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

A/N: Okay, so this has two parts, one in Brian's POV, and the other in Justin's. It's pretty much what's been going on for the couple weeks afterwards at the loft. Justin is still struggling to deal, while Brian is trying to connect the dots and figure out what's wrong. Unfortunately, Brian is thinking more along the lines of an old problem resurfacing, than Justin having a new one completely.

~. Brian .~

Over the next couple of days, things with Justin only grew more unusual, and I wasn't sure if I should be concerned or pissed. Or both.

The first two or three days, I'd been certain he had just been queening out over that stupid curfew incident. He'd scream at me for any reason and no reason at all—using anything from me tricking, to me not helping as much as I should have with the dishes one night after a home cooked meal he'd made. So I thought he was still just angry with me.

Those first three days, we barely spoke except to yell at each other. He'd always start the round with his sniping, then I'd snap back, and one or both of us would end up stalking off—him into the bathroom and me out the door to wherever I felt like going to cool off. I'd remained steadfast in my belief that, if he was indeed still peeved over me not coming home (which was stupid enough in itself, as it wasn't my fucking fault) then he should fucking tell me so that we could go from there, instead of lashing out for the ridiculous, petty reasons he was actually giving me at every opportunity. He knew I didn't play games. Besides, he'd broken a rule, too...and his was willingly. No fucking cop forced him to kiss that virgin at that stupid party. I had no choice in the jail matter. Well, I'd told him the truth. It was his own problem if he didn't believe me.

And so I'd remained in a very bad mood for three days. Pissed at him, at Michael, at the fucking cop... It was just fucking unfair that he was mad when I hadn't even done anything wrong this time. Those three days were hell as we fought and sniped and bickered and barely talked otherwise.

It wasn't until the forth day that I began to get the sense that something else was bothering him.

He was barely eating. Unless he was consuming breakfast, lunch, and dinner while I was at work, he was barely eating at all. He'd fix or order meals in the evening before I got home, and pick around at his food without actually putting a bite in his mouth. I'd mentioned this to him, about a week after the curfew incident, although our conversation left me no less uneasy than before.

“Becoming an anorexic, Sunshine?” I asked, helping myself to more of the noodles he'd prepared that night.

“Huh?” he asked distractedly, looking up from his plate.

I gestured at it, or more precisely, the food still on it. “You barely ate anything.”

He shrugged. “I'm not hungry.”

I might have been able to accept this, if he hadn't been practically starving himself all week, too. “You haven't been eating much lately,” I observed.

“Who are you, Debbie, now? Why do you even care what I eat? And since when do you have room to talk about eating habits, anyway, Mr. No-Carbs-After-Seven?”

I frowned at the accusatory note in his voice, and the way he'd gone on the defense so alarmingly quickly. “All I'm saying is that you're allowed to leave the 'starving' out of 'starving artist.' It's optional, you know.” I knew I was making him uneasy. He was fidgeting, his expression growing steadily darker. He was like a cornered animal, ready to bolt at any moment...and sure enough...

“I think I'm going to take a shower,” he said, standing up and carrying his plate to the counter.

“You already took one today,” I pointed out.

“Well, I want to take another one,” he snapped. “I'm allowed to take more than one shower a day if I want.”

I didn't argue with him when he strode quickly past and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me quite alone in the kitchen. Suddenly, I wasn't very hungry anymore either.

However, even stranger than his lack of desire for food, however, was his sudden lack of desire for...well, me.

He wouldn't let me touch him. Barely let me kiss him. He cried over the stupidest things I said, and wore clothes to bed. It was like going through that whole phase after the bashing all over again. Every time I tried to get him to join me in the shower, or have a quick fuck before we left in the morning, he'd make some excuse about homework or being too tired, or he'd start his bullshit and snap at me.

Not including the day after I'd missed curfew, he hadn't even so much as kissed me for two days afterwards, and even when he finally did, it was nothing like our usual hot, wet, tongue-down-his-throat kisses...just a simple peck. More like the ones I exchanged with Michael and Lindsay than the kind I usually shared with him.

We'd been curled together on the couch, something else he'd been wanting more and more lately. Despite what I pretended, it wasn't too rare for me to hold him while we sat and watched a movie or something. But now it seemed that, when he allowed me to touch him, it was for the sole purpose of burying himself in my arms, curling as close as possible, as though hoping to disappear inside me.

