway. I have been trying to talk to him since this shit came down, but he’s hardly said two words to me. Okay, so he’s said a lot to me, but unfortunately he hardly gives me the chance to say shit back. I don’t know really what I would say, or hell, why I should say anything – but I think that he owes me the chance to try. Fuck me. When the hell did I become some fucking hetero or lesbian? Maybe I will be better off now. The chance to go back to the way things were. Just forget that little fucking twink and go back to being Brian Kinney. I’m only kidding myself, really. What is it someone said… you can lie to your friends, family, lovers, but you can’t lie to yourself? I know that I’d be lying to myself if I actually went back to who I was. Hell, the reason why I started this shit with Justin was because I was tired of all that old shit. I am so fucking tired of everything having to be a certain way, and of everyone thinking that I’m who I’ve been portraying for the past … so many years. I am so fucked. I wonder if he’ll let me explain why I did what I did. I mean he should understand, if he knows me at all. I’m not used to this shit. I’ve never been in a relationship before, so I don’t even have anything solid to go on as reference. No. Fuck this shit. He’s going to listen to me one way or the other. I don’t give a flying fuck what he thinks, but if he thinks that he can just walk away from this… he’s got another thing coming. All I have to do is come up with a plan. I have to try and come up with a way to sit him down so we can talk. Hey, I haven’t come this far to have it all blow up in my face. Fuck that shit. No. He opened the doors, and I’m not backing down now. I do wonder, however, what the fuck happened to him at the mall. He looked fucking terrified. ‘Not really… Just saw someone that I wish I never had to see again. That’s all’ I know that’s not all. He may buy that line, but I don’t. Whoever was in that store scared the hell out of him. The entire time in LA, Justin didn’t smoke that much, when he did it was because he was stressed, or needed to think. When he sat there smoking outside the mall, I knew that it must’ve been big… well that and the fact that he ran out of the store like the mob was chasing him. He says he can’t trust me. Okay, so I fucked up, I know this – but I guess I’m not really understanding why ONE fucking mistake, and he says it’s over. I guess I just have to earn that trust back. I’m an ad man, one of – no the best damn one in his city. I just have to find a way to sell myself to him. Show him that I admit to making a mistake – but he would be making a bigger one if he didn’t give me … us a chance. Shit, it was one mistake… I’m not perfect. He’s not perfect – no matter how the ‘gang’ perceives him. He needs to just put this behind him, and say fuck it. He can’t trust me. HA! Why the fuck does one little fucking mistake ruin everything… I guess I don’t understand. He’s just being completely unreasonable about the whole thing. Demanding too much. Hell he won’t even listen to reason. Oh well… fuck it. If he fucking wants me to just give in…to just do whatever he wants. Fuck! I am not some whipped love-sick fool! Then why the hell can’t I sleep? Why can’t I get him out of my head? Why the fuck do I feel like I want to give him the world? Just give in? I am so fucked! * * * * * * * Well, well. Imagine my surprise when I enter Starbucks © and see that girl Justin was with. She is just sitting there drinking a coffee, reading the paper. Well maybe I can get some answers as to what the fuck is going on. I grab my latte and plant myself in the chair across from her. “Anything interesting in the news today,” I say, getting her attention. “What?” She asked, looking up at me. “Oh wait… I know you. You’re Brian. Justin told me a lot about you. Not that I can say it was all good,” she said as she set the paper off to the side. “It’s good to be famous,” I smirk. I wonder just what Justin told her about me. What she thinks she knows. I doubt it’s anything, but she is Justin’s friend, and I need to get some answers. “So…” “So what the hell are you doing here? Oh wait… I get it. You want to get back with Justin, so you thought you’d get to him through me, right?” I want to scream at her for being a smart-mouthed kid… she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but instead I do what I have to do. If I want to get anywhere, figure out anything, I need her help. God, how pathetic is that shit? “You can forget it. I’m not going to help you hurt him anymore. You told him that you would be monogamous, but then days later… DAYS later, you broke it. Justin’s my friend, and he’s been through hell and back again. You don’t deserve him, and I won’t stand by and let ANYONE hurt him the way you did again. Do we understand each other, Mr. Kinney?” I shake my head and take a sip of my coffee. She’s feisty. I like that. “You don’t know shit,” I simply tell her. She doesn’t. Hell, no one knows what Justin and I have done together, except us. “Oh, I don’t, do I? I know everything. Who do you think he calls late at night after you guys fuck? Who do you think he’s on the phone to when you arrive at his loft? Who was there that night, and saw what you did to save him? Who was there to help him pack his bags so he could leave this hell-hole? It sure as hell wasn’t you. It wasn’t his mom, or dad… or even Molly. It was me. So don’t tell me what I know and don’t know. I know where your little tattoo is…” She finished with a small smile on her face. Fuck me… what the hell is this? Okay, maybe I’ve underestimated her. Maybe… just maybe, I’ve underestimated her and Justin’s relationship... but somehow, I get the feeling that she’s lying. She has to be... right? “I