Once he’d woken up and sobered up from his excursions the night before, Brian left for the hospital. No time was wasted lazing around the loft until noon like most weekends. There was no point anyways. It was D-day. He knew that today he would do something unthinkable, so it was best to just get on with it, wasn’t it?

Being that it was a Sunday, the drive over to the hospital was short. Brian took the elevator up to the fifth floor, turning right then left then right again through the halls without even having to think about it. No one from the usual assemblage was waiting around in the common area when he arrived, nor were any of them holding vigil outside of Justin’s room. That alone, struck Brian as odd. Then he entered the hospital room itself.

His heart stopped, as did his feet. The bed had been stripped. And therefore… Justin was dead. In Brian’s mind, one equaled the other. Movies and television had told him so. They always cleared the bed when the patient died. “No,” he whispered. “No!” Why it upset him so, to see that his lover had passed away in the night when he himself had come there to end that very same life, was beyond him. But it did.

Brian stared at the cleared bed, the rearranged chairs, the sanitized room that was now devoid of any flowers, balloons or cards. Devoid of the bracelet he had left behind. Devoid of Justin. I’ll never get to see his face again, Brian thought. They’d taken him away.

“…Brian?” The dark-haired man turned to see his best friend standing in the room’s doorway, arms full to bursting with lattés. Michael’s face held a look of surprise, which quickly darkened into anger, “Where the hell have you been?! I was trying to call you all night!”

Blinking at the other man far too passively for the present situation, Brian shrugged, “I was out.” It wasn’t as if he’d checked his voicemail since then.

The displeasure in Michael’s features deepened, hinting that he knew exactly what “out” consisted of. “Do you have any idea what’s been going on for the last twelve hours?!” he shouted, voice full of the urgency that he’d tried to convey in the previous night’s phone call.

“He’s dead,” was all Brian said. “I didn’t have to be here for that.”

“He’s not dead,” Michael corrected vehemently. “But you’d have known that if you could have picked up your god damn phone!”

Breathless, Brian asked confusedly, “He’s awake?”

“Not exactly. His heart crashed last night. That’s what I was trying to tell you when I called. Mel was here and these other lawyers—”

Lawyers? “SHUT UP AND TELL ME WHAT’S GOING ON,” Brian said, voice projected as loud and authoritative as he could make it. Lawyers in a room with a comatose man couldn’t mean anything good. “Where is he?”

Michael Novotny was Brian’s best friend since forever, and Brian knew that he’d never play games or lie to him. So it was with a lurching stomach of trepidation that he took in the other man’s expression of pure consolation. Because it meant that a doozy was coming. “They’ve got him in another ward, getting him ready.”

Brian’s brow furrowed, “Getting him ready for what?”

---

“Hey. You.” Brian’s strategy of attracting attention from the nurse at the desk might not have been in the most polite of tastes, but if it was rude he didn’t care. From her seat, the receptionist looked up at him with distasteful eyes,

“Yes, Mr. Kinney?”

Brian frowned. Had he really spent so much time there that the nurses knew him by name now? Shaking the thought away, he said brusquely, “What did they do with Justin Taylor, room five eleven? Where is he?”

The woman seemed to hesitate for a second, before reaching to reference a manila folder, one of a nearby pile of manila folders. “He was transferred to special recovery,” she stated, placing the folder back aside. “Last night.”

“I know that,” Brian growled. “But where is he?” He had to find out where they’d put him. If what Michael had said was true, then finding Justin now was the only thing that mattered. Brian couldn’t believe what his friend had said. It just couldn’t be true. It was too outrageous. And what the fuck was “special recovery” anyways? “Well?” Brian prompted roughly, “Where?!”

“I’m sorry sir, but I cannot disclose that information.”

Brian’s entire face darkened with fury. “Why the fuck not?!”

“…Only the immediate family of Mr. Taylor may have direct access to his medical records,” she claimed, not quite losing the confident glint to her eye, even as the tall man’s gaze threatened her death. “You aren’t family, I’m afraid. And you’re not listed as a domestic partner in these records, so I’m sorry but I cannot release any more information to you.”

