Midnight Whispers
QAF Brian and Justin Fanfiction
Author's Chapter Notes:

Brian and Justin endure a tepid fight. A reluctant attachment to Kilkenny grows.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just as predicted, with the morning had come blond-haloed, squinty-eyed Justin, and Brian’s achy chest feeling had failed to subside.

 

He’d been grumpy about it all morning, drawn into himself to a degree that even Justin couldn’t mistake for his usual morning fog. Brian had that itching, niggling, panicky feeling in the back of his head—the same one that came whenever Debbie brought over casserole, or when Lindsay would bring Gus over, or when Michael would beam at him and hug him too long. The niggling feeling was stronger with Justin though. Whatever it was that he was actually afraid of, Brian knew that the fear was most keenly felt around Justin. He clutched his coffee tighter where he sat on the couch.

 

Brian hated the itching feeling at the back of his head because it made him feel dreadfully out of control. The achy chest feeling did too, and if there was one thing Brian loathed in any circumstance, it was being out of control. That morning, he felt that he might do something impulsive and mean to distract himself from the feelings. So to keep from being mean to Justin, he simply didn’t speak or do much at all. Besides sit and watch television, that was.

 

Justin was tucked into the large overstuffed chair across the room from where Brian was vehemently flipping through the channels. He peeked over his own coffee at Brian. “Are you mad at me or something?”

 

“I’m not mad.” Brian raised the remote to continue flicking through the channels.

 

“Well you’re upset about something. I can tell because you’ve been quite all morning. Is it… is it something to do with Rhys?”

 

Brian snorted. “Why would I be upset about a great fuck? You know me better than that.” When the same British newswoman appeared on screen for the third time, the remote got chucked into the corner of the couch. “God! Do all Irish people watch only BBC and soccer?!” Brian complained. “You’d think they’d have more fucking channels. I cannot wait to get back to HBO and TiVo.”

 

“There’s a ticket on the fridge,” Justin quipped airily into his next sip of coffee, making reference to the nagging prod Brian had used on him for weeks. They both knew very well that neither of them had any intention of using the ticket.

 

But Brian’s eyes shot over, the comment hanging in the air and mingling with what he’d already been ruminating on; getting rid of Justin before Justin got rid of him. “You should use it,” he said. “There’s no point in you staying here all this time, hanging around like some useless houseplant. It’s stupid.”

 

“I’ve already told you why I’m here Brian.” Justin was using his no-nonsense tone and it deflated Brian’s hopes of extrication through subterfuge. “I still want to be in Ireland and I want to be with you.”

 

“Those are stupid reasons.”

 

Justin quirked his brow. “Wanting to be with you is stupid?”

 

Brian had to swallow before he could say what he wanted to next. “It always has been.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes, really. Especially now that you’re starting school soon.” Brian shrugged, injecting as much flippancy into the gesture as he could stand, though his heart was racing just from acting so coldly. “I get that the whole bashing thing kept you around for a while, and that was fine. But you’re better now and there’s no reason for you to hang around me all the time anymore. Don’t you want do something, anything on your own?”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It means that I don’t want to spend my every waking minute with some kid who idolizes me. Don’t you think you should grow up?” There. He’d said it. To seal the deal, he puffed air between his teeth and produced the most dismissive look that he could. And from the crushed look on Justin’s face, Brian knew that he’d nailed the act perfectly. His heart was certainly sinking perfectly as Justin’s eyes clouded over at his words.

 

Justin didn’t speak for a moment, but when he finally did it was to say, “I understand that you have issues Brian, really I do. And sometimes they make you nasty, and sometimes they make you sweet. And that’s okay because I’ve learned to deal with it. But… FUCK. YOU.”

 

The achy chest feeling had morphed into a sort of shame-based burn, but Brian thinned his lips out and ignored it as he waited for his nasty words to take the desired effect. If he knew anything about manipulating people—and he liked to think that he did—then the next thing Justin would do was yell at him, then storm to the kitchen and rip the ticket off the fridge door, pack his bags and leave. It would hurt, but like Brian had previously decided: it would hurt less than the alternative.

