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

A/N: Um, well I finally got the next chapter done :) (Yeah, I know, finally.) But this one is extra-long, so hopefully it'll help make up for the three week wait. :)

~. Brian .~

 

I hated this.

I hated having to watch him go through this hell. I hated knowing that I couldn't even imagine the horrors inside his head. I hated that I could never make the pathetic excuses for human beings who did this to him bleed enough for the pain they'd caused.

And I hated that I was so helpless in it all.

I woke up and he wasn't beside me. My first reaction was muddled confusion, my second, curiosity, and my third—panic.

Suddenly very much awake, I threw back the covers, ignoring the uncomfortable gust of cool air that hit me, and began a hasty search of the loft. Despite the fact my brain was still adjusting to its own sudden alertness, the significance of the day had not gone unnoticed by me.

Monday.

I'd been dreading it all weekend. I'd made an appointment for Justin with a therapist, despite all his resolute protesting, and I had every intention of getting him there. I'd known all along that it wouldn't be easy, that it would be a fight, but what if he'd woken up before me and run off or something? Shit, this was not good...not good at all.

I poked my head inside the bathroom first, but to no avail. I almost went in to check the trashcan, where I'd found the crumpled-up sketch he'd done of his own lifeless body that had resulted in me scheduling the appointment in the first place, but decided against it. I needed to find him first. Where the fuck could he be?

I all but tripped down the steps in my panicky haste, and swore with relief when I straightened up and caught sight of a mop of blond hair peeking over the arm of the couch. Had he slept out here? He'd been next to me when I'd gone to bed, and I thought he'd fallen asleep—he must have woken up and come out here, for whatever reason. He looked smaller than ever, curled up on the narrow cushions.

“Justin,” I said, shaking his shoulder gently. I hated to wake him, especially when he looked so at peace, for once, but we couldn't be late for our appointment. And we were going, no matter what it took. “Wake up, Sunshine...”

He mumbled a little and tried to roll over. I suppressed a small smile at the scrunched up face, the tousled hair. If we'd had more time, I might have sat there a little longer and enjoyed simply gazing at the unusually unperturbed expression on his face. “Justin, come on, wake up.”

“What?” he asked blearily, his eyelids opening a crack to reveal slivers of sleep-clouded blue.

“Time to get up. We have our appointment in an hour.” Typically, an hour would be more than enough time for us to get ready and go, but I was including the inevitable fight it would take to get him there in my scheduling. I wasn't sure how long it would take to convince him to go; the last time I'd spoken to him about it, he had been just as resolved in his decision as I was in mine.

“What?” he repeated, sitting up a little, propped up on his elbows. I resisted the urge to run my fingers affectionately through his disheveled strands of blond, or do something incredibly lesbionic like kiss his nose, which he was currently wrinkling in confusion. Though he usually allowed our chaste kisses now, and most likely would have allowed—even appreciated—the simple touches I refrained from, I couldn't allow myself even the smallest chink in the metaphorical armor I'd adorned especially for today. If he started crying or pleading with me not to make him go, it would be hard enough to resist giving in, without allowing myself to slip under his influence at this point.

“Our appointment with the therapist. It's in an hour. You need to get ready,” I reminded him. He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, looking so lost and confused as to where he was and what was going on, that I felt compelled to ask him.

“Why'd you come out here? Did you wake up?” Shit, I really hoped he hadn't had a nightmare...I'd been so fucking exhausted, I hadn't heard a thing. The idea of him sitting out here, crying alone in the dark while I slept soundly in the next room, was not one I wanted to entertain.

“Yeah, um...I couldn't sleep,” he mumbled. I wondered if this was the truth, or if he was just saying it so I wouldn't feel like a shit for not being there to comfort him. I needed to be there to comfort him, though at the moment, I couldn't have said if it was more for my reassurance or his.

“Why didn't you wake me up?”

He shrugged. “No reason to.”

I nodded absently, hoping this was the case, and let my eyes wander to the window, outside of which the sky was an intimidating gray, and the beginnings of a storm were stirring threateningly. It figured, on a day like this. My eyes narrowed at the slender sketchpad on the floor in front of the window.

“Were you drawing?”

“Um...yeah,” he admitted. “Trying, anyway.”

“Can I see?”

He hesitated visibly, but nodded. My heart pounded against my chest as I picked up the little book and flipped it open, fearful of what I might find. The anxiety faded almost immediately.

“They're good,” I said, almost smiling in relief at the half completed sketch of myself—the most recent drawing. The eyes almost looked alive against the sheet of paper. I half expected them to blink.

He shrugged again. “I haven't been able to finish most of them,” he admitted.

There were, I noticed, several attempts, including the one I was guessing he'd done last night, that he'd apparently given up on, all featuring my head and bare chest...but uncompleted drawings of me were better than ones of his corpse, any day. I set the book aside and turned back to him, my relief dissipating on the spot as I looked at him. “You need to get ready,” I repeated.

“For what?” he asked, frowning, though I'd just reminded him of the appointment mere minutes previously.

“Our appointment.”

“I'm not going to see the shrink, Brian.”

He spoke calmly, firmly, completely convinced of what he was saying. I sighed, having anticipated this attitude. When had Justin ever given up, once he'd come to a decision? It was, after all, half the reason we were together in the first place, was it not? “Well, it isn't optional. Get dressed. We're leaving in twenty minutes.” The therapist's office was just over fifteen minutes away, but I was wondered if a strict twenty-minute time limit might spark him into activity.

I stood up, leaving him on the couch, and marched back into the bedroom to get dressed. Ten minutes later, having brushed my teeth, fixed my hair, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt, I returned to the living room to find that he hadn't moved an inch. “Justin, get up. You're going today.”

“I'm not,” he replied coolly.

“Yes, you are. Get up and get ready. I'll fix you some breakfast.”

“You can't tell me what to do. I don't want to go...you can't make me.”

I sighed again. How the fuck was I supposed to drag an unwilling Justin to therapy?

“Justin...you need to do this, okay?” I said softly, finally giving into temptation and reaching out to stroke his hair lightly. It was longer than it had been in the entire time I'd known him, and if things had been different, I knew I would have enjoyed twisting my fingers in it in much more pleasurable circumstances.

“Look, if it wasn't necessary, I wouldn't push it. But you need help, Sunshine...you need to talk to someone.” He refused to look at me, but I caught the glint of tears in his eyes nonetheless, and tried to shrug off the uncomfortable sensation of my heartstrings being tugged at. “I'll be with you the whole time, I promise. But you have to get ready and go now.”

“I can't,” he replied, his voice shaking, but his resolve apparently as uncompromising as ever.

