~. Brian .~

Spontaneously—simultaneously—everything I had previously held onto so tightly had begun to unravel. It had only taken one night for everything in my life to fall apart, just come undone at the seams. It was almost impossible to believe that just a few hours before, I had been asleep in bed...oblivious to my future, completely ignorant of the fact that every peaceful illusion I'd erected around my life was destined to crumble before the rising sun.

I was huddled on the floor beside the window, Justin in my arms, his cheek cradled against my shoulder as he slept. He had cried for so long that dawn had broken against the pale morning sky before he'd finally drifted off, clutching me tightly, sobs racking his body relentlessly until they'd faded into irregular little jerks of his shoulders. Nothing I said or did could console him...so I'd settled for just holding him and crying with him and hurting with him and hoping it was enough. There was nothing else I could give.

I didn't want to think about the things he'd told me. Just hearing the horrors he had described had felt like a knife being repeatedly thrust into my heart, while a two-ton weight slammed mercilessly into my stomach. It made me sick. It made me furious. It broke me and tortured me and taunted my mind with the cruel truths it wouldn't let me ignore. No matter how desperately I searched, I couldn't find the stop button for the video inside my head. I couldn't stop seeing it. Seeing him, Justin, living through that inescapable nightmare. It was like being stuck inside a dream when you're half aware that you're asleep, yet you can't force your eyes open and the psychopath bent on murdering you is approaching with every passing second.

I saw him at that party. I saw Sap offering him that drink. I saw him being led into that room, that fucking torture device...pushing him and touching him and shoving him into it...tying him up so that they could—

I couldn't even find the words to describe what it did to me, the knowledge that they'd done that to him. I didn't think the words even existed...the unadulterated anguish was too powerful to be labeled. No language in the history of the world had the words for that. It was just too much. There were some things that could never be verbalized, too intense and painful and human to be restricted that way, confined to what could be spoken.

He'd been helpless. He'd been tied up and outnumbered and so far beyond powerless that it was amazing he even felt brave enough to open his eyes in the mornings. He'd been forced to endure that hell, forced to lie there with no hope but to wait it out, nothing to do but suffer through it and pray that the next time would be it, that it would all be over.

And the things they'd said to him...no wonder he felt worthless. They'd treated him like a fucking sex toy. An object. Like they owned him. Like they had every right to violate his body that way. It killed me inside to know these things, to do so much more than speculate, to see it in my head the way it had happened. There was no imagining, no theorizing, no fictional film strip to torture my thoughts...now it was real. Now it was solid, set in stone. This had happened, it had happened that way...it was irreversible. The things he'd said were what had occurred, what he'd been through, what he'd survived. The things Sap and the others had done and let happen were things that Justin had actually seen and felt and heard firsthand.

I tried not to know them. I tried to just push the echoes of Justin's voice, choked with tears as he recounted his ordeal to me, to the back of my mind until later, when I could deal with it better and decide where to go from there. But I couldn't scrape the images from the inside of my eyelids. Couldn't silence the imaginary reverberations of words I had never heard spoken, but that haunted me just the same. Was this how Justin felt every day of his life?

Unlike Justin, however, if it was indeed the way he was forced to live...I had the misfortune of seeing more than just what his eyes had taken in. I had the displeasure of seeing it through their eyes, as well. I could see his beautiful face, twisted in fear, distorted in pain, tears falling uncontrollably as he begged them to stop.

I may have been called a lot of things in my life. Uncaring. Callous. Cold. But any instinctive barrier I presented to the world was nothing compared to the cruel heartlessness of the bastards that could do something like this. I could never even imagine forcing Justin—or anyone—to have sex against their will. To keep going when they said stop. To hold them down and use their body like I was entitled to it. That required a type of evil that extended far beyond simply being somewhat aloof or insensitive.

In all my years of knowing Sapperstein, of disliking him, of being disgusted by him...I'd never imagined he actually possessed that type of cruelty. That he was truly capable of something like this. But when Justin started getting a little too close to him, my instincts a little too wary...I should have known better than to wait around for something to happen. And now something had, and it was too late. He had been allowed the chance, and taken advantage of it. He was the reason Justin had almost not made it to see the dawn breaking outside the window. He was the reason the Sunshine had faded to a pale imitation of its former self. The reason that every day was cloudy, and storms came at regular intervals.

He'd stood there and watched them torture Justin, watched him beg and scream and cry...and done nothing. He'd twisted everything, spewed his venomous comments until Justin was half-convinced that it was his fault, that he'd been asking for it by his momentary lapse in judgment...he'd hit him and hurt him and fucking tortured him and liked it. He'd forced himself inside him, made him want to die....

Fiery flames of hatred licked and burned away at the chill I'd been left with ever since leaving the rooftop, overriding everything but the pain and the feeling of Justin in my arms. It forced strength into my body, into every cell, every muscle, every bone...and suddenly the image of Justin's tormented face disappeared, and Sap's was there in its place. Begging. Sobbing. The light leaving his eyes as my fingers closed around his throat, bruising him the way he had bruised Justin. Causing him pain. Making him hurt. One way or another, I was going to ensure this future. I was going to kill him. Going to make him suffer the way he had done to the slumbering blond in my arms.