“But he’s SICK,” Brian fumed, “I need to find him.”

“You have to be family or domestic partners to—”

“We ARE domestic partners, you ignorant cunt!” Brian seethed at the woman who, it was now quite clear, was prepared to stonewall him. Didn’t she know that he was the most important person in Justin’s universe? Didn’t she know Justin was the most important in his?

The woman’s eyes grew wide in shock, but not understanding. “I will say it again, Mr. Kinney: People like you are not allowed visitation rights. Now if you come back with a family member that’s different. But until then please step back. There is no need for foul language!”

“YES, there IS.” Brian slapped both hands down onto the counter, leaning forward menacingly, “Because you’re sitting here playing ‘Keep out the Faggot,’ while I’M trying to find my way around YOUR goddamn hospital!”

Another person—this time a young male nurse in green scrubs—emerged at the commotion that could be heard going on at the front desk. The nametag that he wore proclaimed him to be Gavin. “Sheila?” he asked warily, eyeing the raging man before them. “Is everything all right?”

“No, it’s not!” Brian interjected for her. “Justin Taylor, room five eleven. I need to know where he is. She won’t tell me.” He waved a hand angrily at the seated woman.

The male nurse—Gavin—frowned at him, “You’re Mr. Kinney?” A nod was given, and Brian was sure that he’d get yet another obstacle thrown in his course, but to the provocative man’s surprise, he was waved down the hall. “Follow me. I’ll take you.”

Brian didn’t have to be told twice. Hurrying after the other man as they went to the elevators, he just couldn’t make the knots in his stomach unravel. Because what Michael had told him was happening, was not acceptable. Justin hadn’t wanted that, Brian was sure. He just had to get to the doctors so that he could tell them before it was too late.

---

Brian sat alone in the tiniest waiting room he’d been in yet, on one of the below-ground floors of the hospital.

The couches here matched those up in trauma, but the walls were plain white. Unlike upstairs, nobody had made any effort to decorate this space with posters and fake plants. No, this room had been more of an afterthought, squeezed down into the basement where the chance of daylight or any hospital visitors accidently passing by, was zero to none. Special Recovery, as it turned out, was where they took people to be made into vampires. It was housed across the hall from the morgue.

Brian tapped his feet anxiously against the linoleum of the floor, finding it ludicrous that he was sitting in a waiting room at all. He should’ve been directed straight to the person who was in charge. But that hot nurse—Gavin—had been annoyingly persuasive. He’d gotten the darker man to cool his heels while the doctors came for him. Nothing drastic was currently being done to Justin, he’d assured, so Brian could just sit and wait like a good little boy.

Well, Brian had just about had enough of being a “good little boy.” He shot up to standing the moment a man in a white coat appeared at the door. “Are you Doctor Harrison?” he asked intently, knowing that Dr. Harrison was the man he was supposed to be seeing. There was another man—this one a brunette in dress pants and a sharp sweater—that stood next to the doctor, but he had no nametag, and Brian all but ignored him.

“Mr. Kinney. So sorry about the wait,” the man in the coat said. “Will you please follow me?”

“Follow, follow, follow,” Brian muttered under his breath, even as he moved to do exactly that. So much following was ratcheting up his anxiety to near-intolerable levels. He desperately wished for a cigarette. They all piled into what he quickly surmised to be the other man’s office. Brian took one of the two chairs that were clearly meant for people like him, while the doctor and his companion went behind the room’s desk. Doctor Harrison sat, the other guy stood. “If we’re all just about situated,” Brian sniped, “I’d like to know what’s going on with Justin.”

For his part, the doctor looked duly sympathetic as he responded, “I understand your apprehension, Mr. Kinney. Now I will ask one favor of you before we begin, which is that you try to stay calm and listen to all that we have to tell you about Justin. –He’s doing fine,” the other man said hurriedly, holding up a hand at the sight of Brian’s parted lips, “but there is much to discuss.”