“Why can't you?” I prompted him. He didn't answer, but blinked a little more rapidly than strictly necessary. Inwardly, I moaned. Why did he have to cry? This was already hard enough, without him making everything worse by crying and looking so fucking miserable and broken like he was. I was trying to be the strong one, the clearheaded one that could take care of both of us...he was not helping things with his tears. Who ever would have guessed that my weakness would be tiny drops of salty liquid?

Tiny drops of anguish, shed by my Sunshine.

I knelt down beside him; he didn't even glance at me. “Justin, look...you've got to do this, all right? You have to...you can't keep living the way you are now. Just—just get up and fucking come with me.” He couldn't keep living like this. I couldn't continue to watch him live like this. As much pain as he was in—awake, asleep, all the fucking time—it killed me to have to see him hurting so much. The dull sadness in his eyes, the tears every night...if he was dying from the pain of this, then I was dying right along with him. Just get the fuck up, Justin...help me help you....

I reached up to grasp his hand in mine. It was cold, and I suddenly realized he had no blanket with him out here, despite the chill of the weather. My heart sank a few notches lower in my stomach. “Why don't you take a hot shower?” I suggested.

He didn't move. Honestly, the way he was just staring ahead, so motionless...it was quite disturbing. It reminded me forcibly of one of the drawings I'd seen in particular, in the sketchbook I'd thrown out nearly two weeks ago, and I tried to shake the image from my mind.

The fact that I couldn't was precisely the reason why he needed to get up off the couch and go talk to someone. This wasn't living, what he was doing. This was existing. Miserably, I might add. He still wanted to die—and the most terrifying part was that he was already halfway there.

“Justin...” I tried again. But what else could I say? Over the last few days, I'd tried to reason with him, practically begged him to accompany me, and told him point blank that he was going, whether he wanted to or not. Nothing had worked. Short of throwing him over my shoulder and physically dragging him down to the therapist's office, I didn't see what else I could do. 

I squeezed his frozen hand in mine, pressing my lips to it. I raised an eyebrow in surprise when his eyes shifted from the window over my shoulder to my face. “Come with me,” I whispered, letting my warm breath ghost over his chilled fist, clenched so tightly within mine.

He shook his head a fraction of an inch to each side. At least he was moving a little...him staring straight ahead at nothing, not moving at all, was fucking creepy.

“I—I had a nightmare last night,” he said, his voice broken, but suddenly the most important thing I'd ever heard. I latched onto it, desperate to keep it alive and real and speaking. He swallowed hard, as though bracing himself for what was coming next, and shifted his eyes away from me again. His hand clenched tighter around mine, and though I gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze back, my heart had dropped right out of my chest.

“You did?” I asked. Fuck. Exactly what I'd been afraid of. He'd been out here crying alone.

He nodded, still not looking at me; his eyes had taken on a glazed-over look, as though his mind was currently somewhere else entirely. Rather selfishly, I didn't want to know where that place was.

“What was it about?” I asked routinely.

My heart skipped a beat or two in shock when he actually answered.

“I was...in the room.”

My eyes widened, hardly able to believe that he'd volunteered information with so little prompting. His voice was wavery with barely controlled tears, but still...it was something. “The room? What—” But then I got it. Of course. The room where it had all happened. The room where he'd been raped.

“And then...you were there.” He spoke so quietly, I had to lean forward to hear him. His gaze was still fixed steadily on the window behind me, but shit, he was talking to me...talking willingly...

“I was?”

“Yeah. And...you hugged me. And I asked you to take me home, but you...you turned into...into him.”

A single glassy tear fell from his eye, but he didn't even seem to notice. He was somewhere unreachable—I wondered if he was even aware that he was saying these things out loud. I wanted to ask who 'him' was...Sap, or one of the others, maybe even Hobbes...but I didn't want to take a chance of scaring him back into silence.

But then suddenly, he went quiet anyway.

“Then what?” I asked gently. But his jaw was locked tight, leaving no possibility of so much as a stream of air from slipping out.

Fuck.

~. Justin .~

Say it...fucking say it...just tell him...

But nothing was coming out. Why was this so hard? Why couldn't I just tell him? It was inside my head...why couldn't I convert it into words and fucking say it? It was just a dream...not even real...why couldn't I tell him about something that wasn't even real?

Say it...just tell him what happened...how he was gone, and Sap was there, kissing you and holding you down so he could...

No.

No, I couldn't. My throat was dry and my mind was spinning and I just couldn't.

He sighed, his shoulders sagging...he looked so exhausted, though I'd gotten even less sleep than he had. I hadn't wanted to take the chance of waking him up last night by climbing back into bed, so I'd just left my sketchpad on the floor and curled up on the couch, which had looked relatively inviting, if a bit chilly. Besides, I'd had a lot to think about, and it was easier to find clarity out there alone, staring out at the cloudy sky, than in bed next to him, where I knew I'd want nothing more than to curl into his body and give into exhaustion.

I knew he wouldn't give up on the therapy idea. He was as determined to get me there as I was determined not to go, and he wasn't backing down. But neither was I.

“Come on, Justin. We're going to be late if you don't hurry,” he said finally. He stood up, not letting go of my hand, and attempted to pull me to my feet. The move snapped me out of the silent war that was raging inside my head. Tell him, tell him, tell him...

“No.” I wasn't sure if the word was a response to his order to get up and get ready, or to the racing thoughts inside my own mind.

He rubbed a hand over his eyes, as though praying for patience. “Justin, if we miss this appointment, I'm calling someone to come here and talk instead.

What? “You can't,” I said quietly. The idea of some shrink in the loft, in our space, trying to force me into this inside my own home was....

“I can and I will. So get up. Please, Justin...come on,” he added. He was essentially begging me to go, but I'd made my decision, and I planned to stand by it. Well, technically, I'd made two decisions...I would not be talking to a shrink. That was decision number one, and I was not budging on it no matter what he had to say. Decision number two was that I was going to try to talk to Brian.

And I was trying. Unfortunately, it had been a lot easier to decide on it last night than it was to actually do it now.

Come on...just fucking say it...tell him...just get it out...better to tell him than some fucking therapist, right? Just get it over with...

Why couldn't I force these words out? I wanted this whole thing gone from my mind, right? What better way than this? What other way than this? Just let the pain evolve into sentences. That was all.

It was too much.

“Justin.” The sound of Brian's voice, growing more urgent by the minute, made me look up at him. “Come on. You have to do this.”

“I don't want to.”

“I know. But you have to. So come on.”

“I said I don't want to,” I repeated forcefully. I repressed a shudder. They were the exact same words I'd spoken to Sap that night. He hadn't cared, either. Didn't anyone give a damn what I wanted? Didn't I have a choice where my own life was concerned?

Another heavy sigh from Brian's direction. “And I said get up, Justin.”

I said, get in the swing, you little asshole....