I had done next to nothing to Hobbes. Bashed his fucking knee in, and that was it, while Justin was stuck with months and months of residual trauma and a lifetime of never being quite the same physically. His hand would never fully recover. It hadn't been enough to give Hobbes a few months out of commission—though it had hopefully been a few very painful months. I was fully convinced that Chris would never know true justice until he'd been made to feel every ounce of pain that Justin had survived. Every tear, every painful memory, lost or recovered, every post-traumatic sensation of fear and anger and isolation.

The little asshole had gotten off so easy. But still...I'd hurt him. If I'd caused him any inconvenience at all, it was at least something.

Then there was that prick of a judge who had also done next to nothing...even less than I'd done...at least I'd caused Hobbes some fucking pain. I'd gotten my own little rebellion, my simple act of retribution against the judge, as well...a few hours of intense discomfort and public humiliation. It hadn't been enough for him, either.

It seemed like the world was out to hurt him, never ceasing until they finally succeeded in permanently extinguishing the sparkle in Justin's eyes. So many people...allowed to just do what they wanted and walk away. Carving a dangerous path of destruction in Justin's life, and then leaving me to pick up the pieces, while none of his agony touched them at all.

What could I do to Sap that would ensure that he suffered? It would never be enough...it would be an act of mercy if I killed him...but what could I do to guarantee that he would be drowning in a world of his own pain? Because he was going to pay. Never again was I going to allow someone to cause Justin anguish and walk away from it. Never again would he have to suffer like this. Never again would I be too late, or too far away, or too merciful to the bastards who thought they could hurt him. As long as I was alive, I would protect him with everything I had. He would be safe. I was going to be a fucking boyfriend and defend him, the person I—might as well fucking admit it, at this point—the person I loved.

Loved. Fucking loved. I couldn't believe I'd said it. More than once, even. I'd said it, I'd meant it, and I didn't regret it in the least. If it was the reason that Justin was currently sleeping in my arms and not splattered over the fucking pavement, I could never regret it.

But fuck...I'd told him. Fucking opened up and spoke the words that I knew were true but had never been able to admit. I'd been begging him for weeks to talk to me, to talk about it all...and somehow I'd ended up with my barriers down...the single and final 'fence' that kept him out had been destroyed, and I was spilling everything.

I'll admit, I never saw that one coming.

So I brushed my lips against his pale forehead, gently combing back strands of blond, and whispered it again.

If anyone would have confronted me about that particularly lesbionic display later on, I would have denied it. Saying it to a Justin that was inches away from taking his life was one thing, letting it fall on the deaf ears of the man in my arms while he slept was quite another.

But still...I couldn't deny the blazing honesty of the words any more than I could up on that rooftop. I exhaled softly into his hair, running my fingers through the silken strands of blond once again.

I'd never imagined that I would be this person. The one that somebody else came to for comfort. The one responsible for someone else's heart, for putting the broken pieces back together when they shattered. Practically his fucking lifeline, the one thing he currently had to hold onto. I wondered what I had ever done to deserve the complete and total trust he seemed so willing to give up to me. What did I know about saving people? I could barely fucking save myself half the time.

Yet here I was, my arms full of Sunshine, wanting nothing more than to take his pain away from him. I'd take it upon myself, if I could. Just drain it from his mind and carry the burden of it for him. I'd give anything, everything...if I could just make him smile, make him laugh...give him back what life had stolen from him. It had become an indisputable truth that his pain automatically translated into my pain. Every tear he shed was echoed by me, at least on the inside. Every drop of blood his heart bled, every scream his broken spirit unleashed...I was right there beside him, sharing his every wound, his every ache.

And that, more than anything else, convinced me that my earlier words had been nothing but delayed honesty.

The sky outside the window had lightened to a pale pink; every muscle in my body throbbed with exhaustion. My somewhat bleary eyes fell on the welcoming image of the couch—not quite as far as the bed, nor as cold as near the window, and therefore quite perfect, for the moment.

I considered myself lucky right then that Justin was so comparatively small and light; it wasn't too difficult to shift his weight against me and lift him into my arms. Slowly, so as not to jolt him awake, I carried him over to the couch and set him down. I couldn't help the sudden painful lump swelling in my throat as I watched him curl in on himself, most likely sensing the sudden lack of warmth he'd previously been acquiring from my body...nor could I stop myself from reaching out and trailing my fingers along his tear-stained cheek. He was just so...fragile. He seemed too breakable in that moment, as though touching him with anything but absolute tenderness would cause him to shatter into a million pieces.

For the first time since my eyes had fallen on him as he stood balanced at the ledge of the rooftop, I forced my gaze away from him. Reluctantly, I left him where he was and crept across the loft to the closet, shooting one last look over my shoulder as I did. There was an old blanket of mine that Lindsay or Debbie or someone had gotten me for Christmas one particularly cold winter, and Justin happened to love it. During especially chilly nights, he would drag it from the closet and drape it over the bed, and though I always complained that he stole my half from me during the night, the truth was that I usually just folded it over him while he was asleep.

