Midnight Whispers
QAF Brian and Justin Fanfiction

 

 

Two large, burly men watched nervously as the well-known head waitress of the Liberty Diner approached their table. “What can I get you boys?” Debbie asked with a hip cocked, tone absolutely deflated from its usual buoyancy.

 

The larger of the two men, who donned a black biker cap and unshaven scruff, ventured, “Um… I’ll have the tuna melt with chips.”

 

“…Me too. With fries please,” the other followed timidly.

 

The woman raised her eyebrows menacingly, prompting the second diner to meekly amend his order, “No ketchup.” A wise nod was given by the waitress, and both men were able to breathe a sigh of relief as she walked away, this time without throwing anything at them. The pair had made the mistake of making vampire jokes with their food the week before, and as a result had had to take their orders to-go. …Down the fronts of their shirts.

 

“Christ,” Michael muttered, looking over his shoulder from where he sat at the gang’s usual booth, “She’s even turning the leather daddies into lambskins!”

 

“Sounds like a porno,” Ted remarked casually.

 

“I’d rent it,” Brian spouted, scrolling absently through his missed calls. “Sounds hot.”

 

“You’d know, you’re the expert.”

 

Michael only received a childish scowl from his friend at that, “Suck my jockstrap, Mikey.”

 

“—I don’t see what the big deal was,” Emmett was considering aloud. “A little ketchup and French fry fangs…” The man chuckled. “Well I for one think he would’ve found it funny, if he’d been here.” The wistful man didn’t have to elaborate on who “he” was. Everyone present knew.

 

“Yeah well he’s not is he? Don’t let my mom hear you talking about him either,” Michael hissed. “I just want to eat my lunch in peace today.”

 

“He would have found it funny,” the other man insisted. Emmett’s caring face adopted its previous look of absentminded wondering as he went back to sipping at the straw of his sweet tea.

 

It was nearly twelve thirty, and the hustle and bustle of Liberty Avenue’s lunch rush was busy pouring itself through the diner’s doors. Luckily, Deborah wasn’t the only server rushing around the place. If Kiki and the new temp—Damien—hadn’t been there to help the stressed woman, the four men seated along the back wall surely would have gotten another show of something being thrown all over the front of somebody.

 

“Do you think he has internet access where he is?” Emmett was now wondering—again, about Justin. “Maybe he still checks his email! Someone should try emailing him.”

 

From his hunched posture near the wall, Brian rolled his eyes. By noon that second Friday at the Liberty Diner, talk of Justin had peaked as the main topic for the day. Again. And the lord of their social circle had just about had enough of it. It’d been almost two weeks since anyone had seen or heard from him, after all. Besides, he’d already tried email. “Hey,” he chirped artificially, in an attempt to keep that day’s lunch from being EXACTLY like every other one the past ten work days, “I heard the DOW dropped a few hundred points this morning!”

 

“I think he would have email… Do you think he’s allowed to come and go whenever he wants? I know they said it was voluntary commitment, but ‘commitment’ sounds so serious.”

 

“Emm, you’re the reason why they call it a Drama ‘queen’,” Ted admonished. “Of course he can leave. It’s just like a halfway house.”

 

“Halfway to what?”

 

Ted shot his elaborate friend a disbelieving look. “Never mind. Just know that Justin’s probably fine. He’s doing what he has to, to get himself in order. I’m sure he’s perfectly happy.”

 

“Really, Teddy?” Brian simpered, “You’re ‘sure’?” He scoffed. “You don’t know anything. None of us does. We’re all just pretending that we do, to make ourselves feel better. But the reality is that we don’t have a fucking clue.” That was the reality after all, the smartly-dressed executive told himself. Justin hadn’t had contact with any one of them. Not even Brian himself. The dark-haired man didn’t want to admit to anyone—least of all himself—how distressing that really was. Shrugging, he added blithely, “The kid could be in a padded cell, wrapped up in some straight jacket, and we wouldn’t know any better.”

 

“Jesus Brian! He’s got vampirism, not schizophrenia,” Michael groused. “Try to lighten up a little”—and then, more quietly—“Mom’s only stopped sniffling since like, yesterday.”

