Justin's POV

"Justin, you're bleeding."

I look down at my hand quickly and see the smear of blood across my fingers. I quickly look up at Brian, "no, it's not me. I met Lindsay in the corridor. Oh, God, Brian! Lindsay's bleeding! We have to find her. We have to…"

Brian puts a gentle finger to my lips. "Shh, it's okay. She'll be fine."

"But…"

He shakes his head and looks at me. There is so much in his expression that I can't read. He gently takes hold of my hand. "Come with me. We'll get you cleaned up a bit and maybe I can explain."

He leads me to the end of the corridor and down a flight of stairs. "Where are we going?" I ask, still a bit shaken from my scare.

"To my rooms."

We stop in front of room 433 and I get an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. It only intensifies as Brian unlocks the door and leads me inside. I can make out in the dim light that it's not just a room, but an elegant suite. I jump as the lights suddenly come back on. "Fuck! I hate that!"

Brian blows out his candle and smiles wryly. "You get used to it, Sun…er, I mean Justin." He points to another room. "You can use my bathroom to get cleaned up. It's right there, through the bedroom." He moves to a bar in the corner and starts to pour himself a drink.

I head into the bathroom and move to the sink to wash Lindsay's blood from my hands. I feel the fear for her press upon me again. How can he be so calm? Why aren't we trying to help her? I shake my head as I finish and reach for the black hand towel to dry my hands. I turn to study the bathroom, which is decorated opulently in all gold and black. I notice there is no tub, only a huge shower totally enclosed in glass. Something isn't right with the room, though and I can't quite put my finger on it.

"Justin?" I hear Brian call to me. "Are you all right in there?"

"Fine," I call back. "I'll be right out." I turn to check myself in the mirror and that's when I realize what's wrong. There is no mirror.

Daphne's POV

Before we walk down the narrow steps the young boy looks at me and smiles as he pushes out his chest proudly. "I'm Gus."

I pat his head affectionately. "I'm Daphne."

He cocks his head slightly and his movements seem almost unnatural in the dim light. His voice lowers and sounds sad. "I knew a Daphne once, a long time ago."

I close my eyes for a moment and hold back the pain and sadness of his recollection. "Do you want to tell me about her?" I open my eyes and we begin making our way down the steps. There are only few and I notice that we seem to be between floors. The walkway is a very narrow and the ceiling is low. I have to duck slightly so I don't bump my head.

I can see him shrug his shoulders in the dim light. "She was nice and she used to sing to me. I liked when she sang."

I smile and feel his hand tighten in mine. "What did she used to sing?"

He giggles. "Puff the Magic Dragon."

"Oh, I like that song."

"Me…" Suddenly he comes to a dead stop and I rest my hand on is shoulder, feeling his body stiffen.

"Gus, are you ok?"

Suddenly my body jerks slightly and it feels as though the wind has been knocked out of me. I'm trying to gasp for breath when I hear a loud growling noise coming through the walls. Gus looks at me and his eyes are full of fear and his small body is shaking. The lights begin to flicker on and I realize there are dim lights running up and down the small hallway. I look into Gus' eyes that are now filled with tears. His lip begins to quiver as he points behind me. I can hear him start to sing Puff the Magic Dragon frantically like it was some form of protection.

A cold chill flows through me as I slowly turn around and see a black mist circling nearby. I gasp again as hands begin to come out of the mist toward me. Quickly I scoop Gus up into my arms and he clings to my neck as I run, trying not to bang my head on the low ceiling. The fear courses through me as the entity reaches out and grabs at my body. I scream when I feel something sharp rake across my skin. Gus clings to me even more tightly and I can feel his tears against my neck.

I see three steps leading up to a doorway. I run up them and quickly grab for the crystal knob of the door. I have trouble opening it and I can hear a loud hissing behind me. I turn around again to see a white face protrude through the massive black. I turn back frantically trying to open the door. It sticks a bit and then finally gives. Gus', little fingers are digging into my neck out of sheer terror.

"Make it stop, make it stop!" Gus cries over and over.

Finally, the door opens and we tumble out. Holding onto Gus with one arm I slam the door closed behind us and turn an old fashioned key to lock it. I can hear a screeching hiss penetrate through the old wood followed by a shrieking wind as the entity retreats.

I hear another loud noise behind me and I jump and scream, feeling the fear boiling inside of me. My heart races as I turn around to see flames rise up from the gothic looking candelabras that line the room.

I'm startled again and feel my breath hitch when I hear a woman chuckle. Gus jumps out of my arms and runs to the woman. "Grandma Debbie, Grandma Debbie! The dark was chasing us!" he tells her breathlessly as he points to the door.