I was back at his side within seconds, barely being able to stand not having him in my line of sight, not knowing where he was and what he was doing and if he was okay. Any protective urges I'd ever had for him had only increased a hundredfold in the last few hours. If I had been getting on his nerves with my constant security before, he was soon going to despise living with me.

Being careful not to jar him from his peaceful slumber, I shifted and maneuvered his unconscious form until I was lying beside him, the blanket draped over the both of us. And with my arms around him, breathing in his sweet scent, feeling his chest rise and fall against my body—I was almost able to drown out the phantom sounds and images of his desperate face and anguished screams as I joined him in the world of the subconscious.

I had no idea what time it was when I opened my eyes. The sky outside was overcast once again, a murky gray, so it was impossible to tell.

It took a moment for the realization of where I was to hit, and then another few seconds to remember why. It came in bits and pieces, flashes and vague snippets...standing on the edge of the roof, preparing to jump...Brian suddenly appearing from nowhere...his arms slipping around me from behind, as he promised that we would deal with everything, that he would help me deal...both of us crying by the window as morning began to stretch across the pale gray sky...the lock that held my tortured secrets inside of me falling open, letting it all out for the first time. The last thing I remembered was being pulled into Brian's embrace, crying into his chest as he held me and soothed me and told me that he loved me.

Oh God. He'd told me he loved me.

He'd said it. The impossible. The forbidden. Those three little words he'd always kept locked away. Had he meant it?

I took a moment to marvel over this new revelation. On one hand, I'd always known on some level that he cared—a lot. After all, hadn't he been regularly contradicting his own words and rules for nearly the entire time we'd been together? I meant something to him, I knew that. Sometimes, I was even sure that he really had crossed the line from simply caring into loving me.

On the other hand, I had been standing on the ledge of a roof, inches away from ending my life. It would be incredibly naive to rule out the possibility that he would have fucking said anything if it got me back. If it saved me.

But he'd said it back here, too. He'd whispered it in my ear as I'd cried myself to sleep on his shoulder, trying to lose myself inside his arms. I'd distinctly felt several droplets of something warm and wet against my ear, my head, my neck...his tears as they rolled off his cheeks onto my skin. I knew I'd hurt him with the things I'd told him, the descriptions I'd given. It had to have been impossibly difficult for him to sit there and listen to me as I recounted the experience to him.

But he had told me he loved me. He'd had those words locked behind impregnable steel walls for as long as I'd known him, and suddenly he was tearing them down and letting it all out, the words rushing forth as though he'd removed the dam that had been holding them at bay. He'd reached inside himself and pried them from his mind, released everything just to give me that.

So I'd done the same for him.

So many revelations in one night. So many truths we thought we'd never be able to relinquish.

I wanted to believe what he'd said. More than anything, I wanted to fall back into the knowledge that he cared, that he loved me, and sink into oblivion with him. I wanted to surround myself in the inexplicable comfort of those words and drown in them. I wanted to believe that it could be that easy.

So I let it.

Just this once, I would let it be that easy and believe that maybe he meant it. That he loved me. And as I laid there with him, it wasn't their voices or their threats or their laughter I heard in my head. It was Brian's caressive whisper, those beautiful words I never imagined I'd get to hear. It was almost unbelievable, so much more than I'd learned to ask for from him. And right when I'd given up, right when I'd accepted defeat, he'd shocked me to the core and said it.

I continued to lay there for a while, just listening to him breathe, my body rising and falling with the rhythmic movements of his chest. I allowed my eyes to drift close again, tucking my head under his chin, and tried not to think about the rest. The things I'd said to him. What I had almost done to him...to myself...to everyone. It exhausted me completely just remembering it. Could I possibly have hurt him more? And all in one night?

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter, and a tear leaked out and rolled down my cheek into his shirt. I didn't want to remember that part. I didn't want to remember any of the rest of it, just those three little words. But I couldn't ignore it. As much as I wanted to, it was impossible to pretend that last night hadn't happened. That I hadn't tried to kill myself. That I hadn't told Brian about that party. That the ache inside of me hadn't intensified, and wasn't burning a hole inside my chest at this very moment. Still crying softly, I tangled my fingers in his shirt, then lightly in his hair, as I tried to forget, just push it all down.

It didn't work.

I was, quite honestly, shocked that he hadn't just told me to go to hell. When he'd brought me back to the loft, I'd been sure that he would yell and rage and make sure that I knew what a selfish prick I was for what I'd attempted to do. Fuck knew that I deserved it. And if it wasn't enough that I'd tried to kill myself while he slept in the loft below my feet, I'd had to torture him with my words, as well. Admittedly, he had been begging me to do it for weeks, but I hated the idea of causing him pain. And he had just sat there and taken it all...how could he be so fucking selfless? It made me angry that he could be, because that meant that I had become the person who he had to be selfless for. It meant that I had become the one who hurt him. Could I really have done it? If Brian hadn't stopped me when he did, would I really have jumped?

I knew the answer, and it scared me that I'd come so close.

Inches. I'd been inches away from freedom. And I'd wanted it so much. More than anything. The wind in my hair, tears blurring my vision, prepared to give it all if that was what it took...if it gained me relief.