 

All four pairs of eyes at the booth slid covertly over to the red-headed waitress who was now pouring coffee for two patrons by the bar. Deb’s expression was calm, but the edges of her eyes still seemed raw, and ready to leak again if need should arise. For their own good, said bar patrons kept their wallets out and their lips shut.

 

“I’m sure Justin is fine Emmett,” Michael offered again in comfort to the self-appointed caretaker of the group.

 

“Gee,” Brian drawled, taking a hefty bite from his sandwich. “That must be why he’s ignoring all your letters.”

 

“The vampire at the hospital said he’d delivered them, all right?” Michael looked furiously from his provocative friend, over to Emmett’s worried countenance, and back. “Why don’t you stop talking like that, huh? It’s freaking everyone out.”

 

“Just trying to make conversation,” Brian smiled, saccharine. “Since he’s the only god-damned thing you can talk about any more.” Spitting out a bite of sandwich that clearly had mayo on it, Brian wiped angrily at his lips, “Am I the only one with any sanity left?”

 

Emmett stared morosely down at Brian’s abused bite of sandwich. “I wonder what he eats, now.”

 

 “What do you mean, ‘you wonder’?” Ted shrugged, “He’s the living dead. The living dead drink blood.”

 

The accountant’s no-frills assessment brought a near wince to Emmett’s face. “I can’t imagine that sweet little twinky drinking blood,” he moped. “…He helped me reorganize my closet last month.”

 

“Are those activities mutually exclusive?” Everyone at the table tried their best to ignore Brian’s quip, so instead he informed, “I’ve been thinking: I’m going to hire a private detective.”

 

All eyes turned to him, refocusing the lost attention back to where Brian Kinney most liked it: on himself. “Do people really do that?” Michael asked. It sounded like something that only happened in the plotline of a good comic.

 

Brian shrugged, “Do you have any better ideas?” Brian didn’t. And Justin staying away like this with no contact whatsoever was simply not acceptable. Not to him. The thought of actually facing the dramatically-changed young man was seeming less and less disturbing a prospect, the longer he had to go on living without his favorite blonde by his side.

 

“Private detectives aren’t cheap,” Ted was calculating. “Are you sure you’ve got the money for that?”

 

“Theodore, you just helped me acquire a fifty-thousand dollar “for fun” investment,” Brian said witheringly, referring to the club that was second home to them all. “You of all people should know I can afford to pay some creeper to dig around for our ‘lost boy’.”

 

Reaching to place a hand consolingly on his best friend’s thigh, Michael confided gently, “I hope you find him.”

 

Were it anyone else’s hand, Brian might have removed it. Hell, with the emotional state he’d been in lately, and what with all the god-damned effort it took to hide that very emotional state from absolutely everyone, absolutely every freaking hour of every day; well that almost had him removing Michael’s hand as it was. But he accepted the gesture because it was from a dear friend who genuinely cared. And because it was done under the table and out of sight.

 

Standing suddenly, Brian climbed over top of Michael to exit the booth. Straightening the lines of his suit as best he could, the groomed man nodded to them all. “Well, it’s been lovely having this meaningful chat with you all, again, but I must be going. Lots of clients waiting to be whored out in the best fashion possible.”

 

“TaTa,” Michael said dismissively. “Since you’ve made it obvious that you’re too busy to worry like the rest of us mere mortals, I guess I’ll call and let you know if anything should happen.”

 

“Sure thing, emoticon,” Brian responded distractedly. “And hey, if it looks like your mom’s cheered up, let her know there was mayo on my lunch, kay?”

 

All three remaining men at the table scoffed as they watched him leave, sauntering off without so much as a wave goodbye. There he was—the sun to every gay man on Liberty Avenue’s universe—ready to head off in his perfect hair and perfect suit, back to his perfect job in his perfect office, before heading home in his perfect car, to his perfect loft, to undoubtedly do something perfectly pleasurable with his perfect body. Indeed, everything in Brian Kinney’s life still seemed to be relatively perfect. Even his attitude in dealing with this most recent crisis was more balanced than most others’—in a word, perfect. But there was one thing that wasn’t perfect in Brian’s current life: Justin wasn’t in it.