Well, what about what I had to say?

“I'll be with you, all right? I promise. Just...come on, Justin.”

We won't hurt you...we promise. Come on, Justin....

“No!” I yelled at both of them, Brian and Him, and rolled back over, burying my face in the couch.

An hour later, and I still hadn't moved.

~. Brian .~

Okay, so I wasn't terribly surprised when he refused to get up and go to therapy. I'd been anticipating the struggle, but it still meant we were no better off than we were before. Back to him silently fighting his own internal battle and constantly shutting me out of it. Back to both of us growing nearer and nearer to a complete mental breakdown from it all. Back to me wanting to scream and rip Sap's throat out and tear the memory from Justin's mind. Back to both of us dying inside, now that the small flicker of hope that had begun to burn had been extinguished.

After another half an hour of him not moving an inch on the couch, I was forced to call the therapist's office and cancel our appointment. I had really thought I would be able to get him to go. It would be difficult, I'd expected as much...but I thought if I made him realize how important it was, he would find it in himself to do it. But he didn't want to realize it. Nothing I said could convince him.

So where did that leave us?

It left him standing on the edge of everything again. I was still reaching out to him, still begging him to take my hand so that I could pull him back over to this side, to healing, to safety. But he was more determined to step off the ledge into the darkness, let himself fall away. They had practically led him there...Sap and Hobbes and the others. Practically forced him to that ledge, and every day, every night, every second...they were pushing him forward. Pushing him to take that last step into nothingness.

I thought about maybe giving that one former trick of mine a call—the one I'd seen for therapeutic advice after Justin had been bashed. What had he told me then...to trigger his memory or something? Trigger his memory, get him to feel the pain. The problem was, he did remember this time. He remembered enough, anyway. But I did wonder if it would take the same concept now. Get him to really feel it. Get him to bleed...even more than he was already.

Could I do that? Could I seriously do that to him...force to him to relive his rape?

If I could, somehow, find the heartlessness within myself required for the job, how would I do it? How could I possibly provoke him into feeling it all again? What was I supposed to say to him?

He had tried talking to me. He'd tried on his own, without me prying it out of him, word by word. He shut down half way through, of course, but he'd tried...how could I get more from him? What did I have to do? What did I do after he was bashed?

I supposed the turning point after the bashing had been Gus's birthday party. The bat. The memory. That night...the night that had—for me, at least—cemented his presence in my life. Moving so slowly inside him, caressing his skin with such care...it had been the first time we'd had sex that I'd really accepted that he was so much more than another fuck. That, no matter what I tried to pretend, our whatever-the-hell we had was mutual. That I wanted him as much as he wanted me.

If only it could be so easy this time.

But fuck, we hadn't even had a real kiss in months. There were times I thought I'd forgotten what he tasted like. What I would do to be able to touch him like I used to...let my tongue ghost over his lips, absorbing his sweet flavor...hearing him gasp with pleasure above me as I found all the right places...lapping up beads of perspiration, sweeping my tongue across his delicious skin...

But I couldn't.

I couldn't even stare at him when he got out of the shower. I couldn't come up behind him and tilt his head back to plunge my tongue into his mouth. I couldn't wake him up in the mornings with wet kisses down his chest. I couldn't seize his hips and pull myself impossibly deeper inside him because it just felt so damn good to be with him like that. I couldn't run my hand down the smooth skin of his back after we had sex. I couldn't even mention sex. Didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Nothing to pressure him. Didn't want him pushing himself too far.

But I wanted him.

Over two months. It had been over two months since the last time I'd had sex with him. Barely kissing, hardly touching him at all since then.

I thought I would be frustrated. I should be frustrated. I never would have dreamed of pressuring him into something he wasn't ready for, but I thought it would be harder than this. But instead...it just hurt. It hurt to know that he couldn't bear to be touched, even by me.

I'd been sure that I would be going crazy, constantly needing to go out to get what he couldn't give me. And I had gone out, just like I'd promised myself I would...especially now that he stayed at his mother's and Daphne's during the day. Once or twice a week, I'd head somewhere after work, and he'd stay with his mom or his best friend until I came back just a little later than usual to pick him up.

Whatever pleasure I manged to achieve, minimal as it was nowadays, was forgotten the second his face popped into my mind again. Sometimes—most times—it happened before I even found my release, and it would be the thought of him that would bring me over the edge. Gallingly, most of the self-important idiots that were my tricks seemed to think it was their own incomparable skills that were to thank. Though I longed to wipe the smug grins off their faces with the truth, of course I couldn't inform them—however honestly—that the thought of Justin got me harder than their pitiful attempts at blow-jobs.

It was all incredibly frustrating. Once or twice a week—just to mentally fuck him. What the hell?

Somehow, it was worse knowing the reason behind our lack of a sex life, than the lack of sex itself.

It was...unsettling. Terrifying, that it had come to this—though I'd actively fought to keep the thought from ever forming—that somewhere along the line I had started to think of him ahead of myself. I couldn't ever remember doing that for someone. Most of the time, there had been no one worthy of the honor in my mind—and even when there was, there had always been something that just hadn't clicked. My instinct to serve myself first had always overpowered everything else. I was ridiculously unnerved by the fact that Justin seemed to be changing that, little by little.

Of course I cared about him. A lot. A fucking lot. But seeing his face instead of Nameless Hot Trick #4958, being more concerned about whether he was okay than going out and being myself, King of Liberty Avenue...that was fucked up. And it was even more fucked up that I couldn't even find it in myself to mind.

Everything had changed since the night of that party. Physically, sexually, emotionally...nothing had remained the same between the two of us, including the way I felt about him. I had expected things to change, even—though I hated to admit it—my feelings for him. It was only natural, wasn't it? But they hadn't swayed the way I'd been fearing. They weren't fading. They weren't weakening, now that we didn't have the sexual connection that had been strengthening since the first time we'd met. The feelings weren't fucking going away like they were supposed to.

But things had changed, there was no denying that.

I cared more.

~. Justin .~

I won.

For the first time in I can't even remember how long, I won a fight with Brian.

Well, okay, I rolled over and refused to move off the couch, but that can still be counted as winning. I had gotten my way. No therapy. No painful words being torn from my throat. No forcing me into things I didn't want to do. It felt—empowering—to get my way in something. To feel like I had a say in it.

Brian hadn't given up on the idea, I was sure of that. He was the most stubborn fucker I'd ever met...one failed attempt would not be the end of it. It would be ridiculous to assume it was.

I laid there for well over an hour, my head buried in the couch cushion, trying to will myself to speak, to call Brian back to me and tell him everything. He would be all too willing to listen, he'd made that clear enough. All I had to do was open my mouth and ask him to come over here. He would be at my side in an instant, and then I would ask him to sit down and he would automatically reach out to wrap an arm around me the way he always did, I would say that I needed to tell him some things and he'd hold me and wipe my tears away while I relived the ordeal in my head.