But I didn't want it at that cost. I didn't know how or why or where I had gone wrong, but my plan was done the second I'd heard Brian calling my name. I couldn't have done it with him standing there, couldn't have made him watch that. For the second time since I'd known him, Brian Kinney had saved my life.

And part of me was angry for that. Furious, that he had stopped me when I'd been so close to the relief that had eluded me for months. I was still here, still hurting, still drowning, thanks to him.

But the other part of me, the part that relished the feel of his steady heartbeat beneath my cheek, was relieved. Relieved that there was at least one more day, one more minute that I could spend with him. I had never wanted to die, really...I'd just wanted to stop the pain. There was a difference.

But he wouldn't allow it. As long as he was alive, he'd do everything in his power to ensure that I was, too. My fucking hero. As long as he was here, he'd never let me go.

It was early afternoon by the time Justin started to stir in my arms. I hoped he'd at least slept well; he barely got any sleep these days...he deserved a few hours of much-needed rest.

Finally, he lifted his head off my chest and looked up at me, all bleary blue eyes and muddled confusion.

“Hey,” I said softly, though there was no real reason to whisper, just some intangible air of delicacy that was impossible to pin down.

“Brian,” he murmured back. To my displeasure, little pools of tears had already begun to gather in his eyes, giving them a glassy sort of appearance. Unable to help myself, I reached up to brush his hair back from his face, tangling my fingers in the strands and letting them brush against his porcelain cheek. “What time is it?” he asked quietly.

He nodded, his grip on my shirt sleeve tightening, and just stared at something apparently fascinating on my left shoulder.

He took a shaky breath, his glistening eyes meeting mine, and suddenly his answer wasn't necessary. His fingers twisted themselves even tighter in my shirt, and I reached up to cover his hand with mine. It seemed appropriate to say something, but I wasn't sure how to broach the topic, of either the rooftop or what had occurred by the window. Fuck, where did we even begin?

“I—” he began, his eyes shifting away from mine. He took a deep breath and let it out, biting his lower lip momentarily to stop its sudden quivering. “I'm sorry. For—”

“Shh,” I told him, reaching up to pull his head gently back down to rest against my shoulder. I didn't want his apologies. They were worthless now.

“But—” he tried again.

“Justin,” I cut him off. “It won't make any difference. It's over.” A pathetic little sniffle was my only answer.

I was lost. More than lost. I had been picked up and dropped off in the middle of nowhere overnight, and everything that had once carried the slightest sense of familiarity was gone. No comfort. No relief. Nothing. It was all a blur of pain and panic and confusion...nothing to hold onto. My brain could barely process any of it.

The things he'd said to me, the things he'd told me about...he had to do something about it...those horrors, those memories...he couldn't keep them locked inside his head. Even sharing them with me wasn't enough. I still hadn't given up on the therapy idea, not at all. He needed something. I needed to know that he was getting help, that he was moving forward rather than standing steadfast in his misery. We were both exhausted, and not only physically. We had to do something, because neither of us could take one more second of this hell.

It was as though a veil of some sort had settled between my emotions and my logical thought process. My emotions, behind the thin wall, were crazed. Incomprehensible. Every revelation, every second of fear and pain, every staggering moment last night had brought on...it was all there, clashing violently against the inside of my skull, making it ache and throb against my closed eyelids.

Then there was the logic. The calm, reasonable side of the veil. Trying to piece together what had happened. Trying to make sense of it. Trying to decide where to go, what to do now. How to get back to where we were and push forward from there. What to do about Justin, what to do about Sap, how to fucking deal with this...it was a puzzle. Pushing the shapes together and trying to make them fit.

Absently, hardly realizing what I was doing, I reached up to stroke his hair while he continued to soak my shirt with tears. I wondered idly which of us had cried more in the last night: me or him. It had just been a night for tears all around, I supposed; I hadn't had such a complete and total breakdown since...actually, I don't think I ever have until this point. Nothing like last night, anyway. Nothing had ever hurt that much.

“You tried to fucking kill yourself,” I stated, my voice somewhat rougher than I had intended. It sounded husky and aggravated, and only as I spoke the words did I realize that the tone wasn't too far off the mark. “What, are we supposed to just move on like it never happened?”

“I thought...you said it was over...” he said after a moment of what I assumed was stunned silence.

“I said 'sorry' won't make any difference. I didn't mean this whole fucking thing was over.” How could it be? How could I just be expected to forget it like it never happened? How could I let him out of my sight anymore without being terrified that he would try something? Fucking how were we supposed to do any of this? It felt like I'd been blindfolded, had my hands tied behind my back, stuck out in the middle of a maze, and told to find my way out. “You scared the fucking shit out of me.”

“I didn't mean to,” he said quietly, sniffing again.

His body tensed at my harsh words; I hadn't bothered to deliver them gently. I wasn't sure where the sudden anger was coming from, but it was powerful, and it wasn't bothering to restrain itself.