 

And despite how well he hid it, that one imperfection was eating away at the older man, day by day.

 

---

 

Brian sauntered down the hallway of Kinnetic, headed for his office. After lunch at the diner, he’d returned to throw himself into his work—something that, in the past, had always worked wonders in taking his mind off of more serious matters. The Tropica group, a subsidiary of Dannon, was trying to get more men to eat its yogurt. Apparently, healthful dairy products were largely a women’s market.

 

“How’d the meeting go?” Cynthia asked as the dark-haired man approached.

 

“Completely unoriginal,” Brian admitted, “but they liked the idea so we’re going forward with it.” The only ‘idea’ that the handsome executive had been able to come up with for these people’s nasty yogurt had been a commercial. Sexualized, of course. “We’re going to film some hetero hottie licking it off her boyfriend’s abs,” Brian offered, returning his assistant’s cattish smirk. “Dark color schemes, low music; the masculine works. You think Mark would eat it?”

 

At the mention of her fiancé, the blonde shrugged, “As long as it wasn’t blueberry.”

 

“We were thinking… banana.” Brian waggled his eyebrows, causing Cynthia to giggle,

 

“I’m sure the art department didn’t think this one up. A level of innuendo that crude has ‘Brian Kinney’ written all over it. Personal inspiration, I’m guessing?”

 

The smartly-dress man nodded proudly, concealing how close to home the truth really hit. “Something like that.” Glancing to the far wall, Brian could see clear as day, the memory of Justin and he in the loft:

 

“One spoonful left. You want it?”

 

“No, it’ll mean ten more minutes on the stairmaster.”

 

“Come on… I want to see you lick it off the spoon.”

 

Messy drops of cold vanilla on his nose, his lips, his chest. And Justin cackling, bending down to lick it all back up.

 

“God damn it,” Brian cursed under his breath. It had been years ago. Why the fuck did he have to remember every stupid touch they’d ever had, now?

 

“Everything all right Boss?”

 

Brian re-focused his gaze. Christ. It wasn’t’ like him at all to be zoning off like this. Get it together, Kinney, his inner drill-sergeant commanded. “Yeah,” he answered. “Any messages while I was gone?”

 

“No, but you’ve got three people on the line.”

 

Brian raised his eyebrows, moving straight away for his office door. “Wow, I feel popular.” Three calls when he’d only been detained for a brief twenty minute meeting was a lot, even for him. “I don’t care who they are, just transfer them in the order they came,” he instructed, closing the cold glass door behind him. Brian Kinney really had no patience for phone call hierarchy politics that day.

 

At his desk, Brian picked up the receiver to the landline. “Kinney,” he greeted brusquely.

 

“Brian?”

 

The voice that greeted him was soft and tenuous. Jennifer. Brian sighed, “Hello, Mrs. Taylor.”

 

“I just wanted to check in on you,” she said plainly. “And ask how everyone there is doing.”

 

Picking up a pencil to fiddle with, Brian shrugged, unseen. “Fine. You’d know better if you were here.” The blonde woman had chosen to fly halfway back across the country, not a week after they’d all found out about Justin’s new… status. Brian couldn’t say he completely understood. Justin was her son, after all. How could she not feel the need, the driving desperation to be as close to him as possible in a time like this? Brian sure did. And as far off the map as the little fucker had gone, the older man seriously doubted that Justin had made it all the way to Arizona.

 

“I know you don’t approve,” Jennifer was stating, voice dry, “but Brian I’ve got Molly to think of over here, she’s barely fourteen.”

 

“Your son was barely alive,” Brian countered. Shit, what were babysitters for anyways?

 

“Maybe calling like this was a mistake. I just wanted…. Well I don’t know what I wanted,” she hedged. “Has he called? Written? Anything?”

 

Glancing over to the tacky frame on his desk, Brian shook his head, realized he couldn’t’ be seen, and answered, “No. I’ll let you know if he does.”