He'd come and sat down next to me, pulled my arm hesitantly around him, and looked up at me, as though expecting me to push him away. I hadn't had the heart. We'd sat and watched the movie for a while, or at least, I had...he had closed his eyes and laid his head on my chest, and for a while I thought he was sleeping, until I let my chin drop gently to the top of his head, and he looked up. I'd just stared at him for a moment—it had been difficult to read him these last couple days, and I could never tell what he wanted or when he was close to snapping—but I leaned in and he didn't pull away, so I kissed him softly. He hadn't kissed back, really, or made any move to deepen it, but he hadn't moved away either.

He was also spending a lot more time with Daphne. I'd come home, and she'd be here, or he'd be on the phone with her. Not that it was a bad thing...it was good for him to hang out with someone his own age...but more than once, I'd caught them whispering, heads bent low together, and as soon as they realized I was within potential hearing distance, they'd stop. I could only guess what he was telling her about me.

But any time I mentioned any of this, anything at all, he'd get defensive and distant and retreat into the bathroom, or else start yelling at me until I got pissed and left.

Okay, I'll admit it. I was concerned. I had been wondering for a while what it could possibly be that could have caused him to act like this, assuming it wasn't just me. When he was screaming at me for something or refusing sex it was easy to think it might be, but he just seemed...wrong. I knew him. Better than I cared to admit, that was for sure. And this just wasn't him. It wasn't Justin.

The only time I could even think of him acting remotely similar was after he was bashed. The nightmares, the irrational fear of everything he seemed to have developed, him not wanting to be touched.... Was it possible for symptoms of PTSD to return so strongly, months later? After so much progress? And if it was...what would have caused it?

I uneasily tossed the idea around in my head. It wasn't a place I liked to go...I had been certain we'd put the worst of that whole phase of our lives behind us by now...but what if something had happened to make him relapse somehow? There had been more than one occasion, months after the fact, where he'd suddenly freeze in a crowd, or have one of his nightmares...but this wasn't just some triggered isolated event, it was like he'd reverted straight back to a time when he couldn't go a day without a nervous breakdown.

But if that was really what happened, what could have set him off? There were still things he avoided, triggers and such. He absolutely refused to watch a baseball game, he would park streets away from a building and walk just so that he wouldn't have to park in the garage, and gave movies with excessive or graphic violence a wide berth. But would something like that have been enough to cause this?

Maybe...

Maybe...he had seen Chris Hobbes? It had happened that once, at the hospice...so it was possible. But wouldn't he have told me? What if that fucker said something to him? Would that be enough to set him back in all his progress?

I was getting ahead of myself, but I just couldn't think of what would cause him to do a complete turn around like this. Maybe I should think about looking for that therapist again. It was just so fucking difficult to watch him come so far, then fall—and hard—right back to where he was.

The most worrisome thing about all this, however, had to be his nightmares.

They'd returned, full force, it seemed...and hadn't allowed him a full nights' sleep in weeks. Sometimes, I didn't know whether or not I should try to touch him afterwards, but he always allowed it, and cried into my shoulder until he fell back asleep.

One night, about a week and a half after my night in jail, we'd been laying there in bed for a while, and I was pleasantly relaxed, almost asleep...when I heard him crying. I was sure he hadn't fallen asleep yet...his breathing hadn't evened out like it normally did...so it couldn't have been a nightmare. But something had stopped me from moving, from pulling him closer and trying to comfort him. I wasn't sure he knew I was awake. Actually, I was pretty certain he thought I was asleep, which meant that, for whatever reason, he didn't want me to know he was crying. Reluctantly, I'd respected this, and tried to block out the sound of his quiet sobs until he finally fell asleep, only to wake up screaming two hours later.

I brought up the topic of his nightmares the very next day.

“Hey,” I said casually as I strode into the kitchen that morning to pour myself a cup of coffee. Despite his restless nights, he'd been getting up before me almost every morning to make it, though he rarely drank any of it himself. I'd told him at least four or five times not to do it...he needed all the sleep he could get, and I didn't want him becoming my fucking slave—going out of his way to make me dinners and coffee and such—but it never had any effect.

“Hey,” he replied, not glancing up from the apparently intriguing design of my table.

I sat down across from him, taking a sip of coffee, and eyed him appraisingly, neither of us saying anything. Finally, I sighed, setting my coffee mug down on the table with a soft clunk, catching his attention. “So...” I began, unsure how to broach this topic. “I was thinking you might want to see that psychiatrist again...the one you saw before?” When you were bashed and had nightmares and woke up screaming every other night. When you were scared and hurting and FUCK...what the hell is going on with you?!