How dare he try to take himself away from me? Didn't he realize how many people he would have hurt had he gone through with it? Didn't he know that it would have killed me? That it would have torn me open and ripped me to pieces? Every ray of light that had illuminated my world since the day I'd met him would have been extinguished, plunging me into unfathomable darkness, lost to it all. Didn't he know how terrified I was of being forced back into the dark world I had been living in before he had come along? Didn't he realize that I needed him just as much, if not more, than he needed me? Didn't he fucking know any of this?

Of course he didn't. Because I had never told him.

“I wouldn't...I won't,” he insisted feebly. “I promise...”

“That's what you fucking said when I found those drawings,” I spat truthfully. All that bullshit, spoken just to assuage me. I'd been cautiously hopeful...not ever really daring to believe him, but wanting to. And last night, I had been proven right: trusting him would have been a mistake.

He didn't answer. I wasn't sure what I could say, what I could do. I was utterly helpless...nothing either of us said would ever be enough to placate my fears...it would remain a constant lurking presence in the back of my head until—I didn't even know. Maybe forever. It would always be there. Every day of my life, I'd have to worry that he would have had enough to try and end his. Every second that either of us existed, I'd be terrified that he would slip, lose his grip on hope and light and the desire to be here, to live...and fall.

“Do you even realize how bad you would have fucked everyone up if you'd jumped? Your mother, your sister, Debbie, Daphne...” Me.

“I know!” he cried suddenly, his voice breaking with anger and pain and I didn't even know what else. “I know.”

Maybe the same way I'd tried so many times to leave him. To just be done with him. To quit him. It had never worked, and then it had gotten to the point where I didn't really even want it to work anymore. Somehow, he had fit himself into a space in my life that had not only been previously unfulfilled, but had never even existed in the first place before he came along. He had carved his own special place by my side, created something new and amazing that I never would have dreamed possible. I had always had a friend in Lindsay, a companion in Mikey, a mother in Debbie...but I had never had what I did with Justin. A partner? A lover? A boyfriend? My fucking other half? What did that make him?

It made him too much—that much was for certain. It made him practically everything to me, something that I didn't want to exist without. It made him something vital, and taking him away now would be like sawing off my own arm. And he had fucking handed me the knife last night.

It was beyond anything I could put words to, the terrors he had experienced. He'd had everything inherently him brutally stolen from him in a single night. He'd been tortured. Traumatized. Raped. Repeatedly. And he'd been looking for a way out while the suffocating walls of his own mind continued to close in on him. Could I blame him for that? For slipping through the only escape he saw?

Yes. I could.

It wasn't right. It wasn't fair to blame him for just wanting his pain to end. His body gave a lurch on top of mine, but I was in too much agony of my own to feel particularly merciful. He had tried to kill himself. Tried to take away the Sunshine and leave me with storms for the rest of my miserable fucking life. No matter how powerful his pain, he had chosen relief over me. He had, albeit indirectly, tried to drag me over the edge of the building with him, the edge of everything.

And I was fucking angry.

He'd honestly expected me to deal with that.

Had he? Had he thought about the fact that I would have spent every fucking day of my life living in agonizing regret? Had he thought about how impossibly difficult it would have been to smother out his memory, to let it die along with him? To bury it deep inside where I wouldn't have to think about it? The could haves, the would haves, the should haves.... Had he considered the pain he would have left me to live with, while he chose the easy way out?

I wasn't sure what it was...the pain in his voice, or the words themselves...but suddenly the image flashed through my mind of his ghostly pale face, streaked with tears, speaking softly as he recounted the horror he'd been forced to live through—the terrible things he'd had to endure that were nothing less than inhuman, and all the fight seemed to drain out of me, leaving me even more exhausted than before, if that was possible. Despite the six solid hours of sleep, if my estimate of early afternoon was correct, I had never been wearier. I felt as though I'd lived an extra thirty years in the space of one night.

I clutched him even tighter to my body; if I hurt him with the desperate force, he didn't say a word. My face crumpled as my own tears got the best of me, and I twisted my fingers tightly in the strands of blond I'd been playing with, holding him right where he belonged.

“I get it enough,” I said coarsely, my voice coming out all choked and wrong. “But don't you dare fucking leave me, you little twat.” I was whispering now, still angry but more desperate than anything, any trace of ire in my voice gone, replaced with pain, my now constant companion, trailing me more faithfully than a shadow. I wondered if he could hear the poorly concealed I love you in my words, in the tone that bordered on pleading. Maybe he needed to hear it again. If it helped, if it made him think twice about doing something stupid sometime in the future...it was worth every word. I would tell him that I loved him as many times as he wanted to hear it if it kept him here. I braced myself to say it again; if that was what he needed, it was a small price to pay. Almost nothing...just a bit of honesty.

“I didn't want to leave you....” he began, interrupting my efforts.

“I know,” I said truthfully. Whatever had been going through his mind, however stupid and reckless and selfish he had been, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he had not wanted to leave me...his pain had just been momentarily stronger. However, the end result was the same. He would have been gone, either way.

“I love you,” he said after a moment.