 

“Okay.” Jennifer already knew about his plans to hire a professional to track Justin down. And she hadn’t dissuaded him yet. So the woman only answered with a closing plea of, “Please don’t say anything… mean, to him. When he comes back.”

 

Brian scowled at the receiver. How much of a dick did she think he was? “I won’t,” he insisted. Besides, Justin hadn’t even contacted him yet, let alone come back. Being mean to the younger man was a long way off. “Bye.”

 

“Talk to you later,” Jennifer hung up, leaving Brian to take his next call.

 

“Kinney,” he answered the phone, greeting and tone of voice identical to what Jennifer had gotten. This time a man spoke up, his voice unfamiliar to the dark-haired executive.

 

“Is this… are you Brian Kinney?”

 

“No, this is Richard Kinney. I’m just sitting at Brian’s desk, in Brian’s office, answering Brian’s phone,” the provocative man answered shortly.

 

“Sorry. I’ve been trying to get a hold of Justin. He hasn’t answered his cell in weeks. I’ve called dozens of times.”

 

Hazel eyes slid back to the framed picture of said young man, giving his million-watt smile. Brian wrinkled his brow, “Who are you?” What guy would be calling Justin on his cell phone dozens of times? One-time fucks weren’t that persistent.

 

“I’m Kai. …Justin’s instructor?” the man added hesitantly at the long pause over the line.

 

Brian’s eyes widened. Oh. “You’re the guy who beats him up all the time,” he stated matter-of-factly.

 

“What? No! He’s my student, we spar. Practice?” The crackle of Kai’s sigh could be heard over the line. “Never mind. He told me how much you hate it.”

 

You’re damned right, I do, Brian thought bitterly. “It’s hard to fuck properly when your boyfriend’s got bruised ribs,” he explained instead.

 

“…Riight. Look, I was just calling to figure out what’s going on. He’s missed five classes and that’s not like him. Did he change his number or something?”

 

Brian didn’t plan to say what he did next. Really, he honestly didn’t give it any thought. The words just seemed to fall from his lips, unbidden: “He died. Two weeks ago.”

 

Silence. Utter silence on the other end of the call. Brian waited guiltily for the other man to speak, and when Kai finally found his voice he uttered, “Oh my god. That’s awful. I just can’t believe it. How… how?”

 

“Motorcycle accident,” Brian muttered. “Apparently you got him hooked to the thrills of life.” It was a MEAN thing to say, the self-centered man could admit. Especially to a man whom he’d never even met. But the frustrations that had accumulated during the coma, and now during Justin’s prolonged absence, had been building, and just like Aiden, this man could be his target. “So you can stop trying to call him,” he added. “And fill the empty spot in your stupid class.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” the other man sputtered, before dead hanging up.

 

Brian held the phone away from his ear at the dial tone, impressed. Hardly anybody ever hung up on him. “Good riddance,” he muttered. Later, he might spare a thought for what a shitty thing he’d done to the clueless instructor. Might. But right then he was consoled by the fact that he’d at least managed to drive one harmful influence out of Justin’s life. If the blonde ever decided to return to it, that was.

 

“Brian,” Cynthia’s sharp voice rang through the office’s intercom. “There’s still a call on the third line. Are you going to—“

 

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Brian answered hurriedly, finger pressed to the machine’s response button. “Maybe you should learn to field my calls better,” he admonished, “Like, say, so that they’re mainly business calls?”

 

The blonde receptionist didn’t even hesitate in her response. She was far too familiar with her employer’s abusive behaviors. “Trust me,” she drawled. “I think you’re going to want to take this one.”

 

Brian sighed and released the intercom button, silencing the link between them. “Sure,” he chewed out. Yet again, he found his eyes drawn almost magnetically to the picture of Justin on his desk. He’d rather stare at him, than take calls and conduct business as usual. Frowning at the threat of strong emotion he could feel coming on, Brian reached forward and snapped the frame flat to the desk. “Fuck. you,” he said. If Justin couldn’t be bothered to come home, then he certainly didn’t get to antagonize the man from afar. Brian wouldn’t have it.