 

Only, Justin didn’t do any of those things.

 

He glared and said, “I’m not leaving just because you’re having another moment of self-doubt or whatever. You have too many of those to keep track. But seriously? ‘The whole bashing thing’? Where the fuck do you get off, huh? I had to relearn how to write the fucking alphabet, and you use it as bait to piss me off?” He shook his head in disappointment and stood, ostensibly to leave the room. On the way out he hissed at Brian, “You suck. And I’m not fucking leaving.”

 

And once he’d left the room all Brian could do was sit sullenly on the couch and eventually start flipping through the channels again. Because fuck. Justin had him all figured out. Plan “Make the Achy Chest Feeling Stop” hadn’t exactly gone the way he’d thought. He supposed that he could keep trying, being nastier and nastier with each successive attempt, but somehow Brian had a feeling that Justin would continue to see right through his tricks. He always had, after all.

 

The memory of Justin telling him that being mean had never really worked, and that he’d kill Brian with kindness, floated through his mind, and Brian suddenly wished that he’d poured a bit of whiskey into his morning coffee, because he’d definitely have to start self-medicating earlier than usual that day. Being mean had NEVER worked.

 

And other than keeping Justin for the long haul, Brian was fresh out of ideas.

 

---

 

Justin sat on the grassy edge of a dune, painting the colors of Kilkenny bay with watercolors. Colin had come along and was sprawled on his back on the blanket beneath them. The only sound for a long time had been the sea birds and the lap of small waves, so Colin’s voice was a little bit of a surprise when he finally spoke and asked, “Where’s your husband?”

 

Justin nearly dropped the paintbrush. “Excuse me?” he scoffed, recovering and focusing in on a particular smudge of orange for the horizon. “He’s in Dublin with some guy he hooks up with.” Justin tried very hard to keep any coloring of jealousy from his words. “And Brian is not my husband. He never will be.”

 

“Eh, you don’t know that. They legalize gay marriage somewhere new practically every month.”

 

“That’s not why,” Justin mumbled. “Brian doesn’t even want to be my boyfriend. He’d never stick around long enough to even consider marriage.” Privately, Justin thought that Brian should never consider marriage. He was too… too what? Immature? Impulsive? Mean? No. Just… too. He’d proved that fact yet again when he’d said such cruel things that morning. “He doesn’t even want me now.”

 

“What?” Colin looked up at him. “What do you mean? I thought he brought you over here as some sort of vacation?”

 

Justin sighed. “He brought me here because I begged him to. I wouldn’t stop bugging him until he gave in. That’s why he does anything. Because I bug him to concession. He’d never be with me at all if it were up to him.”

 

“I don’t think that’s true. When we were at the Wilde museum he said you were something special.”

 

Justin scoffed. “You don’t know him Colin. You don’t know us. What he actually said was that ‘we don’t define things that way’. Meaning that we’re not anything defined.”

 

“Maybe not. But I’ve seen the look in his eyes when he watches you because he knows you’re not looking. Justin, that man looks at you like he loves you.”

 

“It’s me that loves him,” Justin corrected. “Masochistic idiot that I am.” There wasn’t much in the world that Justin could have said he wanted more, than for Brian to really, really love him. “Brian doesn’t love anyone. He can’t. It’s not his fault, it’s just the way he is.”

 

“Didn’t you say something about him taking you in after your father chased you off?”

 

“Well yeah but that was just because my mother showed up at his work and shoved a duffel bag of my shit at him.” Justin shook his head at the scene that he’d only heard of second hand from Brian. “He had no other choice unless he wanted to throw me out on the street. In all honesty I’m kind of surprised he didn’t.”

 

“But he didn’t. He took you in.” Colin pointed out. “And didn’t you say that he helped you stand up to the asshole kids at your high school? That he chased them off whenever he saw them harassing you, and that he helped you start some club?”

 

“We didn’t start a club, and Brian will yell at anybody who insults gay people. He likes the attention.”