“I know,” I said again. A beat of silence. “You too.” It was quiet for a while but for his occasional sobs into my shoulder. I wondered if he would ever be able to cry this out...I wanted it gone. I was done watching him cry, feeling sobs rack his frame as he shuddered against mine. It hurt to see him in pain, watching the pure misery seeping from every curve and crevice of his body. It made a little piece of me die for each moment I was forced to witness it.

“Justin.”

More worthless words. They wouldn't change a thing, but they were all I could give him at this point. I had no idea what to say anymore. I had no idea how I was supposed to handle the things he had told me last night. Were we supposed to talk more about them? Or simply take them for what they were, bury them away, and move on?

Once again, I settled on truth. Because however worthless, however ineffective, the words were at least honest.

“I'm sorry,” I said simply.

“For what?” he sounded confused.

“For what happened to you,” I clarified quietly. “All the shit they did...the stuff they said to you...” For everything. For not doing more to stop it. For it happening in general. It was pointless to focus on the same old sorrows that had been plaguing my mind for months, but the apologies and regrets just kept pushing to the front of my mind. All I could think, all I had room for. All I could possibly say to him.

It was their fault. Maybe I was finally realizing what that really meant.

Another little sniffle. “Yeah. Me too,” he whispered. I wondered if he'd had that moment yet. That weightless second of realization. Of course, he was probably in too much pain to think about it like that...he was probably still too ashamed and disgusted to really know that it was not his fault. That he hadn't asked for it. That the blame lied with them and them alone. He needed to know that. One day, when our pain had dulled and faded and opened up the necessary room for healing, I would ensure that he did.

I pressed my lips to the top of his head, then to his forehead, then to the top of his ear...all the while wondering if I could possibly say anything that was more un-me than I already had in the last twenty-four hours. I love you...I'm sorry... Things I hated saying. Things that made me cringe. And I would say them all again, tell him that I loved him and needed him and that I was sorry every day for the rest of our lives if it made any difference.

He shook his head. “I just...want to forget it.”

Of course he did. He'd been trying, unsuccessfully, to 'forget it' for the past several months. But it wasn't going away. Things like this never went away, these dark and ugly stains...they could never be scrubbed from your memories completely, could never be completely forgotten or ignored. But you learned to deal. You learned to look at them every day and never quite turn away, never really draw your eyes from the blemishes...but you looked, saw them, acknowledged their presence, and moved on. You learned to live with them, instead of letting them control your life.

“Well, obviously, that's not working, Justin,” I said. My tone was gentle, but I was bursting with desperate frustration at the utter redundancy of this argument. It was like asking an asserted vegetarian if they'd be interested in ordering a hamburger. “You need help...we both need help. Let's just...try it my way. Just one session with a therapist. It's all I'm asking.” Just one. Just a little hope, a little help. Just a chance of salvation to latch onto instead of waiting for the situation to fix itself.

Fuck, I was so sick of hearing that. I was so tired of this endless give-and-take with him, so through with watching him in pain and not being able to do a thing about it. “Look...I'll do everything I can. I am doing all I can. But I don't know...how to get you through this, Justin. I just...don't fucking know.” There. Plain truth. He couldn't ignore it.

“Just be here,” he replied softly, his shoulders going even more rigid when I snapped at him almost before the words were out of his mouth.

“I've been here,” I pointed out roughly. “I haven't gone anywhere, but you're still...”

“What, fucked up?” he demanded., his voice suddenly quite as harsh as mine. “A fucking emotional wreck?”

“That's exactly what I'm talking about,” I said bitterly. “You...thinking like that. You're still hurting. You still feel them all the time, you said so yourself. You need to start trying to get past that, Justin. You can't keep feeling like this.”

I sighed. “That's what the therapist is for, Justin. I don't know.” I didn't have the answers for him. I didn't know how to make him stop feeling that, feeling them. “What will it take?”

“What?”

“What will it take...to get you to go?” I elaborated. “I'm not fucking going through this again. I can't. So what's it going to take to get you to go?”

“Why?” he demanded. It was a genuine question...he wasn't just arguing for the sake of arguing. It wasn't just a counterattack. Not this time. “Why do I have to go? I talked to you...isn't that enough?

His silence said it all.

It wasn't long before my traitorous stomach decided to broadcast its physical discomfort by growling loudly. I was exhausted—between the emotional roller-coaster I'd been strapped onto and the poor night's sleep, I could barely keep my eyes open. But when Brian heard the discontented grumbling of my stomach, he suggested that we get up and eat something. Reluctantly, I climbed off of him and made my way to the kitchen, him at my heels.

“What do you want?” he asked. I shrugged; I wasn't used to deciding on my own meals. He usually just prepared my favorites for me and forced me to eat them. He set to work fixing something...I didn't bother to watch to find out what it was. I didn't care; he knew what I liked. I sat down at the table, my shoulders slumped with exhaustion, my head in my hands.

I felt pathetic asking. I felt even more pathetic when my voice broke halfway through. But he had to be angry. I deserved for him to be. Everything was just spinning out of my control, so much at once, so much in one night. I couldn't even attempt to keep up with it all. I was going to go into shock...my brain was just going to shut down. I couldn't take it. Attempting suicide, talking to Brian, hearing him say he loves me...everything I never thought I'd actually see happen, had all happened within a two-hour time frame.