Trying not to let his hands grip too tightly at the plastic arms of his chair, Brian nodded tightly. “Fine.”

“Good.” The physician seemed calmed by the response he got. “Now, first off, I want you to know that Mrs. Taylor has signed a disclosure agreement, allowing me to speak with you about Justin’s case. I am free to tell you all information that I’ve told to Mrs. Taylor, but no more.” Brian’s brow furrowed at the caveat of “no more.” What the heck couldn’t a doctor impart upon a comatose man’s mother?? The doctor was still speaking pleasantly away at him, “This here is Aiden, our resident vampire.”

Brian’s eyes jerked sharply to the man standing mildly in the sweater. Vampire. He didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary—handsome maybe, but a pretty face didn’t exactly translate to “undead” in the promiscuous man’s mind. Brian simply hadn’t known what was standing there with them. “Did you touch him?” he asked right away, voice tense with the promise of violence if he had.

“—Mr. Kinney, please. Let’s all remain civil here. I can tell that you are frightened for your partner’s safety, so I think that if you listen to what I, and Aiden, have to say, then that might help.” At Brian’s nod for him to continue, the physician said, “Justin’s heart condition has been very tenuous, as I’m sure you know.”

Yes, Brian did know that. But that didn’t explain why they were all sitting down here in the basement of the hospital. “Yeah, I know,” he said hoarsely.

“And his condition, however unfortunate, was relatively stable up until last night.”

Brian could only stare, perhaps rudely, at the other man. Yes, apparently something awful had occurred last night, something that he’d missed while he was away getting his dick sucked (he hadn’t yet thought much about the implications for guilt, there), and they’d had to whisk Justin away to stabilize him again. His heart had almost given out… The usually impervious man winced as a wave of self-loathing overcame him. The person with whom he’d shared the past four years of his life had almost ceased existing, and he’d been out doing all he could to ignore that Justin had ever existed at all. No regrets? No regrets was bullshit.

“We were able to stabilize him, eventually,” Doctor Harrison hedged.

“He’s brain dead,” Brian recited wearily. “What does it matter if you stabilized him?” Hazel eyes flipping back to Aiden, he added, “I came here today to tell you to let him die. His mother is leaving that decision up to me.” So don’t go thinking you’re going to sink your teeth into him any time soon.

“We’ve been told,” Aiden responded calmly, the first time he’d spoken yet. “But you still have some things to learn about the situation.”

Brian didn’t like the way Aiden addressed him. The vampire looked like he thought Brian needed to be educated, and as much as Brian Kinney hated being told what to do, even more so he hated being told what to think. “Look,” he said contemptuously. “You’re not turning him into a fucking vampire. No way.” Justin was called Sunshine for a reason. He was exuberant, full of life. He existed like a ball of light. Nobody could make the dark-haired man believe that Justin would have wanted to exist as some macabre… thing for the rest of eternity. “He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“His continued care directive stated differently,” Aiden challenged, arms crossing in front of him. “He authorized the use of the procedure, if dire need should arise.”

Surprised eyes widened at the vampire’s pronouncement. “Continued care directive?”

The handsome vampire inclined his head, “Yes. You might know it as a living will.”

“I know what it is, thank you very much,” Brian snapped. He had two separate lawyers on retainer at Kinnetic, for Christ’s sake.  Justin had had a living will? This was the first Brian was hearing about it. What lawyer had he found to draft such a thing up? Brian wondered. And furthermore, why the hell would the perfectly healthy, twenty one year old man have wanted one? The older man’s mind traced back to the flippant conversation he and Justin had had the week before; the last conversation they’d ever had. He remembered how the blonde had spoken about living wills, and advised Brian himself to get one.