 

“Kinney,” he greeted generically into the phone yet again.

 

“Brian.”

 

Brian lost his breath. It was Justin, and the sound of his voice, not heard for so long, simply had the air rushing right out of Brian’s lungs. He’d called. He was alive. He was sitting somewhere, holding a phone in his hand, talking to him. The older man didn’t know if he felt more excited to finally hear from him, or terrified that he’d hang up and end the connection.

 

“Brian?” Justin’s voice came over the line, confused at the long silence. “Are you there?”

 

Brian blinked, “Yeah. Where are you?” It was the only thing he could think to say. His mind was still racing with shock.

 

“I’m at the home… it’s a safehouse where they put me up. Until I’m better.”

 

“Better from what?” Brian shifted uncomfortably in his very expensive, usually very comfortable desk chair. “The bloodsucker said you were doing alright.”

 

“…You mean Aiden?” Justin asked, perplexed.

 

“Yeah him. He said you weren’t, you know: in any pain or anything.”

 

“Pain’s a relative term,” Justin mumbled, but the older man heard him. He sounded so tired over the phone, and maybe sad too. Brian couldn’t decide. All he knew was that he didn’t sound happy. He didn’t sound like Sunshine. “But I’m doing alright, I guess,” Justin was saying. “It’s hard.”

 

It’s hard. Brian couldn’t imagine. He knew what “it” was. Justin was undead now. A vampire. The frozen executive licked his lips, not sure what to say, but definitely feeling as if he was missing his one opportunity to communicate with his long-absent lover. “Did you get my letter?” he asked lamely, referring to the note he’d written over a week ago.

 

“Yeah, I got it.”

 

“Well? Why haven’t you answered anybody? They’re all worried,” Brian couldn’t help but to complain. He was worried. “For all we knew, that bloodsu—sorry, Aiden—could have buried you in a ditch somewhere.”

 

“Sorry?” The blonde’s apology was delivered with a question mark, and that had Brian frowning in concern. Why the hell did the kid sound so befuddled? He wondered if Justin’s IQ had been impacted by the coma. “I needed some time to myself,” he explained. “I didn’t mean to make everyone worry.”

 

“You sound so different,” Brian observed quietly.

 

“I am different.”

 

“Where are you?”

 

Justin’s sigh sounded over the line. “I told you: I’m at the home. That’s what we call it. Where are you?”

 

“The office.”

 

“Oh.” Suddenly Justin sounded unsure. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were at work.”

 

“I own work, remember? I can do whatever the fuck I want.” Glancing around the austere room in which he sat, Brian commented suggestively, “You could come by to see me, given you still remember the way here?” Confident that his growled jab at the other man’s absence did not go unnoticed, Brian explained, “I had this really cool stuff installed. It’s called ‘smart glass.’ The room can be completely obscured in a matter of seconds.”

 

“Sounds… useful.”

 

The young artist’s voice held a disturbing lack of sexual interest. Disturbing to Brian at least. Didn’t he want to fuck over the couch in his office? Justin always wanted to fuck over the couch in his office. Or the coffee table, or the desk. He always said seeing Brian in his “professional mode” made him hot for it.  “It is,” Brian hedged in careful response. “Well, useful in more than one way for you I suppose. Not that this building gets much sunlight anyways.” He paused, thinking of something important for the first time. “Hey wait. It’s daytime, shouldn’t you be…”

 

“What?” Justin could be heard chuckling, “In a coffin?”

 

“They don’t—you don’t do that.” Brian rolled his eyes. “Give me a little credit. Jesus I do watch the news sometimes. ..So you don’t sleep during the day?”

 

“I haven’t learned waking state yet,” the blonde answered, and even over the line, Brian could tell that whatever “waking state” was, the blonde was very frustrated over it. “It’s what they do instead of sleep.”

 

“They?”

 

“The other residents here,” Justin explained.

