“What about us? We don’t have any beeps or wires or little white dots telling us we’re alive, so how do we know? I guess we just take each other’s word.”

*****

Three weeks. Three weeks so far, in New York. Three weeks still fucking paralyzed. Three weeks wondering what he’d gotten himself into; what he’d expected he would get out of coming here.

Sure, his rational mind knew that it was stupid to think that somehow moving here would magically fix his fucked-up life, or that being with Justin would have the same effect. No, Brian Kinney was still wrapped up in his own goddamn head. And that’s exactly where he was now, sipping Jim Beam right out of the bottle, on his familiar sofa in yet another new place, while he waited for Justin to come home from his little side job waiting tables at a cafe in his old neighborhood.

Justin’s old neighborhood, because Brian had finally gotten the balls to ask him to move in. He’d gotten past the shaky hands and the sweaty palms and the rapid breathing that came along with anxiety -- his new friend that had grown out of the fact that this version of Brian Kinney never felt good enough, worthy enough, for anything good. Although really, that wasn’t new at all. The old Brian Kinney had felt the same, deep down. He’d always felt unworthy of certain things. It just never showed outwardly the way it did now. And it was fucking embarrassing as hell.

They’d been unpacking the bedroom, and Justin was taking care of hanging things up because it was easier for him to go in and out of the closet repeatedly, carrying things. Brian hadn’t said anything; hadn’t asked Justin to do that. It just happened. Brian was grateful that he didn’t have to ask, although still a little pissed off at the way his disability intruded on everything, and underlied every decision now, no matter how small or how subtle. And how it made everything harder.

Brian hadn’t gotten truly drunk in a long time. Really, not since his accident. The line in the sand that divided the life he’d lived for 35 years from the life he’d lived for not-quite-one. The word that he still had trouble speaking out loud. Maybe because voicing it would be the same as admitting its existence and the enormous impact it had on his life -- and who he was as a person. He missed his old pain management techniques sometimes, too.

When he’d given up on work for the day and taken the bottle over to the sofa, he’d only intended on taking the edge off -- numbing the dull ache in his head from the horrible day he’d had. He also hoped it would take away the shame he felt over wondering whether or not he’d made a mistake by coming here. Shame because he was afraid that if he said the wrong thing, Justin would think he meant that being with him was a mistake, and it wasn’t. Not at all. Justin was the one good thing in Brian’s seriously fucked-up existence. At least, that’s how it seemed right now.

He hadn’t taken any pain medication today, so he felt he’d be okay partaking of the whiskey, although he now saw in hindsight that he probably should have used a glass, because he didn’t really know at this point how much he’d had. He only knew that he felt a little disoriented, and it didn’t seem like there was enough gone from the bottle to produce that kind of effect. Maybe that was what happened when you hadn’t had much to drink in nine months and suddenly decided to start swigging whiskey straight from the bottle. Brian used his hands to swing his legs up onto the sofa so he could lie down until the head rush passed.

The first few days in New York had been okay. Pretty nice, really. Justin was thrilled to be moving back in with Brian, and Brian was happy to not be alone. It had taken them four trips in Brian’s car to retrieve Justin’s belongings from the shoebox of a place he’d been sharing with a friend of Daphne’s for over a year, but now he was officially, completely moved into Brian’s apartment. Their apartment. Half of the second bedroom -- the half closest to the windows, since it had more natural light -- had been designated a studio space for Justin to work, while the other half contained Brian’s desk and his computer, the colorful pens he used when he pretended to be an artist, and a few random toys that he mostly used to work out nervous tension and distract himself so he could hear his thoughts more clearly.

He always thought better when he had something to fidget with. He remembered how he used to get in trouble when he was a teenager for clicking his pen over and over and over again while he contemplated his homework at the kitchen table. His mother would only yell at him to quit clicking the damn pen already -- his father wasn’t home yet at that time, thankfully. If he had been, Brian was sure he would have had to adapt to thinking without clicking the pen, the same way he’d adapted to everything else he had to do to minimize how often he drew his parents’ usually painful ire. Or maybe he would have just gone to Mikey’s house to escape. He’d done that a lot too. Brian laughed to himself at the thought -- he’d spent his entire life trying to escape from one thing or another, hadn’t he?