 

“AND, didn’t you tell me that he took time off from his job to rehabilitate you from your injuries and your panic attacks?”

 

Justin blushed. That one was harder to refute. Now he regretted having told Colin the entirety of his history with Brian in the first place. “I never should have told you all of this,” Justin mumbled. The memories of Brian tossing tennis balls back and forth with him, of Brian sitting at the dining table and practicing writing with pencils made for first graders, of Brian rubbing the muscles in his palm when the hours of hard work made him cry and hurt… it made Justin’s heart ache to remember all of it. “Yeah,” he wound up admitting. “I guess he did do all of those things for me.”

 

“Sounds to me like all he’s ever done is love you.”

 

The brush in Justin’s hand froze. And he felt his heart go a little floaty as he supposed that Colin could be right. All Brian had ever done was love him? “…Yeah well try telling him that,” Justin said. “He wouldn’t like to hear it put that way. Now he’s on this new self-defensive streak, sparked by God knows what. He’s telling me to go home and grow up. Have a life of my own and bullshit like that.” He sighed. “I don’t know why he’s doing this. Maybe he really is tired of me. Maybe this is his way of getting me to leave without having to outright tell me that he doesn’t want me anymore.” Would Brian really be that self-destructive? Justin wondered. Just for the preservation of the persona that he had built around him like a fucking castle wall? It made no sense.

 

“He said you weren’t a Ross, mate.”

 

Justin rolled his eyes at the analogy. “Yeah, he did say that. But I’m not so sure. He has moments where I can tell that he’s happy, and he seems happy with us, but then it just rolls back around to him being agitated and mean.” Sometimes Justin just felt like the stupid high schooler who’d do anything to keep Brian near him for one more hour. Maybe Brian was right. Maybe he should get on with his own life. It didn’t feel like what he wanted, but if Brian wanted it… “Sometimes it feels like I’ll never know what he really wants.”

 

“What do you want?”

 

Justin looked forlornly into the sunset that he had painted, ignoring the real one just beyond. What did he want? For Brian to keep him there in Ireland, in a romantic world of isolated castles and green hills? To take him back to the loft and to Babylon and their shared world of thrills? Was that what he really wanted?  That was all just scenery. What he wanted, really wanted, was just for Brian to want to keep him, and for Brian to be okay with that want.

 

In the end Justin simply shook his head and said, “What I want, I’m not sure Brian can ever give me.”

 

---

 

In the backyard of Declan’s Dublin timeshare, Brian raised the joint in his hand to his lips once again, taking a long drag. And despite his years of experience smoking the stuff, the weed made him cough on the exhale. “Jeeze,” he said, coughing again, “This is heavy shit.” He could already feel his body growing lighter with the high. …Though admittedly: they were in the water.

 

“Hand it here.” Declan took the joint as it was passed over, himself seated feet away from Brian in the hot tub. The house had a pool, too, but it was too cold to go swimming that night.  “I buy from a guy all the way up in Belfast. Dodgy as fuck, but he’s always got good product.”

 

Brian nodded, splaying his toes out underneath the bubbling water as he considered their luxurious settings. “You know if I kept the castle, I’d put a pool in. And a hot tub. Justin would like that.”

 

“Does he know where you are so late?”

 

Brian frowned. “Yes. I told him like the good little housewife that he’s turned me into. Jesus.” He reached for the joint out of Declan’s hands, frustratedly inhaling another hit. “He tried to act all blasé about me coming up here to fuck my brains out, but I could tell he was jealous.”

 

“I don’t get why you don’t just tell him the truth.”

 

“What?” Brian scoffed. “That instead of tricking I go out to my straight lawyer’s house and crap shoot do brunch and smoke weed? Yeah right.”

 

“I’m just saying: it’s unproductive for you to be lying to him all the time. That is, unless your goal is to drive him away, in which case I guess it’s entirely productive.” Declan watched in satisfaction as Brian’s mouth thinned out, confirming that he’d hit the nail on the head with his assessment. “Don’t you like him anymore?” he asked.