I can see tears in the woman's eyes as she leans down and hugs the young boy. She brushes his hair back from his face. "Shh. It's okay now, baby, Grandma will make the darkness go away." She looks up and smiles at me weakly. "You must be Daphne." I nod my head yes. "We've been expecting you."

Brian's POV

Justin finally comes out of the bathroom, still looking a bit dazed. I move to him and thrust the double Beam I poured for him into his hand. "Here, drink this."

He automatically raises the glass to his full lips and tosses back the shot. The strong alcohol seems to snap him out of his stupor and he stares at me. "How did you know what I like to drink?"

I simply shrug. "Lucky guess."

He turns away from me and slowly moves around the sitting room of my suite. I hold my breath as he studies the paintings on my walls. "I really like these, Brian." He turns back to me. "Who's the artist?"

For the millionth time tonight I struggle to maintain my composure. 'You!' I want to scream. 'You painted them all, Justin.' I take a breath. "A friend did them," is all I say in reply.

Justin nods and then meets my eyes. "I'm really worried about your friend Lindsay. I know you said she's all right, but I think we should check on her. How can she be okay? It felt like a lot of blood, Brian."

"Justin," I start and then stop. I have to make sure to handle this carefully. "Justin, Lindsay's dead."

All I can do is stand and watch as all the blood drains from his face. "But…she…she seemed okay in the hall. She was talking and everything." He starts to tremble as tears well up into his eyes and he looks at me desperately. "You mean she died when I could have done something to help her?"

I barely make it to him in time to catch his limp body as he drops into a dead faint. Well, so much for handling it carefully.

Ben's POV

I arrive home from teaching my class to find Michael missing. I finally locate him sitting in the hotel bar talking with our friend and bartender, Emmett.

"Hey guys, what's up?" I say as I take the seat next to my husband and kiss him on the cheek.

"Hi," he says glumly.

"Don't mind him, honey," Emmett says to me as he grabs me a cup and some hot water for my night time herbal tea. "He's just down in the dumps."

"Why," I turn to Michael. "What happened?"

"We have two new guests," he takes a swig of his beer and sighs.

"Well, that's good isn't it? More business?" I put an arm around his shoulder. "Do they bitch a lot?"

"It's Justin and Daphne," he says quietly.

"And Brian checked them in," adds Emmett in a hushed voice as he leans over the counter.

I sit back in surprise. "Brian? Are you sure? And Justin's here too?" They both nod at me in unison. "Well, this should be interesting."

"Hey, uh, guys," Ted, our accountant and also a good friend of ours, makes his way from the direction of the restrooms. He is pale and trembling.

"Teddy, what's the matter?" asks Emmett. "Are you sick? You look awful."

Ted turns to Michael and me. "Uh, did you guys know there's a lady in your men's room who claims to be looking for her son?"

Emmett, Michael and I all share a look. "Lindsay," mouths Emmett from behind Ted's head. We all nod slightly.

"That's odd," I answer. "She's lost her son, you say? Maybe I should go and help her."

"Well, I'm not sure if that's possible," Ted reaches a shaking hand toward his drink. "She left…through the wall." He tosses back the rest of his gin and tonic. "It also looked like someone slit her throat." He's nodding and almost talking to himself now. "She was wearing some weird old dress…"

The three of us share another look and Emmett pours a double shot of Beam for his friend. "Here Teddy, have another drink."

"On us," Michael and I reply together.

Brian's POV

I sit on the floor cradling Justin's limp body close to mine. I have to fight back the tears that are forming in my eyes as I look around the room at the paintings I have been clinging to for years. I'm ever hoping and waiting for him to come back to me. I look down at my long lost lover and caress his cheek tenderly with the back of my fingers. He moans slightly at my touch.

I tighten my grip on him, willing him to remember us; to remember what we were to one another. Who would ever think that Brian Kinney would be a victim of love? God forbid! Yet there was always something different about Justin. It was in the way he laughed at me, the way he smiled and made me feel whole.

I lean down and press a gentle kiss to his forehead. I can hear the echoes of the past drifting into our room. I see the images as if it were yesterday and not decades earlier.

The door closes and Justin comes into the room and straight into my arms. I look down into his crystal blue orbs and my breath hitches as I gently caress his porcelain skin. I trail my fingers down the side of his face and neck. Justin gasps and I smirk as I lean down and capture his lips with mine. I kiss him fervently, reveling in the feel of his warm breath against my lips. I pull him in close and caress him all over, making him gasp as I snake my tongue into his mouth. I moan when his tongue intertwines with mine. I can't remember a time when I felt so many emotions just kissing someone. He makes me feel whole for the first time in my life. My fingers fumble slightly when I move to unbutton his shirt.

Justin pulls back and smiles as caresses my face. "I have never met anyone like you, Brian Kinney." His words are like a sweet erotic whisper to my ears. "I've been with other men but no one has ever made me feel the way you do."