And New York had seemed like it would be a promising escape. Sure, he was missing his family -- although not his blood relatives -- more than he’d thought he would, but most of the time, he felt like he was still glad to be here. Mostly because he was with Justin. Sometimes, though, the angry, resentful thoughts about his situation would take hold and he suddenly felt like he was back in rehab, shouting at Michael while his friend tried to comfort him, or quietly seething while he refused to talk to Rebecca. He wished he could figure out what was going on, so he could get off of the emotional rollercoaster. Trying to ride it out without letting Justin know about it was taking a heavy toll.

They’d spent Brian’s first weekend in the city wrapped up in domestic bliss -- filling the refrigerator with food, shopping for small household items, and just being together. It felt very couple-y, which an old version of Brian would certainly have resisted, maybe even detested, but this version kind of liked it. He found it comforting, to be honest. He’d spent a lot of his life alone in one way or another -- either literally or figuratively. It had always been nice to have Justin around, even when he wouldn’t have admitted it for the world, and he’d missed him in the times they’d been separated. He hoped that would never happen again. That meant he was going to need to keep from fucking it all up this time, the way he always had in the past.

Going around the city together had been nice, and Brian appreciated how no one seemed to be looking him up and down or trying to figure out where they knew him from, as always seemed to happen in Pittsburgh. But he did notice that when people interacted with the two of them now, they tended to speak more to Justin than him, which felt strange. When they were together before, it had always been reversed, perhaps because Brian was older -- though he hoped he didn’t look it -- or maybe just because he was taller. Who knows? And did it really matter anyhow? He made a conscious choice not to worry too much about it, instead focusing on trying to immerse himself in his new environment and enjoying being with Justin, while trying to push the dark thoughts of feeling not-good-enough out of his head.

That had been a tall order the past few weeks. It was as if all of the excitement of making the big move had awakened something that he’d managed to bury a little bit in his subconscious, and he’d found himself struggling to keep a lot of negative feelings at bay. Reuniting with Justin had made him feel happier and more at ease than he’d felt in months, but there was still this monster lurking just below the surface, and it was starting to reach its tentacles out of the water, threatening to drag him under. He needed to avoid dragging Justin under too, because that would almost certainly fuck it all up. So that meant keeping the way he felt to himself, or at least trying to. Justin had asked Brian to be honest with him, but Brian was afraid of what would happen if he was. If Justin knew what was going on inside his head.

He knew that his mood had been less-than-cheerful most of the time lately, maybe even bordering on erratic. He felt like all of the progress he’d been making toward accepting how his life had changed had been knocked back to start, like some kind of sick and twisted board game, except this was his real life. He’d briefly wondered if maybe he needed to talk to someone about this, but quickly dismissed the thought. He’d indulged Rebecca quite enough during his month in rehab, and he hadn’t particularly enjoyed delving deep into the recesses of his extremely fucked-up mind. It had been pretty fucked up before the accident, and it definitely was now. What difference would it make anyway if he talked to someone? It certainly hadn’t made much of one then. The only thing that really helped were the drugs, and now it seemed they weren’t helping anymore. Every time he felt like he was getting closer to accepting his current reality, something else would come up to shove him back down. He felt like he couldn’t win.

Today had definitely been one of those days. It had started out as usual, with Brian in his home office, on a conference call with Ted and Cynthia back in Pittsburgh. Ted needed Brian to review a few things and send them back with electronic signatures, and Cynthia reminded him that he had a lunch meeting later with a potential new client. That was one benefit to Brian being in New York now -- he had a much larger pool from which to try to recruit new accounts. Of course, there was also a lot more competition, but Brian’s ego still told him he was unequivocally the best at his job, and they’d have to be idiots to turn him down and go with another agency. Just like he’d said to potential clients when he started Kinnetik -- you can be just another account in some huge agency with an assistant’s assistant taking care of your shit, or you can get personal attention in a boutique agency from the person who owns the goddamn company. Being in New York was going to give Brian an opportunity to make a good first impression, in-person, without having to fly anyone out to the Pitts.

So he’d signed and sent back the documents Ted needed, and spent the morning looking over a campaign with some absolutely for-shit artwork that was going to need a total overhaul before they ever dreamed of presenting it to a client. God help the art department the next time he was in town -- they were going to need it if they wanted to keep their jobs. Maybe he should check with Justin again, to see if he was ready to take Brian up on the position he’d offered him two years before.