 

“I’m high as fuck.” Brian complained. “Can’t we talk about something more philosophical and infinitely less practical than where my insignificant other thinks I am or how he feels about it?” Brian had had a rough morning after he’d rebuffed Justin. The castle, he’d found, could be a lonely place once one’s young blond lover stormed out of it. “So?” he prompted. “Talk. Ask me questions. Philosophize and stuff.” He thought of when Debbie would sometimes come over and wax poetic over a tuna casserole.

 

“Okay. Well… What are you most scared of?” Declan asked, obliging him.

 

Brian gave him a weird look. “Huh? What kind of question is that?”

 

“An easy one. And it’s completely unrelated to the person whom you came here to avoid. So what is it? What is your biggest fear in life?”

 

Brian screwed up his face. “Eating snatch.”

 

“I’m being serious man.”

 

“So was I.” Brian rolled his eyes and reluctantly admitted, “Fine. I guess it’s… youth.”

 

“You’re afraid of youth? Ha. Could’ve fooled me, based off the kid you’re dating.”

 

“He’s not a kid” Brian defended vehemently, despite having coldly called Justin a kid that very morning. “And I didn’t mean I’m afraid of youth. I’m afraid of the lack of it; of not being young and beautiful anymore.”

 

“You know I honestly believe you just told me the truth. For once.”

 

“Yeah well I honestly believe that I must be stoned out of my mind to be telling you at all.”

 

“So you have a pathological fear of losing your good looks, what else is new? I always knew you were a narcissistic bastard.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Me: I’m afraid of being one of those people who’s awake but can’t move. A qudripleptic, or what have you.”

 

“Quadriplegic.”

 

“That’s the one.” Declan nodded. “Not being able to piss or eat on your own, only batting your eyelashes once for yes and twice for no. Hell no. I’d rather die.”

 

Brian smirked quietly at the water. “That’s a good fear. I thought you’d say clowns or bugs or something.”

 

“Cop on. I’m not that lame.”

 

“It’s not lame. Justin’s afraid of bugs.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

Brian nodded. “When he was a kid a bunch of fire ants or something gross like that swarmed inside the clothes he was wearing. He can’t stand bugs now. Doesn’t even like to look at the ant farm shit at the zoo.”

 

“You’ve taken him to the zoo?”

 

“He took my son, Gus, once. They went in the invertebrate house and Justin had to leave because of all the bugs.”

 

“He takes your kid places?” Declan looked surprised.

 

“Sometimes. What’s the big deal?”

 

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that you’re telling me that he takes your son to the zoo, and you know all of these stories from his childhood, and—don’t deny it mate—your eyes fucking light up when he walks into the room. I had no idea you two were so involved.”

 

Brian snorted. Involved. Yeah, that was a great word for it. Involved somehow encompassed the entirety of their relationship, and the problem at the center of it. Brian inhaled the night air in rumination. He’d been so involved with Justin for so long, that he hardly knew what to do about it anymore, if anything. “I don’t know about him,” Brian admitted self-consciously to his friend. “He’s become this fixture in my life. And I know I didn’t put him there, but I sure as hell can’t decide whether to keep him there or not. Or even if I…” Or even if I have any say in it at all.

 

“Does he make you happy?”

 

“Most of the time. When he’s not being an annoying twat.”

 

“Well do you love him?”

 

Brian blanched. “L—love him? Jesus I don’t know. I don’t just go around… loving people.”  The niggling, itching, panicky feeling at the back of his head was back in full force. Love. Months ago, he’d have said that he didn’t believe in love. Brian shifted uncomfortably on the hot tub bench. “How the hell can a person even know if they love someone anyway?”

 

“I’ll tell you how you know,” Declan said bluntly, “You just think about Justin dying.”

 

“What?!”

 

“You heard me. Think about him dying tomorrow in some tragic way, and he’s gone. Just gone forever. And you never get to see him again or talk to him again or even touch him. If you think about that, and you’re more scared about that than when you think about growing old and ugly, that’s how you know you love him.”