But my mouth wouldn't open. Why couldn't Brian fucking have mind-reading powers? It would be easier than attempting to force the words out like this, when they simply couldn't seem to find their way from my brain to my lips...when they hid and cowered and suffocated themselves inside my throat.

Maybe it would be easier if I just suffocated.

I shook the thought from my mind, before it could end up on another sheet of paper in my sketchbook. Those fucking drawings were what had gotten me into this therapy mess in the first place.

Eventually, Brian came back in the living room to inform me in a restricted tone that he had canceled our appointment and order me to come eat some breakfast. I refused that too. I didn't want to eat. Food would assist in keeping me alive. I didn't want that either.

So I sat and entertained my thoughts of mind-reading powers and suffocating words and whatever the fuck else occurred to me. None of it was good. Brian would kill me himself if he knew I was imagining things like death and dying and escape and relief. I wondered, with an ache in my heart too strong for the musings to be considered strict curiosity...what dying felt like. It couldn't be too painful. I was living through this hell, wasn't I? Nothing could be worse. Any other type of pain would be a welcome distraction.

If only I had saved that razor blade.

I couldn't talk. I couldn't heal. I couldn't forget them. I couldn't get over this. What good was I to anyone, including myself? I couldn't be happy, I couldn't make Brian happy, I couldn't draw the way I wanted, I couldn't even sleep without my own memories torturing me...what the fuck was the purpose of continuing life like this? I hated everything about it. I truly hated my life.

No, I didn't. That was a lie.

I hated myself.

Useless and stupid and disgusting and weak. Pitiful and fucked up and emotional...a fucking slut who offered his body up to half a dozen guys in a swing. Filthy. Worthless.

I had no idea it was possible to hate someone so much.

I really wished I would have held on to that razor blade.

~.~

If Brian had really intended to invite a shrink over to talk to me, he showed no signs of carrying out his threat as the week wore on. Three days after his failed attempt to take me to therapy, the loft remained my safe haven, untouchable and ours. Maybe Brian knew that was what it was to me, and that was why he hadn't carried out his promise. I didn't know. I didn't bring it up.

He didn't so much as raise an eyebrow when I shuffled into the kitchen one morning, one of his shirts hanging off my considerably smaller shoulders. I liked wearing his clothes—they were big and comfortable and they smelled like him. It was almost as good as having his arms around me all day long. He didn't seem to mind me wearing his stuff, for which I was grateful. Trying not to show my displeasure at the fact that he had once again prepared my breakfast, which was waiting for me on the table, I sat down and picked up my fork, trying to wrap his over-sized T-shirt tighter around my body.

I had finally run out of all my medicine, or he would have set that out for me, too. I'd been rather relieved to finally be done with the meds, even though I still had several scheduled check-ups around the corner, including a few more blood tests. A little less than four months, and we would know for sure if—if I had It.

He didn't sit down across from me like usual, but instead remained standing, leaning against the counter. His eyes were distant, and whatever he was thinking about, it was making the corners of his lips turn down in a subtle frown.

“Aren't you eating?” I prompted after a few silent moments. His head jerked up, as though he'd forgotten I was there. He let out a low breath, and nodded, taking his usual seat. I shoved another fork-full of pancake in my mouth, eager to be finished with the nuisance that was breakfast, but kept one eye on him as he cut his own pancake into pieces with unnecessary force.

“Are you okay?” I asked. He didn't look up.

“Fine,” he answered crisply, stabbing a bite of his breakfast.

I stared down at the syrupy mess on my own plate. Judging by his tone, his assurance that he was 'fine' was complete bullshit. What could possibly be wrong now? Had I done something? Was he pissed at me for forcing him to cancel our appointment? That had been days ago, but if it was the reason, I knew I probably deserved his frustration. I was annoyed with myself for not being able to open my mouth...surely he was too. Say it say it say it....tell him, Justin, tell him....

Shut UP. Don't say it. Don't say anything. Keep it to yourself, he shouldn't have to hear it...you shouldn't have to say it...just keep it inside....

“So how are things at work?” I asked, trying to keep it casual, but the underlying uncertainty in my voice gave me away.

Naturally, he saw through me, and sighed, ignoring the pointless question. Whatever it was that was bothering him, he had already given up trying to keep it from me, it seemed. Brian never was one to beat around the bush when it came to things people didn't want to hear. “Justin, I've got to tell you something,” he admitted grimly.

Every fear I'd been repressing over the last few weeks flashed through my mind with dizzying speed. My stomach immediately seemed to implode, and my heart skipped a couple of beats. Whatever this was, I wasn't going to like it.

He's making you leave...he hates you now...you're no good to him like this....he's lost interest....

The poisonous whispers were endless.

How could you let this happen, you idiot?

What was I going to do now?

I took a deep breath, setting my fork down, and gave him my full attention. Maybe it wasn't what I was thinking. Maybe it was something else entirely. Maybe...

Shut up and listen.

I obeyed the voice of reason in my head, doing my best to sit calmly and absorb whatever he was about to tell me.

“It's about...it's about Sap, Justin,” he said uncomfortably. My eyes widened. I barely had time to process this before he was speaking again. “You know the...the other guy, the dancer, the one who—”

“The other guy he raped,” I offered, surprised at the acid in my tone, even while I was in such a state of shocked relief as this. Sap. This was about Sap, not me and Brian. He wasn't making me go anywhere. God, I was paranoid. Brian brings up bad news, and I immediately think abandonment?

Just another part of my life to hate, I supposed. One more thing to despise about myself, that I was so endlessly clingy and needy and scared.

“What about him?”

He didn't want to answer. His jaw was clamped so tightly, the muscles were visibly strained, and he refused to meet my eyes, focusing instead on some invisible point over my left shoulder.

“Remember...how he was pressing charges?” Brian prompted.

I nodded, waiting for more, until the words truly sunk in. “Wait...was pressing charges?” My voice rose at least an octave in horrified surprise.

Brian swallowed hard, still looking at something I couldn't see over my shoulder. “Yeah, he...he dropped them, Justin.” He delivered the blow gently. It didn't help.

It was silent for one long, gut-wrenching moment while the implications of this twisted themselves around my brain.

He had dropped the charges. Sap was not getting convicted. He would not suffer for the pain and trauma he had caused his victims. He was walking away.

My rapist was a free man.

“Justin...” Brian whispered. It was my turn to avoid his eyes, now, as mine had suddenly glossed over with tears as I stared at my half-eaten breakfast. “Look, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll be able to walk away from this.”

“What?” I asked, too horror-struck at the idea of Sapperstein skulking around the city—not a blemish on his conscience for what he had done—to put together what Brian was saying.