His entire body tensed up immediately. “Why?” he asked, his voice faltering a little. “Why...why do you want me to see a psychiatrist?” he demanded.

I pinched the bridge of my nose warily. He was already freaked. Not a good reaction. “Justin...you've been having nightmares every night...”

His eyes grew big and wide and damn it...there were the tears again. Exactly what I didn't want. Shit. “I'm sorry,” he said in a small voice. “I can sleep on...on the couch or something,” he said, his voice shrinking even more. He sounded so fucking scared and sad and pathetic, it even tore at my heartstrings. No, this...was not Justin. I could still remember that time when I'd somehow been coerced into letting him stay with me, shortly after I'd met him...I had told him in no uncertain terms that he was to sleep on the couch, and thirty seconds later he'd ended up in bed with me. Justin had never been content with sleeping anywhere but beside me.

“I don't want you to sleep on the couch. I want you to stop having nightmares,” I said firmly. “So what do you think about the therapy thing? We can get the same one as last time...”

“I don't want therapy,” he said, standing up, clutching his own coffee mug tightly. Today seemed to be one of the rare ones where he actually drank some. “I'm just...I'm really stressed...with school and stuff. And...I had this stupid fight with my mother, and it...all the stress just makes me...have nightmares, and...” He was rambling. I sighed when he poured the rest of his coffee down the sink and hurried out of the room, firing off some random excuse that I was sure I'd heard before. So much for helping him.

I wondered idly if it was true about the nightmares being brought on by stress. He did seem to be struggling with the new workload they'd dumped on him at school. I would come home and he'd have paint and canvas and notebooks spread out everywhere, and wouldn't get up for hours. This was also his excuse as to why he hadn't had the time to go to Babylon in a fortnight. Each time I'd tried, he'd fervently insisted he simply had too much to do. I'd suggested Babylon, Woody's, the baths...but Justin, being the grade A student that he is, flat out refused to do anything else until all his work was complete. At least, that was assuming it was the reason and not the excuse as to why he kept turning me down. Somehow, I had my doubts.

Every time I so much as hinted at him stopping and joining me for a quick fuck in the shower, he'd refuse with an apology and the explanation that he had to finish a project. No matter how hard he worked, how much time he spent diligently pouring over some canvas or another...whenever I'd insist he take a break from it all and have some well-deserved fun, it always somehow ended in us snapping at each other.

He'd even, much to my secret (or not so much) pleasure and relief, quit his job at Babylon to focus more on school. As far as I was concerned, that job had “bad fucking idea” written all over it, and I couldn't have been happier when he told me he'd quit. When I'd asked if that meant he was accepting my offer to pay his tuition, he'd just nodded a little, oddly distant, and thanked me. I knew how much it must have cost him to ask me for help. It was like admitting he'd failed, and that just wasn't Justin, either. I didn't see him for the rest of the night after that. He had shut himself in the bathroom again with the phone, and I was pretty sure he was talking to Daphne for the third time that day.

It was something else he did now...shutting himself in the bathroom. I didn't know why, or what he was doing in there, but sometimes I could hear the water running in the shower. Other times, he took his sketchbook in with him, and I figured it was just some weird artist thing he needed to do to concentrate or whatever. It wouldn't be the first time he'd done something seemingly odd and senseless for his art.

Once, a few weeks after he'd come to live with me after his assault, he sat up on the roof of the fucking building for an entire day, sketching the view of the horizon against the skyscrapers. I'd been going crazy looking for him all day (something I conveniently forgot to mention to him), and going on a whim, I'd finally found him up there, sketching away, lost in his world.

When I'd asked him why he couldn't just sketch from the window in the loft, he'd replied in that impassioned tone and manner that he used when he spoke about art that always made me feel like there was something I just didn't get. Something I was missing about it. I could remember his exact words as clearly as if they'd been spoken this morning. (Also something I'd never mentioned to him.) Sometimes you have remove yourself from everything to get a clear view. Take a step back and cut free from everything so you can breathe a little.

I remembered thinking how odd it sounded at the time. People just...didn't talk like that. He never even talked like that, except when it concerned art. When it was about that which he loved, he could be surprisingly intense.

So, my point...it wouldn't have been the first time he'd done something exceedingly strange for the sake of art, and I'd pretty much learned to leave him alone and let him do his thing whenever he was in one of his 'zones.'