 

Brian swallowed. “Oh.” He kept his mouth shut, determined not to tell his old friend that he already knew what that felt like. The memory of Justin’s prom night swept through his mind unbidden. Brian could remember the sickening sounds that’d echoed off the parking garage walls, how the warmth of Justin’s blood had cooled and cracked against his skin once the paramedics ripped him away, how he’d sat in the hospital and imagined Justin dying the next room over…

 

Blinking at the steam rising off the water in front of him, Brian tried to pull himself away from the awful memories. He’d truly thought Justin would die that night. He’d expected it. And the craziest part was that, as world-crushingly awful as that night had been, Brian hadn’t even loved Justin back then. Not like he did now. Declan’s question had made Brian realize that he didn’t want to imagine how much worse Justin dying would be now, due to the fact that now he meant so much more.

 

Declan’s question made him realize that growing old was not his biggest fear.

 

“You’re right,” he finally whispered. “I love him. Maybe that’s what I’m most afraid of.”

 

“What? Of love?”

 

“No.” Brian thought hard for a moment, before coming up with, “Of change.” He sank a little lower in the water, allowing it to come up past his shoulders, and then halfway up his neck. He imagined slipping deep below the surface and perhaps never coming up. “He… could be something big for me. Maybe something huge. The kind of huge that changes who you are. So that’s what freaks me out; the change part of it.”

 

“But you love him?”

 

“I already said that.”

 

Declan nodded sagely.  “Then it doesn’t matter how scared you are, or if you don’t want to change. If you love him, you have to make sure he knows it. One way or the other.”

 

It was hard advice to take. But it was good advice nonetheless.

 

---

 

The next week went by at an odd pace. Brian watched it play out before him like some awkwardly-written script.

 

Justin kept his distance, but never acted hostile when they crossed paths in the morning or when they went to bed together in the evening. He’d allow Brian his body at night but refuse him his company in the day.  It was a silence more than an argument. A collection of looks rather than anything said out loud. Justin had made it quite clear that he intended to spend his remaining time in Ireland enjoying it, rather than destroying it. So while Brian continued preparing to sell off the pieces of his inheritance, Justin went around committing it to memory while he still could. They were just two men who wanted many different things, the only want shared between them being the one for each other. Nothing between them was shattered and nothing resolved.

 

It was a tenuous stalemate that Brian found entirely unsatisfactory.

 

Still, he went about business as usual. He met lawyers and signed papers and discussed legal arguments for the upcoming court case. It was while he was driving out to one such meeting that Brian passed by a large gathering of people in the hills outside of Kilkenny. He’d stopped for petrol across the road since the Aston Martin was low, and his attention was caught enough that he parked the car in the lot and walked over to see what all the hustle and bustle was about.

 

Brian had never seen a livestock auction, but of course he’d heard about them and was quickly able to ascertain that that was what was going on. There were several pens in to which animals would be led and announced off to the bidders. It wasn’t as raucous as Brian would’ve imagined an auction to be, but it was certainly as rustic.

 

Brian glanced about at the ruddy people who were in attendance, then back down to himself and his suit and polished shoes. He felt terribly out of place and a little nervous that someone would recognize him and tell him to leave. But no one did, and Brian was able to watch with a tiny bit of curiosity as groups of animals were auctioned off. The man with the microphone who called out the prices had an accent so heavy that it hardly sounded as if he was speaking English at all, though Brian was able tell when he announced that they’d be beginning the auction on horses next.

 

They began to lead the animals in one by one, rather than in large groups, and that was when he caught sight of a familiar face in the crowd. Not far away was Carrick O’Halloran. Castle Kilkenny’s very own stable hand leant against the fencepost of the corral, looking wistfully at the horses as they were sold off. Horse after horse, Brian saw him watch, and horse after horse, he failed to bid. Brian surmised that the humble man didn’t have enough money to go around purchasing prized horses at auction very often. Still, Carrick’s weathered eyes watched with keen interest, and they pretty much lit up when a black stallion was brought into the ring.