know that you tried to find out how he was after the bashing,” she quietly added. Okay, she got my attention. How the fuck did she know that? “I never told Justin, but I saw you a couple of times checking with the night nurse… seeing if he was alright. I saw you at the trial once. I’m not blind… I know you care about him. I just don’t know how much.” “Yeah, well I guess we don’t have to worry about that. He won’t even talk to me,” I tell her. I’m starting to feel a little vulnerable… and it’s not something I’m used to. No one knows about any of that shit… no one. How the hell did this kid know? “Do you blame him?” she asked. “Look, Brian,” she began as she reached across the table to lay her hand on top of mine. “Justin loves you… I mean he really does. He wants to fight it… he doesn’t want to give himself over to anyone like that, but he has. He’s given himself over to you. Do you know how hard that was for him to do?” She removes her hand from mine and sits back, I guess so she can try and think. Me on the other hand… fuck! “If he feels the way you say he does, then he would fucking talk to me,” I tell her. Shit, to say that this was not what I expected when I sat down would be an understatement. Okay, so I came here to try and get answers. I know this. But this…this is not what I expected. Daphne takes a deep breath, and lays her hands on the table so she can lean forward a little. She begins to talk – her voice quiet – so quiet that I have to lean forward myself to hear her. “You don’t understand. Justin… after the bashing, his life… his life was turned upside down – completely torn to shreds. I tried to help him… I did, but it wasn’t enough. His parents – well mainly his dad – treated him like shit. His mom wanted to shelter him… wouldn’t let him out of the house. The kids at school… god, it was a fucking mess. We often talked about getting out of this place. Just packing up and leaving. “I guess he had enough one day. I never did find out what happened, he wouldn’t tell me, but he came running to my house in the middle of the night. The next thing I knew we were packing his bags into his car, and he was gone. No one knew, except me,” she told me. I knew things had been hard on him. He would never get into details as to what happened, but I knew it wasn’t an easy time for him. “What happened after that?” “He called me almost every day… letting me know where he was. I never told anyone where he was at, or that he was even talking to me. See everyone always said that they would never judge him… that they would always love him, never hate him. But after what Hobbs did… everything that he believed, what everyone had told him turned out to be a lie. He was gay… he was a freak… so why should they keep their promises?” She shook her head in anger, and I can’t blame her. “They weren’t the only ones either. Once he got to LA… god it was awful. He had no place to stay… no money to eat… things were just all around shit. Then this guy… he told Justin that he could help him out… that … that he would never hurt Justin.” I can almost see where this story is going, and I’m not liking it one bit. I have to bite my lip to keep from yelling out. Instead I just lean forward a little bit more, hearing for the first time something that no one else knows. I know that this is something that only Justin and Daphne know… I checked into everything I could get my hands in. Nothing came back that even remotely suggested anything like this. “What happened? Did he… was Justin… raped,” I find myself asking. “At times I wish that he had,” I hear her say. “No… at least not technically. See, Josh… he used to say all the right things and stuff. Used to treat Justin like a king, and Justin… god he feel for it. Anyway, Josh started to take Justin to these parties, just to have a good time. He didn’t rape Justin… instead he tried to sell Justin. For drugs, whatever he could get his hands on. When Justin confronted him, Josh told him that he had lied… he never loved Justin. Justin was just a means to an end. Nothing more, nothing less.” I feel the bile start to rise up in my throat. Just thinking about someone trying to sell Justin’s body for drugs… fuck me! If I could find this ‘Josh’… ohhhh he would learn a thing or two about how to treat someone. “And Josh wasn’t the only one who had lied to him once he got out there. I mean look at his life. ‘Oh it’s okay that you’re gay’… but then they turn around and treat him like shit if he’s seen holding someone’s hand. Or worse tell him he HAS to date this prick Ethan… god! I mean they are basically trying to run his life. They tell him that he can live his life the way he wants, but the minute he ‘steps out of line’ they shut him off. Justin only wants people to be honest with him. That’s all he wants. Did you know that he still gets freaked out in a crowd? He still hasn’t gotten over the feeling that someone is going to come out of the shadows and finish the job?” I can say that I didn’t know. Well… I can’t really say that either. I think I knew, but I didn’t want to believe it. I mean it was years ago, he should be over it right? “So honesty is the key to being with Justin?” “Yes… everyone in his life has lied to him. He has no one to talk to. NO one. Do you know what it’s like… do you have any idea what it’s like to have to sit there and have all these people pawing over you… trying to touch you, fuck you… when all you want to do is run away? No one understands what it’s like for him. He needs someone who can help him through it, who can hold him and tell him that it’s going to be alright. Yeah, he has friends who care about him, but they don’t understand.” Daphne leans forward a little more. “I mean I can’t really understand because I'm not gay. I