“There's...at least one other person with the power to press charges,” he said quietly, and suddenly it all snapped together in my head.

“I can't,” I said immediately. That would involve the police, wouldn't it? I'd have to talk to them, tell them what happened. I'd have to describe it. I couldn't even do that with my own boyfriend, so how could I possibly...? “I can't do it.”

Brian nodded, looking as though he had expected this. “Okay,” he accepted, then hesitated. “Are you all right?”

Of course, any answer I gave would be considered in a relative manner, I knew that, but I still couldn't honestly say 'yes.' I wasn't okay. I was very, very far from it. Gary Sapperstein was walking away from justice without a scratch. Just like Chris Hobbes had. They'd both just got up from it all and dusted themselves off as though nothing had ever happened. Both were free to cause pain and suffering and never have to pay for it. Both were permitted to do as they pleased without consequences.

“How long...have you known?” I asked Brian quietly, my mind still reeling.

“I just found out yesterday. I wasn't sure how to tell you,” he replied uneasily, looking hesitant to so much as fucking breathe too loudly—as though I was one of those great towers made entirely of playing cards stacked on top of one another, thrown off balance by a simple touch.

I nodded, pushing the remainder of my breakfast away. I couldn't stomach it right now.

So it was back to this. Back to feeling unaccountably wounded by the unfairness of life itself—precisely the way I had felt after Hobbes's trial. I'd known it would happen—that they would let him off easy for bashing the gay freak—but it still hurt to feel like the world was letting you down. And now, once again, justice had fallen short. Sap was just...walking away. Even indirectly involved as I had been in that trial, it had felt like hope to me.

And now it was crushed. Smothered. Smeared against the concrete of reality, not unlike how my fucking brains had been splattered against the cement of that parking garage. Not for the first time since it had happened, I wished Chris had finished the job. I wished he'd have won.

If only Brian hadn't stepped in with Hobbes back then, I wouldn't have to be dealing with all this now. It would have been better that way, I was sure. A nanosecond of pain and then sweet nothingness. When I considered the drawn-out assault I'd been subjected to at that party, and this endless torture that had become my life—the split-second attack in the parking garage seemed like I'd been getting it easy. Why couldn't that have killed me? Instead, I was being forced to drag through the days, wishing for my own discontinued existence, dying in a much slower, more agonizing way. How was that fair?

Brian, for once, seemed to take my silence as a clue that I didn't feel like talking. He didn't badger me about finishing my breakfast, and didn't say a word to me as he cleaned up and we headed out for the day.

Chances were, I wouldn't have answered anyway.

~.~

It was two in the morning. I was exhausted. And very much awake.

Brian and I had gone to bed over an hour ago, but still I laid there, fully conscious. Overactive minds did not grant sleep easily, even to heavily fatigued bodies. And my mind had plenty to keep it busy.

He was free.

Sap was free. Allowed to walk the streets, unaffected, never knowing or caring about the pain he'd caused. He was allowed to laugh at a simple joke, when I hadn't smiled in weeks. Allowed to sleep peacefully, when my own memories tormented me nightly. Allowed to hurt me. Allowed to take my life away, while he remained alive and well, not a hint of my agony touching him.

It had been horrible that first month after the party, thinking no one would ever know the things that Sap had done...knowing he would never have to pay for it. So when Brian had told me that it had happened to someone else, that they were actually pressing charges...it had been a horrifying relief. Horrifying, because I knew what it felt like to have gone through torture of the type that Sap and his friends liked to inflict on their victims, and I felt an overwhelming sense of regret that someone else had had to feel that kind of pain. But relief—wonderful, staggering relief because...Sap was going to pay. He was going to suffer for it, the way he deserved to.

It hadn't even been about me, of course—the other dancer pressing charges. It had been about him...the one who had come forward, who had stood up for himself, who had tried to make sure that Sap paid for what he'd done. But still it felt like, if Sap was indeed forced to compensate for his crime, it would have been a victory for me, too. I would have won just as much out of it. It would have been justice for anyone Sap had ever hurt that way.

I realized suddenly that I'd never even learned his name—the other victim. Or at least, the one other victim I knew for sure about. It seemed odd, right then. Though I had no idea who he was, if I'd met him before during my stint at Babylon or if he was a faceless stranger...it had almost felt like I'd known him personally. He had been through the same thing I had. Maybe on a different night, maybe with a few different people involved, but he had gone through the same torture that I had experienced. He understood...whoever he was. That was something I couldn't even say about Brian.

I wondered continuously, with no solid answer in sight, why he'd dropped the charges. Why now? Why at all? He'd already come forward, spoken to the police and everything...what had changed?

Of course, I could think of a few dozen things that could have changed his mind. Things like what were preventing me from speaking up in the first place.

Fear. Shame. Pain.

Couldn't talk. Couldn't deal. Couldn't heal.

Maybe, as the court date drew nearer, the guy had panicked. Decided he couldn't do it after all. Maybe he just wanted to put it all behind him. Maybe...maybe he was afraid he just wouldn't be able to force the words out. Maybe he didn't want to try.

I didn't blame him. I didn't want to talk about it either, after all. Though it made me sick to think that Sapperstein could happily eat and sleep and breathe and live without any of this hanging over his head, I couldn't find the strength to do anything about it. It was just the way things were going to have to be. It sucked, yes, but that was how it worked—like the predator and the prey. Wasn't that life? The predator took what he wanted, while the prey lost everything.

The derisive voice inside my head noted bitterly that this wasn't the fucking animal channel. True, the situation wasn't quite the same as a cat and mouse game, but wasn't it the same concept? The weak got hurt when they failed to defend themselves. The weak lost. The strong took advantage and claimed what they wanted—sometimes for no other reason than that they could.

I was weak. I'd failed to take care of myself. And Sapperstein—the predator—had gotten what he wanted, hadn't he? He'd gotten me. He'd gotten my body. He'd gotten my mind. He'd gotten my dreams. He'd gotten my health. Was there any part of me he hadn't claimed as his own? He had even taken Brian, in some ways. In most ways.

Nothing truly felt like mine anymore. My mind had been heavily under their influence since that night. My dreams had become my own personal horror movies. My life wasn't mine. Sex wasn't mine. My own body wasn't mine. How could it be? They'd practically rented it out to whoever the fuck wanted it. Tied me up and let everyone have their way with me, like I was some kind of toy to be handed around at their leisure.

A worthless sex toy. Inhuman. An object. That was all I had been to them. Maybe all I was period, contrary to what Brian would insist.