 

“This one’s a real treasure folks. You won’t see better!” the auctioneer was announcing with gusto. “A picturesque Arabian horse with champion bloodlines twelve generations back, and downright mild for the breed to boot. You won’t find a better horse in the county this year!”

 

The handlers in the ring proceeded to lead the animal around, and Brian watched the look on Carrick’s face morph into a shocking semblance of adoration. Jeeze, this guy sure did love horses, Brian thought. But then the bidding started, all manner of auction goers calling out their offers when the opening price of fifteen thousand grew and grew. As the price grew, so did the sad, disappointed-yet-not-surprised look of resignation on Carrick’s face. He’d endured this before, Brian realized, and as Carrick’s tangible disappointment grew, so did some strange, impulsive feeling within Brian.

 

Here was a man about to lose his whole world as he knew it, and he couldn’t even buy a fucking horse. Brian knew that he was the reason for why Carrick’s life would change, and he also knew that he of all people could afford the champion horse being pranced around within the show ring. The urge to give someone something for nothing had never been felt more keenly in Brian Kinney’s heart. Perhaps it could’ve been chalked up to the novelty of the sensation, or perhaps to some infinitely more elusive reason, but whatever the reason behind it, the same thing happened. Before he knew it, Brian was doing the most irresponsible, ludicrous thing he could’ve imagined.

 

He was calling out a bid.

 

The auctioneer didn’t blink when Brian suggested that he’d pay the exorbitant fee of thirty six thousand dollars for the animal; he only gestured for someone to hand Brian a numbered paddle, and the bidding reconvened. Unfortunately, Brian’s inexplicable urge of charity fled as the other bidders continued to bring up the price by another thousand, and another. And Brian’s feeling of charity morphed into one of slight nausea when he bid again at thirty eight thousand, and realized that the price was most probably in Euros.

 

It was a relief and a disappointment when everyone stopped raising their paddles and the auctioneer announced that he’d won. Brian swallowed and chanced a look over at Carrick. The old man was staring at him with the most grateful expression conceivable.

 

Brian hated being the recipient of gratitude. That was why he never did nice things for people, and if did do them then he sure as hell made certain that the person in question didn’t know about it. Brian Kinney had never been able to stomach gratitude. Like when he’d ruined Michael’s thirtieth birthday party and Debbie had looked at him like he was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Carrick was looking at him exactly like that from across the paddock fencing. And then he did something even worse: he cried.

 

---

 

Brian leant against the wooden gate of a stall that until very recently, had been vacant. He was in castle Kilkenny’s stable. Nobody knew he was there and that was no accident. He’d snuck down to the barn after he’d seen Carrick head into town. Nobody needed to know that Brian had any interest in visiting his thirty-eight thousand euro mistake, which was exactly what he was doing.

 

He leant against the gate and scowled at the prize horse that was staring back at him with what seemed like attitude. “Don’t look at me like that,” Brian contemptuously addressed the animal. “So innocent, so sweet, like you haven’t been the low point of my day. I cannot believe I bought you.”

 

The horse snorted through its nostrils, as if it couldn’t believe that Brian had purchased it either.

 

“And why the hell did you have to cost so much anyways?” Brian complained. “I mean I guess I can acknowledge that I had a mental breakdown and did a favor for some old geezer I don’t even know. Fine, okay. But why so god-damned expensive? What the heck is so special about an Arabian horse?”

 

The horse didn’t answer, but another voice in the long hallway did. Carrick’s gruff voice sounded, saying, “Arabians are some of the best racehorses in the world. People covet them like you covet that little car of yours.”

 

Brian whipped his head over at the unexpected reply, unhappy to have been caught acknowledging—let alone talking to—the favor he’d done for Carrick. “My car is worth far more than that,” he groused with a finger pointed at the black horse.

 

Carrick chuckled and shuffled closer, leaning next to him to watch the newest resident of the stables. “Well we can agree to disagree on that point. I’ll tell you this much Mr. Kilkenny: I’ve dreamt of owning a horse like him for almost my whole life. Never thought I would.” He glanced at Brian. “Never thought someone like you would buy me one.”