 

The other residents. There were others. Brian blinked. Justin was holed up in an awful institution, probably having to share a room with someone, a bathroom with half the hall, while he faced this unthinkably difficult situation by himself. He had no one to help him, no one to tell him jokes or take him out when he got bored, no one to fuck him slow and perfect when he was sad. Brian sealed his lips tightly and pulled the phone from his face for a moment. He shouldn’t be in some state-run “home,” he thought. He should be here, with me. There was a long pause wherein the older man was overcome by the strongest wave of desire yet, to have his lover back with him. While Brian worked on not falling prey to his urge to crumple, Justin wondered if he’d hung up,

 

“Brian?” the younger man’s voice could be heard calling through the receiver. “Brian are you still there?”

 

“Yeah,” Brian rasped, having brought the phone back to his face. “Yeah I’m here. And you need to come home.”

 

“…I just wanted to call and tell you I’m alright.”

 

“And to come see me, right? To come home?” Any other answer was simply ludicrous, in Brian’s mind. Justin couldn’t stay away forever. Hadn’t two weeks been enough?

 

“Brian… I don’t think so. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff. Stuff I’m not sure I can even explain—”

 

“I have a master’s in business and advertising, and I still remember your verbal score on the SAT,” Brian responded dryly. “I think that if you try to explain, I’ll be able to grasp it.”

 

Justin could be heard groaning on his end of the line. “I can’t come back to live with you.”

 

“You can,” Brian insisted. “I’ll come get you. Where are you?”

 

“The Perry Home for Wayward Youth…” Justin admitted quietly.

 

What?”

 

“They haven’t renamed it yet,” the other man defended. “I don’t think they really know what to call it.”

 

“I’ll bet. Get your shit together,” Brian announced, having decided. “I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

 

“Brian!” The blonde’s distressed tone completely baffled the larger man, as he listened to him complain, “I told you. I can’t come back. I’m not ready.”

 

“I’ll make you.”

 

“Well you’ll have to carry me out of here because I’m not going,” Justin threatened obstinately.

 

“Princess, you weigh a hundred fifty pounds soaking wet on a fat day. I could carry you.”

 

“One-sixty,” Justin complained, “Muscle mass, hello?” His tone calming, he repeated, “I’m not ready. You don’t… you couldn’t understand what’s happened.”

 

Bullshit, Brian wanted to say. But he refrained from such a bold statement. Justin clearly wasn’t in his right mind now. Maybe he was traumatized by the whole experience, or maybe he was embarrassed by his new state of being (which they’d barely discussed). Whatever it was that was causing this hesitation, the older man knew that he could overcome it. After all, if anyone knew how to win an argument by means other than arguing, it was Brian Kinney.

 

“Fine then,” he amended. “I’ll come get you and we can just go somewhere to talk. How’s that sound?” Brian had no intention of going somewhere to talk, only to return the kid to his self-imposed exile, but that could be left unsaid for the time being.

 

Justin’s reply to the proposition was delayed, but when it came, it was tentatively in the affirmative. “Alright. I’ll meet you. To talk. But I’ll come out on my own.”

 

“To the loft,” Brian inserted. “You’ve still got all your crap lying around. I didn’t lie in my letter; I haven’t picked it up.”

 

“Yeah,” Justin’s voice sounded, practical and with purpose. “Yeah I’ll come get my stuff.”

 

“There, now see: that wasn’t so hard.” Brian’s words came lightly, but in truth he was about as relieved as he could be in that very moment. Justin had called him and he’d finally heard his sweet voice again. More importantly, the cunning executive now knew where the little twat had holed himself up, and could track him down in the future, if need be. But MOST importantly, he was going to see him again, and soon. “I’m sure you remember where we live?” he asked pointedly, being sure to say we instead of I.

 

“…I remember.”

 

Good, Brian thought with a nod. With the strange, hollow way Justin was speaking over the phone, he’d half-worried that the blonde would be announcing some tragic case of amnesia. He really didn’t sound like himself. “I’ll see you soon Justin,” he said gently into the phone, using his lover’s given name. Brian’s voice was bereft of any sarcasm or pretense as he ended the call, saying finally “…I missed you.”

 

Justin didn’t respond before he hung up, but it didn’t really matter. Because soon they’d be together again.

 

 

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