That little fucker. He’d gone and had some legal document drawn up without telling anyone. Brian could hardly believe what the man behind the desk was saying. Justin had wanted to be turned into a vampire? “No.” Brian shook his head, as if to re-direct his thoughts. “He wouldn’t have chosen such a thing. Only in the most desperate of circumstances…” But this was the most desperate of circumstances, Brian reminded himself. And Sunshine had left a will saying they could do this to him. “You little hypocrite,” he murmured under his breath. Justin had warned him not to fuck vampires, and yet all the time he’d had it in his will to let them do this, this thing to save his life.

“Mr. Kinney… Justin had his wishes and we—”

“I don’t give a fuck what his ‘wishes’ were,” Brian countered loudly. “He’s a stupid kid, and he should have thought this through better before he went and put it on paper.” Standing, he asked, “Does this override what I— what Jennifer says? This will?”

“Yes.” The handsome vampire, composed as ever, had answered firmly. “Ms. Marcus was here delivering the directive herself, and she made it quite clear that Mr. Taylor had NOT taken his legal commitments lightly. In the event of an incapacitating event, he didn’t want to be kept alive by means of artificial life support, ongoing resuscitation, or even by extensive support in the case of quadriplegia.”

Brian blinked in confoundment at what the other man was rattling off to him. Justin had held all of these wishes? All of these specific opinions about what could hypothetically happen to him? The experienced man was shocked to be hearing this. He was disappointed that there was so much to Justin that he’d apparently never known. And Justin had gone to Melanie to get this all signed and sealed? Brian clenched his teeth. The next time he saw that meddlesome dyke, he’d rip her a new one. “So you’re telling me,” he said quietly, voice held low, “That he didn’t want ANY of these things done to him, to save his LIFE, yet he wrote down on some paper that he thought it would be just dandy if you killed him?!” Killed him into a vampire, that was. “Oh no,” Brian rushed, speaking directly to the snotty physician in his white coat. “You keep your ‘resident blood sucker’ away from him!”

Aiden frowned at the turn of phrase, stepping forward. “Mr. Kinney. Vampires are not dead. I am not dead. Justin is not dead.”

“Not dead? He’s—” All the breath in Brian’s lungs froze, his speech cutting off. It was as if he couldn’t exhale, but couldn’t inhale either. The air simply had nowhere to go for a second. “No,” he finally whispered, in shock. Here he’d been, operating under the assumption that they were all discussing a procedure—if it could even be called that—that was going to take place. But at the vampire Aiden’s words, and the look in his eyes, Brian suddenly realized: It had already been done. They’d already killed him.

---

Can I get you anything, sir?

From where he sat on the little plastic chair, Brian shook his head. You could get me my boyfriend back, he thought acidly. But he didn’t say that, knowing full well that renewed mortality wasn’t one of the dishes that Pitt General offered on the cafeteria hot menu.

Brian was currently sitting in the mess area, waiting for the resident blood sucker to show up and tell him more about what had happened. And they were meeting in the cafeteria because once he’d figured out that Justin was already… turned, well then Brian had flipped out and tried to punch the doctor, and maybe the vampire too. He’d been barred from the unit for a little while, “for everyone’s safety.”

Aiden had appeared alongside the table. “Can I sit?” he asked. Brian puffed breath out despondently from between his teeth. Not a “yes,” but not a refusal either. The vampire who pulled out his own chair to lower himself onto, seemed to know that he wasn’t well-liked by the brooding man. Because that’s what he was doing: brooding. “Brian, look…” The provocative man scowled at the familiarity. Who’d said he could call him Brian? “I know how upset you must be.”

“You don’t,” Brian corrected, keeping it short and to the point. The less he said to this man, the less likely he was to try and punch him in the face again. Because HE was the one who’d actually done it. Who’d done this thing to Justin.

“I can imagine, then. Many loved ones are devastated, when this happens.”

“Why won’t you tell me where he is?” Brian asked, yet again. By now he knew that Justin was up and walking around. Completely conscious—albeit as a vampire. But as much as that absurd reality stung the older man, he was also a reasonable human being. It was still Justin, he told himself. He still needed to be with him. “I want to know. I… won’t press charges if you tell me.”