 

Brian tried to shrug noncommittally. “I bought him for myself. I wanted him.”

 

“Sure you did.”

 

“I own the estate,” Brian pointed out. “If I decide to buy a horse or something to stick on it, it doesn’t mean it’s for you.”

 

It was pathetically obvious how much of a lie that was, and Carrick called him out on it. “You could barely ride the tamest gelding I’ve got in here.”

 

“Tame?! You call that Brock thing tame?”

 

“You don’t give a hoot about horses. And you do a hell of a job trying to convince everyone that you don’t give a hoot about anything else either. But I know different.”

 

Brian rolled his eyes. “You’re full of it.”

 

“No. You are. You give a hoot about people; you just don’t want anyone to know it.”

 

“But haven’t you heard?” Brian asked with disdain. “I’m the devil of Kilkenny. I’m selling the town and enslaving the children.”

 

“You’re a selfish prick, that’s for sure. But I know the difference between a person like you and a person who’s really bad. You didn’t have to buy this horse. There was no reason for it. Other than you saw I wanted it maybe.” Brian kept his lips shut at that, having no good reply. He’d obviously bought it for Carrick. He’d just been hoping that the old man would have the tact not to mention it. Brian had never been good with gratitude, after all. “Your boyfriend told me you’re some sort of big city executive back in America; some sort of ad man, right? Well then you must know better than anyone that actions speak louder than words. A man’s actions will show you how he really feels.”

 

“Sure.” Brian dreaded where this was going.

 

“Well you go around saving people while you’re ready to rip the ground out from under their feet.” Carrick shrugged. “Are you sure you aren’t feeling even a little guilty for selling? You sure you aren’t maybe growing a little bit fond of Kilkenny?”

 

In some private space of his mind, Brian might have agreed. For the most part he could still scoff at the existence of a town where everyone knew each other by name, no one aspired to higher levels of education, and the high point of social life was the weekly soccer match. But somewhere between those facts were the raucous jokes between friends at the pub, the gorgeous unblemished countryside, and the old traditions that were only spoken and never written down. Brian couldn’t scoff at those even if he wanted to.

 

Carrick was still leaning next to him. And he must have seen the thoughts that flitted through Brian’s eyes as readily as his mind because he said, “Come on. Admit it. You like it here don’t you?”

 

Brian might have agreed. But he’d already given the man a thirty eight thousand euro horse. He didn’t need to give him his agreement too. So instead he simply offered a soft smile and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and walked out of the barn back towards the castle.

 

Carrick watched him go, and realized that he might just be the only one who knew the real truth of the matter: that the Lord of Kilkenny wasn’t quite the cold hearted bastard that he pretended to be. The question was: would anyone else get the chance to figure it out before it was too late and Kilkenny as they knew it was gone?

 

---

 

“Well there you have it. That’s the city of Dale, formerly the village of Dale.” Collin shared Brian’s view from the car that they’d parked atop a hilly street. From there, most of the city’s vista could be seen. “Is it what you pictured?”

 

Brian tried not to let his feelings show on his face, responding with only a vague, “I guess so.” How he was actually feeling was rather put out, and oddly saddened. The city of Dale was the cautionary tale to the supposed future of Kilkenny, or so he’d been told by Maeve and anyone else who felt the need to tell him.

 

Stretched out below them, the city wasn’t a toxic wasteland of capitalistic greed. It wasn’t a bustling, smog-ridden industrial park. But it was a large city. Devoid of any of the characteristic trademarks that Brian had subconsciously begun to associate with Irish communities. Everything was built up, concrete and indistinguishable. There were cars everywhere on the larger-than-usual streets. There was some smoke from factories and businesses. There wasn’t any green that hadn’t been specifically planned-out.

 

“It just looks like… like any other city I’ve ever seen,” Brian defended mildly.