Suddenly tired of lying there staring at the ceiling while Brian slept, undisturbed, beside me, I quietly climbed from the bed and crept down to the living room. Again. I could quite easily see this becoming a nightly ritual, at least during those times when I couldn't sleep. And there were plenty. I think part of it was that I was afraid to fall asleep. Afraid to wind up back at that party. I didn't want to relive it. Why would I want to experience the worst night of my life even one more time than I had to?

All those times I tried to recall the night of my prom...the dance, the kiss...and I never could. It was just empty. Gone, like someone had come in and chiseled away whatever was holding it there in my mind. I wished they could take the party out, too. I'd rather have a gaping hole there instead of the memories haunting me.

I took up my position at the window, sketchpad already in hand. My pencil remained poised above the paper, and try as I might, I couldn't stop the varied mix of sounds and images from rushing forth, obscuring the vision of Brian I'd had imprinted in my mind.

Voices. Faces. Touches. Fear. Pain. Violation. The endless film reel that I couldn't pause. The strip of memories that never stopped playing.

Sap's smirk. The swing growing closer and closer. Utter helplessness. So many hands. So many faces. So many voices.

The blur of pain began to break down. My inner eye picked apart the images, individual faces sneering at me from behind my closed eyelids.

“Untie his hands...I want him to fight. More fun that way.”

Right. I remembered that one. The guy who had had me untied, just to hold my wrists down himself, getting off on the sight of my frantic struggling. It had been part of the thrill for him.

The sharp angle of the man's face seemed to trace itself onto the paper of my sketchpad, his eyes cruel and dancing with amusement, his lips twisted into a grin as he watched me struggle beneath him.

Move over, I want to try him out. Let's see how much the little fuck can take.”

I remembered him too. Dark hair. Muscular face. Large nose. The first one who had insisted on forcing his tongue down my throat while he was fucking me. I remembered a ridiculous split second of panic over that, in my groggy haze...dimly terrified that Brian would find out I had done the unthinkable and kissed someone, though I hadn't exactly been given a choice. I'd had that guy's disgusting taste in my mouth until—well, until the rest of them decided that my mouth looked rather inviting, and put it to other use.

The second man's face joined the first in my sketch, his dark curls plastered to his forehead, the way I remembered him. His lips had been pouty and full...most likely because he'd been smashing them against mine with enough force to bruise them both. I vaguely remembered trying to bite him...it seemed a pathetically weak attempt to fight now...he had only responded by gripping my jaw so tightly I was sure he was crushing the bone, and forcing my lips apart to accommodate his tongue. I shivered with disgust at the memory.

“Fuck, you were great. The best I've had all night. I've always had a thing for blonds...”

I remembered that guy in particular. He had fucked me—raped me—three times. Three miserable times that I remembered, anyway.

“Just can't get enough of you, blondie...”

He'd taken his time, drawing out the torture, bringing himself to the edge and then always pulling back. He'd done what he could to make it last...to make me beg for him to stop. He'd apparently considered the fact that he liked me enough to fuck me three times to be some kind of honor. No, not fuck...it was not fucking. It was rape. Right?

I had wondered, more than once in fact...if what they had done could really be considered rape. I had replayed it constantly in my mind, going over every detail. I had said no. I had tried to fight. I had given every sign that I wasn't willing.

But on the other hand, I had still gone to the party. I hadn't fought hard enough to get away. I had gotten myself into that situation. Did my stupidity counteract the fact that I'd said no? It shouldn't, but...I couldn't ignore the fact that I had been repeatedly, consistently idiotic during the entire length of my employment at Babylon. I'd said no, I'd tried to fight, I'd done all I could to get away...that meant it was rape, right? No matter how incredibly stupid and naive I had been through it all—no matter how much I'd been asking for it—I had said no.

There'd been one guy who had seemed to at least know that I didn't want it. His features began to come alive against the paper of my sketchbook. Dirty blond hair, falling into his eyes. Heavy eyebrows. Wide forehead. Crooked teeth he bared whenever he grinned.

I was sure the others knew that I hadn't wanted it, as well, but most of them had been merely indifferent. This guy...it had been almost worse with him. He'd taken his heartlessness to the next level and added insult to injury. He'd rubbed it in my face. They'd all been perfectly aware—or at least they should have been—that what they were doing to me was more than I'd consented to, and it hadn't even slowed them down, but this guy in particular had teased me, taunted me, even more than the others. Laughed at the fact that I'd had no control over what was being done to my own body.

“You're such a great little fuck...why don't you kiss me back, huh? You want to stop? No, you don't mean that. Yeah, that's it, beg for me now...”

He'd chuckled after he'd said that. As though the fact that he was forcing himself inside me while I sobbed and pleaded with him to get off of me was a fucking hilarious joke to have a good laugh over. He had been unnecessarily rough, considering I'd been tied up at the time. I had a feeling he'd left most of the fingerprint-shaped bruises on my hips.

You don't like this, do you, blond boy? Is that why you're all tied up? We'd let you go if you'd stop trying to hit us...we just want some of that hot ass of yours. It's your own fault we have to do it like this, you know...you're just so delicious...if you'd just cooperate, we wouldn't have to make you...”

I supposed no one cared when a useless fuck toy protested these things. Why should anyone care what the little slut wanted? Might as well make himself useful. Teach him a lesson. What a brilliant idea, Sap, to show me that I had been an idiot by tying me up and giving me away to all your friends. Way to show the little whore what he was good for.

All these things inside my head. All these memories to torture me, so much pain I held inside, and I couldn't get so much as three words out to Brian. I wondered if spontaneous combustion was possible for a human due to sheer emotional overload. It would be a welcome fate, at this point.

I glared at the faces in my sketchbook. Were they happy now? While I was here, crying and suffering and wanting to die...were they happy? Did they think back to that night and smile at the thought of what they had done to me?

I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. But I was beyond that. I was beyond trying to remove it from my life, when it was so clearly a part of it now. I was beyond trying to hold myself together, when my world was so obviously falling apart.

I was done hurting. I was done crying. I was done trying to hold it all inside, where it circled and throbbed and burned me away. I was done being Hobbes's victim, done being Sap's sex toy, done being Brian's charity case. I was done living like this.

I was just done.

~. Brian .~

For the second time in a week, I woke up and Justin wasn't where he was supposed to be. I couldn't be sure what had pulled me from the peaceful depths of unconsciousness, but I couldn't worry about that now. The unease I felt at Justin's absence pushed at the grogginess clinging to my brain, sharpening my awareness in seconds rather than minutes.

I sat up, reaching over to press my palm to his vacated side of the bed. It was cool—he'd been gone for a while. The light wasn't on in the kitchen, or the bathroom, but I checked the latter just in case before hurrying down to the living room.

He wasn't there.

My stomach tried to call my attention to the fact that it felt nauseous, but I ignored it, hastily searching the rest of the loft, before concluding that Justin definitely was not there.