For all his composure, Aiden scoffed, “Press charges for what? Wrongful life?”

“Tell me where he is!” Brian exclaimed. Then he was forced to eye the people nearest them, who’d turned to look at his outburst. Reigning himself in, he amended, “I don’t see why you shouldn’t. His mother signed that disclosure agreement, like Dr. Harrison said.”

But Aiden was already shaking his head, “And that was applicable, until Justin regained his ability to advocate for himself.”

“Advocate? You sound like a fucking shrink.”

“I AM. …Mr. Kinney, maybe I should explain something: I am a licensed psychologist specializing in grief counseling. I work at this hospital so that I can help people to live, and live well. I did NOT walk into your boyfriend’s hospital room and rip his jugular out, so if that’s what you’re picturing, you’d best stop now.”

Brian blinked repeatedly at the other man’s speech; the longest he’d gotten from him yet. “You didn’t kill him?”

The sigh that came from the dark-haired vampire evidenced his frustration with the other man. “Justin received a complete transfusion last night. Of my blood. Nobody ‘killed’ him.” Placing imploring hands upon the table, he continued, “Now he’s resting—”

“Resting where?” Brian was about to start wondering if they were simply making this whole story up, for all the evidence he’d seen of Justin’s continued existence. “Why. can’t. I. see. him?!”

“Because he doesn’t want you to.”

Brian pulled back, flabbergasted. And that was a feat because Brian Kinney was RARELY flabbergasted. “What?”

“Becoming a vampire is a very, very difficult change to endure,” Aiden explained. “There’s a whole new reality of rules to adapt to. Especially in Justin’s case because he didn’t know it was coming.” The vampire ignored Brian’s snort of derision. You’re damned right he didn’t know what was coming. Because you forced this on him! “When it happens,” Aiden was continuing, “You have to deal with the feeling of your new body, operating at an unbelievably low metabolic rate; your sudden hunger, which you may not even be able to recognize as such. Your senses expand to the point of pain—”

“—Pain?” Brian interrupted, suddenly needing to ask, “He’s in pain?”

“Not like you’re probably thinking. He’ll be dealing with an onslaught of sensory information that his human brain was better able to sort through. A vampire’s brain processes things—sight, sound, taste—in greater depths. I’ve heard of it being compared to what people with severe autism experience, at least in the first few days.” The handsome man shrugged then, as if this was a perfectly satisfactory explanation he’d offered.

But it wasn’t. Not to the man who was desperate just to be able to see his lover again. So desperate in fact, that he hadn’t even corrected the vampire, or the doctor, or the bitchy nurse on the fifth floor; when they’d referred to Justin as his “boyfriend.” For all he cared, Sunshine could be his “boyfriend” for a little while, if it just got Brian closer to being with him again. “What does this have to do with him not wanting to see me?” Brian asked, wary of what the answer might be.

“He’s going through something very serious right now. Something very personal. I evaluated him in the hours after the transfusion; he was handling it very well. But even still: he’s shocked. He needs time alone to work through what’s happened.” Peering intently at the man whom Aiden could tell he was antagonizing with his words, he said, “Justin isn’t in the hospital anymore. He went voluntarily to a safe house that we keep for individuals like him.”

Individuals like him? Brian hated those words the moment they left the other man’s mouth. “He shouldn’t be alone. Where is this safe house?” He’d go there the second he knew. Brian was already planning it in his head.

“I’m sorry if this is hard for you to take in Brian, but Justin has made his wishes for anonymity clear. He doesn’t want anyone told where he is. Not even you.”

Inside, the dark-haired man fumed, but he was also scared. Scared at the possibility that what the other man said was true. If it was true, and Justin was avoiding all contact, then it surely meant that the kid was going through something horrible. The thought only made Brian all the more determined to get to him. “Okay,” Brian was responding calmly, “But I’m sorry if this is hard for you to take in, Fangface, but Justin is a stupid, impulsive, twenty-one year old TWAT, who doesn’t know what’s good for him. So you’d better tell me where on God’s green earth his is, or I’ll—”

“Or you’ll what? Mr. Kinney?” Aiden frowned, having reverted back to the use of his surname, “You’ll sue me for wrongful life? Good luck with that. I believe your friend Ms. Marcus is still here, if you’re seeking legal counsel. But otherwise,” his hand dipped back out of sight, remerging to slide a printed pamphlet across the table, “I’d suggest one of our grief-counseling programs. You clearly need help accepting this issue.”