 

“Exactly. It’s faceless now. Generic.” Colin scowled. “You should have seen it before. It was like Kilkenny only a little larger. Before the developers came here, this was a nice place to live. But look,” he pointed, “You can see how crowded it is now. Nobody who lived here before could afford to stay, and if they could they didn’t want to. Who would want to linger in a place that was stripped bare of anything resembling its former value, anyhow?”

 

Brian shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying not to feel too awkward. He’d known that this was coming, after all. What the heck other purpose had he imagined Colin could have had when he’d called to ask if Brian wanted to drive out to Dale for the day? It’d been to show him this. To change his mind. Brian sat in the driver’s side seat and thought that he must have been a masochist to agree to the trip. “I see what you meant about what happened here,” Brian admitted reluctantly. “It’s not a horrible place, it’s just not a special place.”

 

“Exactly.” Colin looked relieved, as if he thought that Brian was finally starting to get it. Unfortunately, Brian thought, he kind of was. “Some of the best hunting in the county used to be around here. That’s all done with now. Most things that were unique here are done with now. It’s sad, really.”

 

Spread out below them, Dale was like any other generic city in the world. No charm, no history, no meaning. “You’re forgetting,” Brian reminded, “I’m a disinterested American Capitalist.”

 

“Right. You know I almost forgot.”

 

Brian was sure his lips thinned. Lately he was having trouble remembering himself as well. It’d started with Justin and all the interactions with the town and villagers that he’d drawn him into, and been expounded by things like Finbar’s cottage in the highlands and Beltane festival and local rugby games. Things like Carrick crying over the horse he’d always dreamed of. Brian hadn’t wanted to get to know Kilkenny, but it had crept up on him nonetheless. “You think this will happen in Kilkenny?” Brian asked, feeling stupid as he said it. He wasn’t naïve; of course it would happen in Kilkenny.

 

“I don’t even like to think about it Brian,” Colin was lamenting. “Every landmark, every special place, every memory that we treasure will be demolished when they come in and change it all. Dug up and replaced with a six lane highway. The pub will go away. The pub! The pub where our grandfathers gathered to toast the end of the war and its dead, where all of our friends had their first drinks, where we sat and watched the world cup every four years of our lives since birth, will be destroyed. And the church where we’ve all been baptized, confirmed, and married in; the schools where we’ve all grown up, the fields where we played. Even the castle and the Wilde house will be gone. Nothing will be the same. Imagine if it happened to your home,” he implored, “What about Pittsburgh and Liberty Avenue? Imagine if this happened there. Wouldn’t it mean something to you then?”

 

“How do you know about—”

 

Collin cut him off. “Justin of course. He likes to talk.”

 

“Obviously.”

 

“Would you honestly not give a damn if the places you loved—the places that held your life and all of its memories—were just done away with?”

 

Brian was forced to think about that. He thought of the loft, of Babylon and of the baths: the places where he’d spent countless nights lost in his body and others’, seeking out the pleasure that was his long-touted birthright. He thought of Woody’s and the gym, where he’d made his collection of friends and kept them for so long. And finally, he thought of the upper balcony at the Liberty movie theater, of the third from the last booth at the Diner, of the old recliner in Deb’s living room. Those were the places that he valued most, and which would hurt the most to lose. They were the places where he’d learned what love felt like. What family felt like. “I don’t think any mega companies are going to be busting into Pittsburgh to renovate anytime soon,” Brian mumbled, “But I understand what you mean about places you love being taken away.”

 

“You know I thought you just might, after coming here.”

 

Colin didn’t look smug, but rather satisfied, and that was the main reason why Brian offered no contrary retort. He simply grabbed the steering wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and placed his hand on the gear shift. “You’ve made your point,” he said gruffly. “Do you think we can go now?”

 

“Yeah. I think we’ve both seen enough.”

 

As Brian pulled away and headed for the roads that would take them home, he couldn’t help but to agree. He’d definitely seen enough. The visit to Dale had put a picture to the stories he’d heard from Maeve and others like her. Seeing Dale was like seeing the future of Kilkenny, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, the image put a sour feeling in Brian’s gut that would not be chased away.

 

It’d just gotten very real, what he was about to do with his inheritance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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