Bad artwork aside, the day still wasn’t going too poorly at that point. Michael had called mid-morning, just to chat. Brian was thankful that Michael was calling on a day when he was in a fairly good mood, because otherwise it wouldn’t have been a pleasant conversation for either of them, particularly for Michael. He’d already been on the receiving end of Brian’s wrath, more than once, but Brian still didn’t relish the thought of unloading it on him again. Brian felt he’d abused their friendship enough in the past nine months.

After hanging up with Michael, it was time to get ready for his business lunch, and he spent an hour cleaning himself up and changing into one of his most expensive suits and a pair of designer shoes. Checking himself out in the full-length mirror always felt strange now, because he still wasn’t quite used to the new image of himself. But his suit looked good, even sitting down, so he felt confident that he could impress his client with his appearance if nothing more.

When he left the apartment and headed to the restaurant, that was when the day started to go south. First, he’d completely forgotten to check and make sure that the subway station he’d be exiting at had an elevator. It didn’t. So he had to get back on the train and go past his stop until he found one that did. Thankfully it was only one stop and five blocks north of where he’d intended to go, but that was still five blocks that he had to wheel back down to get to where he needed to go. All the while contending with leftover snow and ice crusted in random spots on the sidewalk from the mid-March snowstorm they’d had earlier in the week. And that little detour had made him late. But it was his own damn fault for not looking at the map more carefully.

Then, about halfway there, he ran into a sidewalk that was closed for some nearby construction, and had to cross the street, go down a block, then cross back. Only he hadn’t looked before crossing back to notice that they’d put their stupid “sidewalk closed” sign right in the middle of the curb cut, and the damn thing was weighted down with sandbags so it wouldn’t get knocked over in a strong wind. There would be no nudging it out of the way. So he had to find the spot with the least snow and ice, then put his curb jumping skills to use, which he was thankful he had at all, although it was annoying to have to use them simply because someone setting out a sign had been inconsiderate. Then again, he’d once been one of the able-bodied fucks who didn’t think one bit about whether or not a place or a situation was wheelchair-friendly or not. So whatever.

When he finally made it to the restaurant, he was 15 minutes late even though he’d left his apartment 15 minutes early, and he really didn’t want to list off his excuses to the client because they were all about the damn wheelchair. If he didn’t want to be judged for his disability, he was also going to have to not use it as an excuse. So, he was late, and he had no good reason to be, or at least that was how he figured it appeared to his client. Brian apologized profusely, but he was already agitated at having made a poor first impression, which made it difficult to concentrate on showing the man the drafts he’d come up with for the company’s print campaign. He felt disheveled and flustered, not his typical put-together, calm-under-pressure self. He was seriously off his game.

When they parted ways, Brian felt confident that he’d just wasted his time and effort, and it was mostly because he’d been late -- partly because of his own stupidity, and partly due to the stupidity of others. Not to mention the fact that, for the entire meeting, the guy had been looking at him with that same stupid, simpering look people got on their faces when they felt sorry for him and were just being polite and pretending to listen. He’d wanted to storm out before even finishing his meal, because he was so tired of being looked at that way, but he stuck it out and pushed his frustration down to fester beneath the surface. He’d probably brought it on himself by arriving so late, anyhow.

Already defeated and ready to just go home and be done with this day, Brian went back five blocks out of his way again to catch a downtown train, this time planning ahead to avoid the closed sidewalk, only to get there and find that the elevator to the downtown-bound platform was out of service. Fuck.

So, a cab it would be, then. Except the small mounds of snow and ice on the curb were making it difficult to get close enough to the street to hail one. And once he did get close enough, they all kept passing him by. Fucking empty taxi cabs, dozens of them, and no one would stop for him. Likely assuming his crippled ass couldn’t get in the goddamn car. Michael or Justin would probably beat the shit out of him for using that word to describe himself. But it was an accurate descriptor for how he felt right now.

Finally, a cabbie willing to take the gamble stopped for him, and after a small battle with the snow and ice, he was in the back seat with all of the pieces of his wheelchair -- the wretched thing that now seemed to make up the entire lead paragraph of the Brian Kinney story. The New York chapter was no fucking different. He was disgusted with himself for being delusional enough to ever think it would be.