I know I should be scared out of my fucking mind and I am a little bit. But his words ring true because I feel the same, and I know right here, right now, my life is going to change forever.

I slide his shirt off his shoulders and kiss his neck, moving my tongue slowly to his ear. I nibble lightly on his earlobe and whisper to him. "I'm going to fuck you. I'm going to fuck you all night long." Those aren't the words I really want to say. I want to tell him I feel the same way he does. That he makes me feel alive.

But I didn't and I couldn't and now as I'm pulled back to the present I look at my limp lover in my arms and wish I had told him how much he really meant to me everyday we were together.

My mind drifts back to that first night with Justin. I remember how his body trembled just from my voice alone.

Desperately he wraps his hand around the back of my neck, kissing me with a passion that sends shivers through my body, heart and soul. I kiss him back with the same desire and then he slowly unbuttons my shirt. He throws his head back and leers as he glides the material off my shoulders and then tosses the shirt to the ground.

Justin bends down and drags his tongue across my nipple. I gasp when he places his hand against my hard cock, which is still trapped in the confines of my jeans. I groan loudly and smile, continuing to kiss him as I guide him over to my huge, gothic style bed.

I reach over and turn on the gas switch that lights the candelabras in my room. Justin gasps and quivers in my embrace and I smile slyly when I turn off the main light and an orange glow flickers throughout the room and across Justin's pale body.

I lay him down in the bed and quickly remove his pants, then step out of my own. Carefully I crawl onto the bed and hover over him. I am so entranced by the way the flames of the candelabras cast a warm glow in his eyes.

Justin licks his lips and traces his hands down my back. I kiss his ruby lips trailing my tongue down his neck to his nipple. He groans in desire when I press my hard cock against his leg, his breath hitching and fingertips pressing into my flesh. I grin at him as I run one hand up his leg and tenderly take hold of his firm cock.

I swoop down needing to taste him and feel his fullness in my mouth. Justin tangles his hand in my hair as I trace my tongue down his throbbing dick. Finally I wrap my lips around his shaft and take him completely into my mouth. I deep throat him a few times and Justin is whispering things I can't even understand in the throws of his passion.

I pull off him and he whimpers at the loss, but I need to be buried inside him more than anything right now. Quickly I reach over to the nightstand and grab a condom and lube. I prepare Justin gently and then lift his legs over my shoulders. His blue eyes are at half mast with desire. "Brian, please, I need you inside me." I nod my head as I roll the condom down my shaft and thrust myself inside him. My body melts into his as I gasp in wonderment from the intense sensations he is bringing forth in me.

Justin smiles up at me with utter contentment in his eyes and then gasps and moans when I begin to thrust in and out of him. I caress one of my hands up his arm until I reach his hand and interlink our fingers. I do the same with the other until our bodies and hands are completely connected. Justin lets his legs drop from my shoulders and wraps them tightly around my waist as he meets me with every thrust and our bodies dance in our passionate union.

Our mouths meet again and our tongues move in the rhythm of our connected bodies. Justin's breath hitches and I know he is getting close so I slide one of my hands out of his and take hold of his cock, stroking him firmly in time with my thrusts. Then I pull out slightly and position myself to hit his prostate. Justin's body jolts underneath mine and then I feel both of our orgasms taking us over the edge. He cries out my name and for the first time ever I cry out someone's name as well. My heart feels so full as my body slumps down onto his.

I trace my hands on his face and look down at him. "That was amazing, Justin Taylor." He blushes and covers his face; I move his hands away and kiss him again.

I am pulled from my memories when I feel Justin's eyes peering up at me. I look down at him and he looks confused as he hesitantly reaches up and traces the outline of my jaw. I wish we could go back to a time when our souls were still innocent, before our lives where drastically changed forever.

Justin

I open my eyes to find myself on the floor in Brian's cradling embrace. I peek up at him and he's gazing at nothing, seemingly deep in thought. Suddenly he looks down and notices I'm awake. "Are you all right?" he asks quietly.

"Yes, I think so," I say as I sit up and he relinquishes his hold on me. "What happened?" My mind still feels a bit fuzzy.

"Well, I told you about Lindsey being a ghost and you fainted," his mouth quirks up in a slight smile. He stands and reaches for me, pulling me up with him.

"A ghost?" I repeat and feel myself waver on my feet again.

"Easy, Justin," he grabs me and leads me to a chair, easing me down.

"But…but…how…why…" I can't seem to form a complete sentence and Brian smiles down at me. Finally, I take a deep breath and compose myself. I look into Brian's hazel eyes. "Brian, what's going on?" I ask in a stronger voice.

He quirks a wry grin at me and turns back to the bar, picking up our empty glassed along the way. He is silent while he pours each of us another drink and returns to the spot where I'm sitting, handing me my glass. He sits down beside me as I shakily take a gulp of the strong whiskey. "Let me start at the beginning, all right?"