Maybe my churning stomach was tired of being ignored, because my lungs suddenly decided to lend a hand and increase my physical discomfort by refusing to operate properly. My brain, rather than ordering the two of them to sort things out, was instead absorbed in a sick, rapidly spinning moment of terrifying realization, a single thought standing out among all the rest.

Justin was gone.

~. Justin .~

It was windier than I'd expected. Colder, too. But I liked it. The sharp, almost painful discomfort of my skin made me feel alive, somehow, especially compared to the inside of me—deadened with pain.

One foot in front of the other. Inches, feet, yards behind me...

My fingers clenched involuntarily around my sketchbook as I crept closer and closer to the edge of everything. The wind howled louder, stealing my breath away. The chill bit harshly at my exposed bits of skin. I had a shirt and pants on, but no jacket. A mistake, considering the weather.

Finally, I reached my stopping point, and sat down. I stared out over the city below me. Too bright to be a second sky, but little flecks of light from various buildings seemed to adorn it like stars. Between them and the moon, my sketches were lit for me without much problem.

I wasn't sure how long I sat there on the roof of Brian's building, but it was long enough that the stars above my head—the ones that the light below didn't wash out, and the clouds didn't cover—had changed positions in the sky.

Face after face. Memory after memory. Pain and terror and agony beyond anything....

But I felt oddly free. Alive. Out here, with the wind and the fresh air and the view of the city spread out before me—and maybe because I knew what was coming, how it would end, that there would soon be relief from it all—I felt unconstrained, for the first time in too long.

I remembered the one other time I'd done something like this. A few weeks after I'd come to live with Brian after I was bashed, one day when I'd felt particularly furious and suffocated and I was ready to scream at the injustice that was my life, I'd instead found my own little secret escape. Just for a day, I'd been able to evade reality. Almost, anyway. I'd still been having issues with my hand, and it had taken me the entire day to sketch out the buildings and the streets and the skyscrapers from this omniscient viewpoint. But I had done it.

Brian had found me eventually, and though he never said it, I had a feeling I'd worried him a little by disappearing without notice for a whole day. I didn't come back up after that—of course, I could've just told him what I was doing and gone back again—but there had been something about that day that couldn't be replicated. Something free and accomplished and mine. Sometimes you had to remove yourself from everything to get a clear view. Take a step back and cut free from it all so you could breathe a little. Sometimes you just needed to be somewhere else. Somewhere free.

After all, if Sap got to be free, it was only fair that I did, too, right?

So here, now, I was free to cry. I was free to scream. I was free to bleed it out, for the final time. I leaned my head back, letting the wind cut through my thin clothes, letting it throw my hair into my eyes and blow so hard against my face that it changed the direction of the tears rolling down my cheeks so that they were falling at a slight angle.

With a sudden surge of something unidentifiable, my fingers closed around the page of my sketchbook on which eight of my attackers leered at me. I clenched the corner of the page in my fist, crumpling half the paper, and ripped it from the little book. My hand was shaking, every part of me crumbling inside. Just because I felt free from the suffocating atmosphere the loft had begun to exude as of late, didn't mean that I was free from my pain. Free from myself. Not yet...but soon.

I wanted these last few gasps of freedom. I deserved to feel somewhat alive right before I lost that sensation forever, didn't I?

I let the wind snatch the paper from my hand; it tumbled and turned in the air in front of me before being swept away, down towards the street. Maybe it would land in one of the puddles left from the storm the other day. Maybe it would get run over by a car. Maybe the wind would rip it to shreds before it got the chance to meet another fate.

It didn't take long for me to lose sight of the paper; it had been swept away into the darkness with such ease. All I had done was unclench my fingers and let go. Let go of them, the memory of their faces, and watch them be carried away from me into the wind. So easy to let go, so simple to let it fall.

If only I could unclench whatever was holding this pain inside me and let that go the same way. Just let it fall away from me like it never existed.

But I couldn't. I couldn't let this pain flow out of me, vanish into nothingness like my sketch. It was stuck in me now. Part of me. In every breath. Every tear. Every heartbeat. It was there.

There was, of course, one way to let the pain be swept away. One last resort—the final promise of escape. How I wanted that escape, that relief...it would feel like taking a breath of fresh air after being certain beyond doubt that I was going to drown. It would be my refuge, my sanctuary. Whatever was coming next, it could only be a respite, I was convinced of that.

Of course, unlike the free-falling sketch, the pain was tied to something. It existed inside something—me. Sealed tightly within its host, the only means to destroy it was to kill that connection...the life that tethered it here, within inviolable walls.

Because when the smoke cleared, when the dizzying chaos ended, those heartless excuses for humans had left this—raw anguish that never died. Never faded. Never released its grip. It preyed upon you, exploited your every weak point until you could no longer fight back, and were lost to it. Until it was so much a part of you that you couldn't claw it away, couldn't make a move against it—because you no longer knew what part was it, and what part was you. You became it, a form of living, breathing agony.

There was only one answer. You had to destroy the life it fed off of.

~. Brian .~

 

A million questions raced through my mind, coming and going, like flipping mindlessly through television channels without really stopping to see what was on.

Was he hurt? Did he need me? Why did he leave? When did he leave? Where the fuck could he be? Why would he leave the loft? Why would he leave me? He hated being away from this place, he was terrified of being on his own...it made no sense.

I uncomfortably recalled the way he'd run that day I'd learned the truth about the party...but he'd been scared then. Scared of me, as much as I hated to acknowledge it. What would he have to be scared of now inside the loft that would send him running again?

Maybe he hadn't been scared. Maybe that wasn't why he left. But what other reason was there? I only dimly realized that he'd left his jacket behind...did that mean he wasn't planning on going far?

All the while, as if in the background, my mind kept up a constant mantra of denial. No no no no no...

Occasionally, it broke the pattern and injected a pathetic please in there.

I had enough clarity left of my thoughts to check for his sketchbook by the window. He'd spent the last several mornings there, drawing things he wouldn't let me see. Of course, he didn't actively try to hide the book, so I could have looked any time. Maybe that was why I hadn't thought there was anything too horrible in there. If there was something truly horrifying, he would have made more of an effort to hide it.

I frowned, puzzled, when I realized the sketchbook was gone. Where would he go that he would take it with him? Had he gone somewhere simply to draw?

My eyes fell on the thin rectangle left in almost the exact same place I'd last seen his drawing pad. It was a piece of paper, folded in half, torn cleanly from the sketchbook it had originated from. Either he'd left it, or he'd stuck it in between the pages and it had fallen out.

I picked up the folded piece of paper, and unwillingly—trying to mentally prepare myself for whatever I was about to see—I smoothed it out. I closed my eyes momentarily in relief.