Brian glanced down. “Coping Together:,” the paper read, “When someone you love has changed.” Brian stared at it. Oh. my. god. He had had it with this man. “You know what?” he hissed, leaning forward, “Fuck. You.” He shoved the pamphlet roughly back across the table, “You can stick it where the sun shines.”

Standing, he grabbed his jacket off the back of the cheap cafeteria chair. He’d had it with these people. No one was going to tell him where Justin was? Fine. He’d hire a private detective if he had to. All Brian Kinney knew right then was that if he didn’t make a beeline for the front door, he was definitely going to punch a vampire in the face. So he got up and left.

Though he did end up punching someone in the face.

“What do you mean, you can’t tell me any information?”

“—But you don’t understand: I know him. I just want to know if he’s alright…”

“—But they brought him to this hospital.”

“Well yes but they discharged me last week.”

“…I didn’t KNOW he was here then!”

Passing a rather distraught young man in the Hospital’s lobby, Brian couldn’t help but to overhear the virtual one-way argument that was going on between the angry guy and the nurse on duty there. “I wouldn’t waste your breath,” he said over the—rather attractive—redhead’s shoulder, causing said man to cast a dubious glance his way. “All the nurses here are self-righteous cunts,” he explained crudely. That elicited a shocked gasp from the woman, and a plea for help from the anxious young man,

“Well have you found anyone more helpful around here?” he asked. “I just need to find out if this guy I was in an accident with is doing alright.”

Undoubtedly, Brian’s features clouded over in fascinating rapidity. They’d told him that the driver had been admitted here as well… “Do you know his name?” the dark-haired man queried, trying to sound as aloof as he could.

“It’s Justin. Justin something. Are you a doctor here?”

The excited gleam of hope in the other man’s eyes kindled a hard and fast anger within Brian. He was fine. This man standing before him had spun his motorcycle over a guardrail, drowning Sunshine in a freezing cold river, and he was standing here without a scratch on his body. “No I’m not a doctor, you fucking little prick!” His arms seemed to move of their own volition, and before he knew it he’d roughly grabbed the man by the scruff of his Jacket. “Justin ‘something’?! SOMETHING?” The redheaded man tried to pull away, losing his balance in their scuffle. He fell partway to the floor, only to be yanked back up by Brian’s abusing grip. “You put him in a coma!” Shake. “Did you know that!” Shake. “You fucking killed him, and you’re standing here calling him ‘Justin SOMETHING’?!” Shake.

“Sir! Stop that!” the nurse was panicking.

“Hey, what the fuck? Stop!” Redhead was yelling back at Brian, trying to hit him or kick him. But Brian was bigger, tougher. He shoved him hard across the lobby floor, and then shoved him again, and it became clear to anyone that was watching, that a fight was about to break out. “Stop!” the man was yelling. Shove.

“Stop?! You didn’t stop when you were speeding with him right behind you, risking his life!” Shove.

“Who the hell do you think you are?!” Shove.

“I’m his boyfriend, you pathetic asshole!” Shove.

He stopped, face bleeding from anger, to maybe a little bit of understanding. “You… you’re Rage?”

Brian nearly growled. No attention was paid to the name that he’d been called, only to the fact that the guy had stopped fighting back, and now there was prime opportunity to inflict retribution. Retribution for what this clueless moron had done to Justin. To him. Brian could hear the nurse yelling for security. He could even see the nearest guard coming for him. But that wasn’t enough to stop him from hauling back and delivering his fist straight into the side of the face of the man whom he didn’t even know.

---