Eventually, he found himself back at his apartment -- the space where everything was thoughtfully designed and appointed to accommodate his broken body. The way he wished the world would be. But at the same time, he wished it didn’t need to be.

His head was hurting, he was tired, and he was incredibly frustrated -- with the world, sure, but mostly with himself.

Brian took off his coat, threw it over the side of the armchair in the corner of the living room, and went in the bedroom to change into more comfortable clothes. He was cold from sitting out on the sidewalk for so long trying to hail the damn cab, so sweatpants and a long sleeved t-shirt sounded good right now. He didn’t have any more conference calls today, so no one was going to see him except Justin. And Justin wouldn’t be back for hours yet.

He went back into his office and tried to do some more work, but the ache in his head was keeping him from concentrating. So he called Ted and told him that he wasn’t feeling well and was going to go take a nap. He tried to ignore the obvious concern that had been in Ted’s voice, likely in response to the fact that Brian sounded like shit -- exhausted and more than a little irritated.

But instead of lying down in the bedroom, Brian took a detour into the kitchen, where he found the nearly full bottle of Jim Beam he’d brought with him from Pittsburgh to New York City. This -- this was what he needed today. Pain management. He took the bottle over to the sofa, opened it up, and took a sip. It burned a little going down, but it was a good kind of hurt. Familiar. His old friend. Brian settled in to numb out -- to shove back the darkness and the pain and the despair behind a curtain of alcohol.

The jingle of keys in the lock were the first sound to herald Justin’s arrival home, followed by the turn of the knob and his always quick, short footsteps. Brian couldn’t see him because he was still lying down, and he was still fucking dizzy. He turned the whiskey bottle over in his hand and realized he’d now consumed more than half of it. He really hadn’t intended to drink that much. It was much darker outside now than he remembered it being. How long had he been lying there?

“Brian?” Justin said, as his footsteps neared the sofa. “Are you okay?”

Brian snorted in response, but didn’t say anything. Fuck. What the fuck was he going to do now? He was drunk and his head was spinning in more ways than one, and he didn’t know how he was going to get out of this without Justin knowing once and for all what a colossal screw-up he’d shacked up with. Brian felt like a fucking head case. Maybe he was.

Then Justin’s gaze landed on the bottle in Brian’s hand.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Excellent deduction. Give the boy a prize.” Christ, what the fuck was he saying? He knew he needed to reign it in, but the alcohol had taken his filter away completely.

The look on Justin’s face wasn’t angry though -- he seemed puzzled, and more than a bit worried.

“Did something happen today?” he said.

Brian shrugged and reached an arm out to hand Justin the bottle. He took it and carried it over to the island between the kitchen and the living room.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” Justin said as he came back into the living room. “About anything. We’re partners, remember?”

“I can’t put this on you,” Brian said as he used his arms to push himself up into a sitting position, trying his best to ignore the wave of dizziness that came over him.

“Put what on me?”

“How fucked up I am.” Brian pushed his legs off the edge of the sofa, letting his feet thump to the floor.

“What are you talking about?”

Brian didn’t answer. Instead, he concentrated his energy on keeping the world from tilting as he reached for his wheelchair so he could give himself the power to leave the room and this conversation. He didn’t want to talk to Justin right now. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He wanted to go to bed and get this god-forsaken day over with. But all of his concentration wasn’t enough. His hand slipped, and he landed crookedly on the seat cushion, too far forward, which paired with his current lack of balance thanks to the alcohol, ended in him sliding down onto the floor into a tangled heap.

“Goddamnit!” he shouted, angrily smacking his hand on the hardwood floor. He could hear that his voice was thick with the tears that were threatening to fall from his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was crying out of sheer rage -- what a strange mix of emotions, he thought -- and wishing to all that was holy that he could just get back in control of himself, and of his emotions, but he felt like there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was all happening before he knew what he was doing, like his body was ahead of his brain. Come on, Kinney...pull yourself together...this isn’t you, he thought to himself as he tried -- and failed -- to at least stop crying and just be fucking angry. At least anger would be in line with the persona that was Brian Fucking Kinney. The person he used to be.

The next thing Brian knew, Justin was crouching down in front of him, obviously concerned. As well he should have been, since his partner was currently going completely fucking crazy.

“Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?” Justin’s hands were on Brian’s shoulders.

Laughter now joined the tears and the rage. God, what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he stop this?

“Brian!” Justin physically grabbed Brian’s face with both hands and turned it toward him, forcing their eyes to meet. “Answer me. Are you hurt?”

“Not any more than I already was.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Who said it was?” Brian used his hands to pull his legs out of the awkward position they’d ended up in beneath his body and flopped them straight out onto the floor in front of him. “Eh, they look okay I guess. Still dead.” One of them took that cue to shake a bit. Fucking spasms. Dead except for that, then.

“That’s not funny either.”

“Suit yourself, Sunshine. Gotta laugh or you’ll end up crying. Oh, wait…” Brian laughed sardonically.

Justin apparently chose to ignore Brian’s self-deprecating comment. “Do you need help getting back up?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay.”

They both stared at each other for a few moments. Brian noticed that Justin seemed to be waiting for something. At least the tears had dried up.

“Well?” Justin said. “Are you getting back up? Or are you staying on the floor all night?”

“Later. I just want to stay here for now.”

Justin sat down on the floor near Brian’s feet. “Okay,” he said. “Are you ready to tell me what happened now?”

“I want to be alone. Please.” The fury had given way to desperation, and Brian cursed the way his voice broke on the last word. But Justin listened and gave him space.

Justin got up and went down the hall to their shared office/studio, Brian presumed to paint. Art was Justin’s form of pain management. Right now, it was seeming like a much more sensible one than drinking yourself into oblivion until you fall on your ass on the floor in your own living room.

Brian lay on his back in the floor, staring at the ceiling for a long time. It was uncomfortable, but he also had absolutely no idea how he was going to get back up in his wheelchair, given that another dizzy spell would hit him any time he tried to sit up. He’d gotten himself into a fine mess this time. And he didn’t even feel better. He felt worse.

Justin came back into the room after about a half an hour and sat back down next to Brian’s feet.

“You can’t stay on the floor all night, you know,” Justin said. “It’s too hard; it’s bad for your skin.”

“I didn’t ask for a public service announcement.”

“Then get up off the floor.”

Brian pushed his torso up and rotated so that his back was leaning on the front of the couch, and waited for the room to stop spinning again. Since when he had become such a lightweight? Just another thing to be disgusted with himself about. He could add that one to the list right after the fact that he was definitely going to need Justin’s help to get back in his chair. He hadn’t done a floor-to-chair transfer since rehab -- he’d had no need to -- and he’d certainly never done it drunk.

“You know, I think I know a lot about how you’re feeling,” Justin sighed as he leaned against the sofa next to Brian.

“Oh yeah? I don’t think you do.”

“I do. Remember Cody? The Pink Posse?”

“This is different.”

“How? Just because you’re not running around beating people up and threatening to shoot them? I did all of that because I had feelings about the bashing that I hadn’t dealt with. When Darren asked me what I did to stop my attacker, I felt like a coward, because I’d done nothing. I was angry at myself for not doing more. And I ended up going out with Cody and taking that anger out on other people. You’re angry about what happened to you, too. You feel like it’s not fair. And it’s not. But you can’t just sit on that forever. It won’t just go away if you try not to think about it.”

Brian was looking straight ahead at the wall the entire time Justin was talking. Damned if this kid couldn’t read him like a fucking book, though.

“I know you don’t like to talk about the bashing. I know you’re fucked up from it too, just like I am. I respected that, and I didn’t want to cause you pain, so I quit trying to talk to you about it. But back then, I needed to be able to talk about it. I needed to deal with it. You can’t keep shutting this stuff away, Brian. Closing it off somewhere. You have to deal with it. You need to talk about it. If not with me, with somebody. You haven’t been yourself since we got to New York.”

“That obvious, huh?”

“I know you, Brian. And this isn’t you.”

“I don’t want to saddle you with my baggage.”

“You’re not. We’re partners. I love you. I want to help you,” Justin said, his voice earnest. “But you have to be honest with me, remember?”

Brian leaned his head back against the sofa and closed his eyes. He’d been dreading this. He really didn’t want to tell Justin that sometimes he felt like he was losing his mind. Today, he felt like he’d lost his grip on reality. Maybe he had.

“I need you to tell me what’s going on,” Justin said. “So I can help you.”