Where did we go from here? It felt...wrong. Even breakfast seemed like just a desperate facade—an attempt at normalcy, while both of us were so obviously still reeling. It was just like waking up on the floor at the party...too much to deal with. Too much to try to cram it all into my head and force it to register, like pulling up a dozen different programs on a computer and expecting it to run them all flawlessly at once.

Maybe it would be easier if I just shut down and woke up during a time that wasn't so mixed up and painful. Maybe I could just be granted the relief of shutting off, going on standby or something until this didn't hurt so much to attempt to deal with.

He looked at me for a moment, considering my question. “It was fucking stupid.”

I dropped my head. “I know.”

He was pissed. Of course. But as much as I knew that I deserved it, I couldn't help the sensation of self-deprecation that washed over me at his tone, his expression...I had hurt him. I had broken his trust in me.

I had let him down.

Suddenly, he was at my shoulder, his long fingers tangling themselves in the hair at the back of my neck, causing unexpected goosebumps to shoot down my spine.

And Christ, he sounded so fucking...vulnerable. Without the anger, without the frustration in his tone that I'd heard so clearly earlier on the couch...he was just as broken as I was.

My eyes were filling with tears again. I prayed that they would stop, at least for now, in front of Brian. But then he took me in his arms once again, and with my face buried against him, fit snugly against his body, that simple desire became a distant wish; it was impossible to hope that I could hold them back in a moment like this...with the world crumbling to pieces outside the bubble we had momentarily slipped inside, held standing only by our unbreakable grasp on the other. So safe, so loved...held in the arms of my protector, the ghostly touches of my living nightmare fading with the warmth of his embrace, turning everything right side up, just for a second.

It didn't last nearly long enough, and soon Brian was forced to disentangle himself from my arms to go attend to whatever he was fixing on the stove. I watched him carefully, not missing the obvious exhaustion in his usually graceful movements. He had to be tired, too. Maybe we could take a nap later. Drifting off, surrounded by his familiar scent, his arms locked tight around me, was the most relaxing therapeutic technique I'd ever known. There was something incredibly soothing about giving into the persuading depths of exhaustion while curled so securely against him.

It turned out that he had prepared us a plate full of scrambled eggs. I never really considered them to be a lunch-food—and it seemed to be around lunchtime—but both of us were still in morning mode. We sat and ate together without saying a word, both of us trying to turn a forcibly blind eye to the elephant in the room that was currently smashing every carefully woven structure that we had ever built. Brian was right: this wasn't over. Far from it. We still had a long way to go...me, him, us. I still had issues that I couldn't deal with. He still didn't trust me. And neither of us were sure where to go from here.

After breakfast or lunch or whatever the fuck it was, Brian called Cynthia to clear his schedule for the day. I sighed; once again, he was sacrificing for me. Though I supposed I wasn't really surprised...he wouldn't be leaving me alone for a long, long time. He'd just padlocked the metal fence he'd already had surrounding me these last few weeks. There was no escaping. I was trapped.

I wasn't sure what to expect for the rest of the day. Would we sit and watch TV and pretend everything was fine? Or would he want to talk? Personally, I was hoping for the former. I had less than no desire to talk about any of this. I'd told him so much last night...details...specifics...wouldn't that be enough? I didn't think I could handle any more. It already felt like I should be clutching my chest in agony while my world exploded around me. It seemed unnatural that all around us, things were so normal, while everything in our lives was falling apart. Amazing, that the earth could freeze for just two individuals at once and keep spinning for the rest.

While Brian talked to Cynthia, I began clearing up our breakfast. While I stood at the sink and scrubbed Brian's over-expensive plates free of scrambled egg, I contemplated maybe having a quick shower. That was, if Brian would even allow it. After last night, he would probably insist on sitting outside the shower door and monitoring me the entire time. What the fuck had I gotten myself into with him? I had practically given him license to be my personal lifeguard for the rest of fucking forever.

Brian barked something resembling a goodbye over the phone, and then at once he was at my side, turning off the water and handing me a towel. I looked up at him, confused.

As slowly as possible, I dried off my hands and left the dishes in the sink, allowing him to pull me into the living room, wondering precisely what it was that he wanted to talk about.

I sat nervously beside him, wringing my hands, fidgeting nervously, unable to hold still. He, on the other hand, sat doing an incredibly convincing imitation of a statue, hands clasped together, eyes closed, apparently deep in thought. He spent a good deal of time not looking at me, bracing himself, starting sentences only to cut them short...before asking the very last thing I'd wanted to hear.

Actually, I'd have rather just screamed.

Of course, there were a few things I'd left out. Vague memories that I couldn't find words for if I'd tried. A few particularly horrible parts that I'd kept to myself. He didn't need to know them.

But he wanted to.

“Brian...” I started, closing my eyes wearily. Why? Why did he have to ask this?

“I want all of it, Justin,” he said firmly. “Whatever you remember.”

“I told you last night,” I pointed out. “I told you what happened.”

“Was that everything?” he prompted. My eyes were shut tight, but I could practically see his eyebrow creeping up his forehead in skepticism.