have never been bashed. I can’t tell him what he should be feeling cause I haven’t been there. He needs someone he can trust.” “He can trust me,” I tell her. Daphne just laughs and leans back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her. “Oh really? This coming from the man who promised him something, then went against it. This coming from a man who lied to him about it… and not telling him is as good as lying to him. You can’t keep things from him like that. And that shit at the club? It was like you threw it in his face… told him that he wasn’t worth your time. That he wasn’t worth you telling him the truth. He doesn’t care really that you fucked someone else… it’s that you lied to him about it… you didn’t tell him. That’s why he won’t talk to you. That’s what hurt him the most. He needs someone he can trust to not hurt him, and throw his insecurities, and inexperience in his face. He thought that was you.” I just lean back in my chair and think. Hell she gave me a lot to think about that’s for sure. I guess I never realized how important it really was to him… and here I fucking lied to him plenty of times. Fuck. He won’t come to me, I know this now. He’s not just having a dramatic moment, and will get over it with time. No… he’s serious. * * * * * * * After my talk with Daphne, I went home and basically drank myself into oblivion. I had to do some serious thinking about what I wanted, what I was willing to give. I guess that’s the thing that bothers me the most. I have always believed that if you care about someone, you have to give a part of yourself to them… you lose yourself, basically. I wasn’t ready to do that. Hell, I liked who I was. I had worked so damn hard to get where I was that I wasn’t ready to give it all up. But Daphne gave me something else to think about. She gave me the tools – the information I needed to think of things from where Justin stood. To say that I’m thrilled with what I came up with… well the jury’s still out on that one. I do know, however, what I need to do. I realize that I do want Justin with me. He’s the first person that I have been able to give myself over to, and not really worry about what’s going to happen. I’m actually able to see us years from now… still fighting over the little things. No things will never be perfect, but come on… we’re fags here. Nothing is ever simple with us. The first order of business is to get him to talk to me. Get him to at least listen to what I have to say. I finally understand what he wants of me. It’s not really monogamy… it’s honesty. He wants no secrets between us. He wants someone that he can count on to be there for him when things get tough. I finally know. So I start trying to call him. I call… and call. I can’t tell you how many messages I have left for him to call me. But the return calls never come. So here I am… three days later waiting for Emmett to come into the diner. I can only think of one way to get Justin to see me. One way to be able to talk to him. A part of me wishes that I didn’t have to go to such extremes, but hey… I’m desperate. “Well, well… what do we have here,” Emmett says as he takes the seat across from me. “Brian Kinney wanting to see little ol’ me.” I roll my eyes and bite the inside of my cheek. The last thing I need is to say something stupid to him that could ruin everything. “Sooo, what can I do for you,” he asks me, placing his arms on the back of the booth. He is just loving this, I can see it in his eyes. Fucker. I’m half tempted to just tell him to forget it, and walk out of there, but Justin’s face appears in my mind, and I know I have to do this. I just wish there was another way. Taking a deep breath, I decide to bite the bullet. It’s now or never. My only chance to start the ball rolling. I lean forward and look up at Emmett. “So Emmett… about this convention. You still have tickets for it right?” “Yah,” he says a little nervous. “Why?” “And I know Mikey isn’t going…” “I don’t think he likes Justin all that much… and to tell you the truth, after that mess at Babylon, I don’t think that Justin needs him there.” I nod my head in agreement. I agree with him completely. Justin doesn’t need that shit. “Why do you ask?” “Well if you still have an extra ticket… I’ll buy it off of you,” I tell him. I roll my lips into my mouth, trying to tell him with my eyes that I don’t have any intention of hurting Justin, of causing the young man any more pain. I know that’s what Emmett’s afraid of, I can see it in his eyes. “So… what do you say?” “You do realize how hard these tickets are to come by? The only reason why I was able to get them is because I am head of the fan club here in Pittsburgh. You can’t buy these off of the streets, you know,” Emmett tells me. Somehow, I knew that he was in charge of something, of some fan club. “So I have to ask…are you going to fix things,” he asks. “You’re not going to stomp on his heart again?” “Don’t plan on it, I promise.” Emmett sits back for a minute so he can think about it. I don’t say anything more… I don’t have to. If he doesn’t believe me, then there’s nothing that I can say that will change his mind. He’s going to have to go on what he knows about me… what he knows about Justin. He’s just going to have to trust me. There’s nothing I can say that will force him into one position or another. It seems like an eternity before he nods his head. “Okay. You can have it… but I warn you,” he says leaning forward in the booth. “If you hurt him… if you are trying to use me to do that… you’ll wish you had never met me.” Emmett just stands and walks out of the diner. Somehow, I believe him. But all I know is… in three days I’ll get my chance to talk to Justin. He can’t avoid me for much longer. * * * * * * * TBC…