Brian was quiet for a few moments, taking the time to push away his pride as best he could. Although he’d already made a fool of himself, so what would it matter now?

“Help me up first...please,” Brian said, his voice barely audible, keeping his eyes closed so he wouldn’t have to look at Justin’s face, which likely held more love and compassion than he deserved right now.

Justin didn’t say anything in response. Brian felt Justin’s hands come under his arms, and Justin helped him drag his body back onto the couch. Thankfully, the world wasn’t spinning anymore.

Once Brian was settled, Justin sat down next to him and took his hand. Brian didn’t pull it away; he was grateful for the physical contact, because at this moment, it was grounding him. Keeping him from getting lost in his head again.

“Tell me what happened today.”

“Just a for-shit day. One that kept reminding me at every goddamn turn that I’m fucking disabled now.”

“There’s more to you than just that.”

“I don’t know, Sunshine. And I realized that I don’t know what I thought was going to happen when I got here. People here don’t know me, sure, and most of them are too wrapped up in their own heads to worry about me. Hell, I’m like that too. Sometimes I like being invisible. But when I actually need to fucking...interact with people...it’s the same shit, different place.”

“Do you wish you’d stayed in Pittsburgh?”

“No, because you’re not there. You make me happy. Even if I’m not acting like it right now.” Brian paused, running the palm of his right hand over his thigh nervously. “I feel like I’m losing some invisible battle inside my mind. I thought I was done feeling like that months ago.”

“Who said you had to be done with it? There’s no deadline here.”

“I said.”

“Why?” Justin pulled their intertwined hands into his lap and leaned his head on Brian’s shoulder.

“Because I don’t feel like myself right now. I want to feel like myself. But what is that right now? I thought I knew, but now, I don’t know. I don’t like this person.”

“Well, I do.”

“Maybe you’re just crazy too.”

“Maybe I am. But I know that I love you, and I care about you. And I want you to be happy. Not pretending to be happy for my sake. You can’t be happy if you’re keeping all of this shit bottled up. Trust me, I’ve been there. You need to talk to me. Or if you don’t want to talk to me, then you need to talk to someone else. But you have to talk about it.”

They were both silent for a while, before Justin sat up and looked Brian straight in the eyes, a serious expression on his face.

“You scared me tonight,” he said. “I thought you were having a breakdown.”

“I think maybe I was. It just...happened. I wanted to stop and I couldn’t.”

“You needed to get it out. You can only push it aside for so long. Eventually, it’s going to come out, and when it does, it’s going to be hell. So, who’s it going to be...me, or somebody else?”

“Believe me, you don’t want me to lay all of this off on you, Sunshine. It’s a huge pile of shit. I can’t do that to you.”

“Then will you find someone else you can talk to? Please?” Justin said, his voice barely audible by the time he finished the sentence. “If you won’t do it for yourself, will you do it for me?”

Brian wanted to say that he didn’t do psychology or psychobabble, but he also didn’t want to put Justin through any more of what he had tonight. Clearly, something was wrong, and as much as it pained him to admit it, he couldn’t handle it on his own. And he knew enough about what was going on inside his head to know that it was far outside of Justin’s scope anyhow. He wasn’t going to have a choice this time. If he ever wanted to get past the mire of denial and anger and bargaining and depression, he’d have to actually talk about this. Admit that it had happened. That it wasn’t changing. That he couldn’t turn back the clock and make it not happen. And ignoring it wasn’t going to make it go away.

“Try not to think about it” had resulted in not being able to think about anything else. And if he was being honest with himself, this change of scenery had been another way to try not to think about it. To deal with things in the usual Brian Kinney way. Only it wasn’t working for him anymore. It was working about as well as the alcohol had tonight. Not very well. Not very well at all.

They were lying in bed before Brian gave his answer to Justin’s question. Justin was curled against Brian’s side and hugging him close, his blond head resting on Brian’s chest. He knew Justin did this when he wanted to hear Brian’s heartbeat -- he’d done it nearly every night when he’d had cancer. As if he was checking to be sure Brian was still alive. Still there with him.

He was still there. He wanted to be there, with Justin. He wanted nothing more. And he knew what he had to do in order to stay.

“Okay,” Brian whispered in the darkness. “I’ll do it.”