I nod my head. "Okay," I answer softly.

Brian leans back against the sofa cradling his glass between his hands. "Lindsay and I were good friends in college. I would even say she was my best friend at school. I had my best friend Mikey from high school, but he was still back at home working. "Lindsay was special and we even went as far as sleeping together a few times, before I gently informed her that I was most emphatically gay and she was most likely a dyke."

"Were you right?" I ask him thinking back to my own experience with a woman. Daphne had wanted her first time to be with someone she trusted completely and had asked me. She most certainly was not a dyke and that led to some weirdness between us for awhile, but she got over it.

Brian smiles and nods. "Of course I was right. I'm always right, Sunshine." His eyes open wide for a moment and he looks guilty.

"Sunshine?" I ask him, trying to cover the confused feelings that word had evoked in me.

He clears his throat. "Uh, it's your smile. It's very bright." I flash him said smile and he returns it and then I motion for him to continue with his story. "Anyway," he goes on. "We remained friends after graduation and Lindsay met a woman named Melanie. They were together for about six years when Lindsay came to me saying that they wanted to have a child."

His expression softens, but it also seems unbearably sad to me. He is quiet for a long moment. "Brian?" I ask him softly.

"Yeah," he says with a little start. "So, uh, she comes over to my loft one night and we get seriously drunk and stoned, reliving old college memories, you know?" I nod at him and smile. "Then she asks me to be the donor. Fuck!" he chuckles. "First I told her, 'no fucking way,' but she always had this way of getting me to do what she wanted. Anyway, so before a year had passed, along came Gus."

"You have a son?"

He nods slowly. "Yeah, I have a son. Things were great for awhile. The munchers raised Gus and I continued to work, drink, drug and fuck my way through most of gay Pittsburgh. I dropped in on Gus here and there to make sure they didn't make him too butch, but all in all we were pretty happy."

"Doesn't sound like you were much of a father," I can't help but sound a bit reproachful.

"Well, at the time I didn't really know how to be a father. I never really had a role model in that respect, Sunshine. Anyway, that's how Mel and Linds wanted it and I was more than happy to comply."

"So, what happened? How did you end up here?"

"Melanie got sick. For awhile they couldn't figure out what is was, but eventually they found a tumor on her ovary. It was cancer and by the time they detected it, it had spread."

"God," is all I can think of to say.

"Yeah," he replies. "Of course Lindsay had her hands full taking care of Mel so I was more than happy to jump in and help with Gus. Our friends rallied around them as well and did what they could, but they all had lives and jobs so it was tough."

"What about your families?" I ask, thinking about how my mom would have been on me like glue if I ever became ill.

Brian snorts. "Mel's parents were dead, and let's just say that Lindsay's parents did not approve of her lifestyle. My father was dead and my mother may as well have been."

"Shit."

"So, we were on our own. Mel put up a good fight for about a year, but she finally slipped away and unfortunately she took part of Lindsay with her." He stands up and rubs a hand over his face. "Christ, she was a fucking mess. I couldn't even get her out of bed." He turns to look at me. "Finally I just moved into their house with her and Gus so he would at least have one fucking parent. She eventually came out of it and got better, but she will still so fucking sad all the time."

"So you came here?"

He nods. "Yeah. I decided that we all needed a change of scenery. I had to be pretty much a full time parent to Gus and my life in Pittsburgh didn't really fit in with that. I had a great job there and was pretty much set financially so I put out some feelers and found this place was for sale. We moved here and I gave Lindsay half interest in the hotel. It really gave her something to focus on. She always loved entertaining, so this was right up her alley. She pulled out of her depression and seemed pretty happy. It also gave me the freedom to be the kind of dad Gus needed me to be. With my marketing background we were able to make this place pretty successful."

"What happened, Brian?" I ask, not sure I want to know. "How did Lindsay die?"

He walks over to the stone fireplace and leans against the mantle, his back still turned to me. I hear him take in a deep breath before he turns back around to face me again. "She was murdered Sunshine. Her throat was cut. That's why her blood…out in the hallway…" his voice falters.

"Oh my God," I answer. Then I remember something else. "Brian, when we were out there she ran away. She said she needed to take care of her son."

"She was looking for Gus. She's always looking for Gus."

"So, that's why you have to stay here?" I say to him. "Because Lindsay can't or won't leave?"

He comes back over to me and sits down. "Yeah, that's one reason," he replies as he gently takes my hand.

"What's another reason?" I ask as I revel in the warmth of his skin against mine. His touch is causing electricity to shoot up my spine.

His grip tightens on my hand. "Well, you see, I can't leave, Sunshine, because I'm dead too."

I suck in a breath and suddenly the lights go out again engulfing us in darkness.