It was just my head and shoulders, set against the background of the city, seen through the very window I was standing next to now. The details were flawless, of both the city and myself. Every hair on my head seemed to have been carefully and deliberately drawn, my face was angled, perfectly proportionate...it was amazing, the way he saw me.

I wondered fleetingly—ludicrously, considering my current panic—if it was possible that I was more beautiful in his eyes than anyone else's...maybe even my own. He certainly saw me as beautiful. He put more care into these drawings of me than anything else he did.

Of course, Justin had always been a perfectionist when it came to his art, so maybe I was imagining the meticulous care he put into his sketches and paintings and whatever else of me. But they seemed to absorb his attention the way the others didn't...like there was something more than just inspiration there. Each stroke of his paintbrush on the canvas, each line traced onto the page was delicate. Vital. He poured himself into his work. Even the backgrounds and details seemed to be created with something deeper than just his natural talent. He truly cared about what he was doing. He'd drawn me in bed, taking the time to draw each wrinkle in the duvet surrounding me...he'd drawn me at Babylon, taking care to get the lighting just perfect...he'd drawn me in front of the city landscape, the sun gleaming off the buildings at picture perfect angles.

Well, he'd drawn the fucking city enough times in recent weeks, I supposed. He'd always loved looking out the window, trying to capture a particular moment on paper. He especially liked the differences when it was snowing or raining or especially sunny...he must have drawn the view a hundred times. In the last few weeks more than ever, he could be found sitting in front of the window, staring out at the sky, sketching away. Probably not actually sketching the sky or the city, but that window had become his refuge of sorts. He loved the view, the God-like ability to watch over everything from where he sat. I still remembered the day when he'd gone up to the roof to draw, in his isolated point of view, separate from everything, utterly absorbed in the perspective he'd attained...where had he ever gotten the idea to go draw on the roof? It was actually kind of—

Wait.

Hold on...

Oh no.

I was already dressed—shoes on, keys in hand—but it still seemed to take five seconds too long to bolt to the door, which probably woke the whole building when I threw it open with enough force to send it bouncing off the frame and almost sliding shut again.

I forgot to lock it. I forgot to set the alarm. I couldn't spare a thought for anything that wasn't about finding Justin. If something happened to him...if he....

I didn't want to complete the thought.

I hurried down the hall, but everything seemed to pass me in a haze. Justin Justin Justin...

Justin wouldn't...he wouldn't actually...

But I couldn't lie to myself. Maybe the Justin I used to know 'wouldn't actually,' but this broken Justin was in so much pain...

No. He had to be okay. He would be.

I refused to consider any other possibility.

~. Justin .~

My throat was dry. My eyes were not. I stood, balanced too precariously on the edge of my life, on the last five inches that would end it.

All I had to do was take a step forward, and all my pain would be gone.

Some logical part of my brain, my voice of reason, tried desperately to plead with me. It yelled at me to stop being stupid, go back downstairs, and climb into bed with Brian. It told me that there were better ways of dealing with my pain. It told me that Brian would never forgive me. All those promises I'd made him...that I wouldn't do anything drastic....

But Brian had gotten along fine for nearly thirty years before I'd shown up in his life, and he would be fine once I was gone. I felt a twinge of regret when I thought about what this would do to him...but he was Brian Kinney. He would get over it. My mother, Daphne, Molly, Debbie...they would all be fine. I hated the idea of hurting them all. I truly did. But what good was I to them like this? Broken and constantly treading the line, always a step away from going too far, into a dark place I couldn't crawl out of...always so close to just giving in. It wasn't fair to anyone.

This was the right answer. The only answer.

I couldn't turn around now. I couldn't have this relief so close, and just turn my back on it. Not when my heart seared with anguish, and tears rolled down my cheeks at a constant rate, and nothing but instinctive fear and the last whisper of reason were all that was holding me here. Not when I knew that, if I did turn around, my forecast was as bleak as it had been yesterday. As it would be for possibly the rest of my life, if I let it go on. Could I stand so close to the answer, let it slip by, and wake up tomorrow to begin dealing with it all over again, knowing how close I'd been to the relief I sought so desperately?

I closed my eyes, shut out the disorienting view below me. Maybe that would help. As terrified as I was of taking that step, I hated the idea of not taking it more. I hated the idea of allowing this pain to live on inside me. I could stop it. I had the power to end it. It felt good to feel powerful, when I had been sure I'd lost that part of me forever. Lost my spirit. My voice. My strength. Lost myself.

I took a deep breath that burned my throat. What would it be like when I would no longer have to breathe? I took another breath, just to feel it, really feel it. The instinctual need, the craving for air if I went too long without it, the welcome relief when I finally took it in, and the natural release of it moments later. Such a labored pattern to be so natural. My heart thudded against my chest, as though reminding me that my own vitality was severely limited.

I was done with this. Done with life. Done with pain. The last year had been nothing but torture. Slow, agonizing cruelty. First the bashing, then the party—no, I wouldn't call it 'the party' now. I wouldn't call it 'that night' or any other cowardly name for the truth. Now, in these last few moments, I could afford to be brave. It would all be over soon.

So I would call it what it was. The bashing and the rapes. I'd been bashed in the head with a baseball bat by someone who wanted nothing more than to see me dead, and I'd been repeatedly raped at a party I'd foolishly attended. After the two vicious attacks I'd already been subjected to, I was afraid for what was coming next. Or at least, I would be, if I planned to meet it. But what was the point? More pain? Why bother with living if this was all there was to life?

It would be quick, I hoped. I would fall, maybe feel my stomach desert me first, and then I would fall. Darkness would embrace me. Or maybe it would be light. I didn't know. My heart had stopped a couple of times in the ambulance that Brian had called in that parking garage so long ago, but I couldn't remember what that was like. Maybe there was nothing. Maybe I would just be embraced by death. After all, there was no one to save me now. Not Brian, not one of the paramedics—I was free. Free to end my own pain. Free to die.

All I had to do was take the final step.

~. Brian .~

My feet could not move fast enough. My lungs burned in protest, but I refused to allow them a reprieve. No time.

It was partially instinctive; I just knew where he was. Where he had to be. It was a long-shot, I'll admit...but I knew him. I knew how his mind worked. He would be there. Or at least, he had been there...

Don't. That's not an option.

If every cell in my body hadn't been entirely focused on getting to the rooftop, the voice in the back of my mind might have slowed me down. That voice was afraid. It didn't want to know what was up there. What it would find...or not find.

Just as I threw open the door to the rooftop, a gust of wind robbed me of my remaining breath.

Due partially to the light of the city, and partly to the silvery illumination of the moon through the thin blanket of clouds, I had no trouble at all spotting the dark figure on the other side of the roof.

That proverbial ledge I'd been so afraid of him falling off had just become a whole lot more fucking literal.

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