“You can't handle everything,” I whispered, trying to hold back the wetness behind my closed eyelids. “You have no idea...”

And so he listened as, between gasps and sobs and endless tears shared between us, I told him everything. Told him all I remembered...every guy I could recall, every comment they'd spewed, the pain, the fear...everything that had occurred until the moment I'd woken up on the floor.

And some of it fucking tore me apart. I wasn't sure how I even managed to speak when all I wanted to do was scream and run and cry and bleed. Just stop existing for a few seconds, if it meant a refuge from the memories he was forcing up. Terrible things. Terrifying things, and he was making me see them and hear them and feel them again. Making me talk about how it felt, and not just physically. Making me admit that I'd been scared beyond anything I've ever known. That it had made me sick to know what was happening. Every detail of the torture I'd been helpless to prevent.

He wanted it all. And I gave it to him.

I sat beside him with my head in my hands; twice, he had to gently untangle my fingers from my own hair when they started gripping too tightly and pulling at the chunks of blond. It was an automatic reaction of mine...I was screaming on the inside, and I didn't know how to handle it. Physical pain was far easier to deal with.

I supposed we needed it to happen. Needed it all out there, but why did it have to be so fucking difficult? Why did it have to hurt so much? And it didn't get easier. We talked for what felt like hours, but every word still hurt as much as the first. It was all still there. The memories that had never stopped torturing me were still burning me away inside. The filthy sensation that was always just under my skin still hadn't disappeared. But there was one difference now.

I wasn't alone in it all. Brian was here.

He sat with me the entire time, his hands kneading soothing patterns into my tense back and shoulders, telling me that it was okay, that it was over, that I was safe with him now. But I wasn't. Maybe in the physical sense, I was well away from danger of any sort, but mentally, my nightmare still existed. A nightmare he wanted to share. Pain he wanted to help me bear.

Because he loved me.

I didn't know if it was the right thing to do, if it was the correct way to go about this. But I wanted it all out, everything in the open. I was done with the secrets between us...I needed to know everything. Or rather, he needed to tell everything. I certainly did not want to fucking know any of it. He needed to get it all out, and I was willing to listen, but Christ, hearing some of the shit he'd gone through that night....

But I ignored my pain, at least for the moment, and concentrated on not falling apart. Concentrated on being there, holding his hand, hugging him and comforting him when it was all over. And then we talked some more. We talked about the way he was feeling now. We talked about his nightmares (not much better), his art (still dark, still tainted with it) therapy (he still didn't want to go—I still insisted on it). Hours. The clouds had begun to clear outside, with the result that we could just see a sliver of golden sun by the time it began to set. We'd needed this. Just a day to sit and talk. It was a breakthrough; there was no denying that. I just hoped it would be enough to start turning our lives around.

Speaking of turning lives around...something was going to have to be done. If Sapperstein thought he was walking away from the law, if he thought he was walking away from justice...he had another fucking thing coming. I didn't know how, and I didn't know when, but he was going to pay. I would have relished the physical act of actually killing him...and it didn't phase me at all that I would have done it in a second if I thought I could get away with it. I wanted to see him suffer, though landing myself in prison for first degree murder didn't seem like a particularly satisfying conclusion.

And even if I went in just to hurt him—this rage, this fury—it was powerful. I knew myself well enough to know that I wouldn't be able to stop. I would start by punching the living shit out of him, and end up with my hands cuffed behind my back being lead into a police car while Sap was shoved into a body bag. I had to think about this logically. Even if I couldn't physically lay a finger on Sap...well, there had to be other ways to cause him pain, right? What would be the most devastating thing I could do to him? Exposing him as a rapist wouldn't do much good. For one thing, it seemed that most people already knew, if it was going through the grapevine. Wasn't that how I'd found out about Justin in the first place? I couldn't do much more there.

I supposed I could turn him in for all the fucking drugs he snorted and shot himself up with and whatever the fuck else he had going on. It would definitely mean some serious jail time, wouldn't it?

But what else? How did he get away with all this shit? He must have some pretty fucking powerful friends...it was the only conclusion I could come up with. What would be so horrible that even they wouldn't bail him out? Or maybe I was going about it all wrong. Maybe I had to draw them into it, too. There had to be something that was big enough that it couldn't be simply blown over. But what? It was time to do a little investigating.

But for now, I had other matters to contend with. Sunshine matters. I was still convinced that therapy would help him, at least more than I could. The irony was simply screaming at me. I hated talking. I hated therapists. I hated everything to do with either one, and yet I was trying to force him into going. No wonder he didn't seem to take the idea seriously. I never had. What did this look like to him?

On the other hand, if I could convince him to go, would it even be enough? What else could I do for him? Was I going to have to monitor his every breath until I was sure that he would be okay? I couldn't afford to slip up for even a second. Not when the price might be losing him forever. But how did I stop the nightmares? How did I help him grow comfortable with being touched again? How did I help him stop feeling them all the time? Would therapy really be enough for all of that?

I had promised him that I would help him. That we would get through it, deal with it all together. I had promised him, and I planned on upholding that vow. It was more important now than ever.