But it wasn't just that. When he wasn't locking himself in the bathroom and taking hour long showers, or else sniping at me over something stupid I'd said or done, he was lying lifelessly on the couch staring at nothing, like some tweaked out zombie. In truth, that had actually kind of freaked me out. But, just like I'd learned not to disturb him when he was in his creating zone, I'd quickly learned to give him his space when he was 'resting.'

One day I'd returned home from an arduous work out session, and come inside to find him just lying on the sofa. At first I'd thought he was watching TV, but when I passed him on my way up to the bedroom to drop off my gym bag and take a shower (something I knew I had no chance of getting him to join) I realized the TV was off.

“Interesting show, Sunshine?” I'd asked, leaning over the back of the couch, keeping my voice low just in case he was napping.

He nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd been doing that a lot lately...jumping. I'd often teased him about being lost in his own little world, especially when he was painting or sketching, but he'd been drifting off like that even more than usual in recent days.

“Brian! What...what the fuck are you doing here?” he stammered, apparently trying to regain some composure.

“Well, I live here,” I said slowly, as though trying to explain math to a two year old. “That tends to mean I return here after extraneous activities.”

“Oh, right...I mean, um...fuck, I was just...I've got to go...” He jumped off the couch, and hurried past me into the fucking bathroom again. I hadn't gotten my shower, and he hadn't come out until it was time for bed.

So yeah. I was fucking concerned. The last thing he needed was to fall into that dark place he'd just so recently come out of since the attack...he couldn't go back there. Neither of us could.

But something inside me wondered if we were already on our way. 

 


 

 ~. Justin .~

He had to notice that something was wrong. That I was wrong.

Two weeks later, he had to know. He had to know by then that it wasn't just something he did that I was pissed about. He had to know it was something more, something deeper.

That idea scared me as much as it relieved me.

I didn't want him to think it was his fault that things with us—with me—were so fucked up lately. And I hated it so much, hated fighting with him...but I couldn't stand the alternatives. Either of them.

It was either let myself be touched—something I seriously could not physically stand—confess to him why I couldn't—something I wanted to do even less—or make him angry enough not to want to touch me. Of course, that was hardly a good solution for either of us. Effective, yes...I got to keep quiet, and I didn't have to touch him, but...it meant he usually left. With a final biting remark from one or both of us, and the slam of the loft door, he would be gone. Out doing who knows what...or who. And I hated that he was most likely out there fucking his brains out while I was here alone and barely even able to kiss him, but...what else could I do? I couldn't touch him and I couldn't tell him...so I let him leave.

One of these times, I knew I was going to push too hard, too far...and I would be the one walking out that door with a suitcase in hand.

Sometimes I thought it might be easier just to tell him what had happened to me...I had tried on more than one occasion. But I kept hearing his words, his warnings...echoing back at me when I told him about the job, when he saw me doing the drugs Sap gave me, when I told him about the party...

And then I imagined, in my mind's eye, his face tightening in anger...his voice raised, calling me a stupid little shit for getting myself into this situation.... Worst of all, I could see him tossing my shit into my bag, throwing me out the door... yelling at me that he didn't want to live with a fucking rape victim...too filthy and used and disgusting for anyone to touch or want.

After all, I was damaged, now. I was broken. Contaminated.

But I was still here, my mouth firmly shut except when I was yelling at him for no apparent reason. And if I ever had problems conjuring up insults and anger out of nowhere, all I had to do was think of that night. Think of what had occurred, what I had let happen, and I was furious. So I let it out.

I really thought he'd have been angry too, though, when I had to let him inside his own home after I changed the alarm code, about a week and a half after...well, after. The alarm had two different settings, where you could either have it go off immediately if a door or window was opened, or you could have it allow you thirty seconds to punch in the code and turn it off. Brian typically set it on the latter, but one day I'd been watching TV and there was this movie about a woman who had been raped by her neighbor, and it had scared me. I hadn't meant to watch it, but I had turned on the TV and I couldn't find the remote, and while I was looking for it the woman had started crying and screaming at her husband that she'd been raped, and I just hadn't been able to look away for a while.

So I turned the alarm on the first setting, still checking it obsessively at least twice an hour. When Brian had come home, I barely managed to stop him in time from opening the door and setting the wailing alert siren off. Ears sharply attuned to everything around me, every sound disturbing the silence, I only managed to stop him because I heard the key the moment it slid inside the lock.

“Don't open the door!” I called, dropping my pencil I'd been sketching with to the floor. I stood up cautiously, heart racing. “Who is it?”

The key had paused in the lock, and whoever it was had made no further attempts to open the door, but I was still wary.

“Who the fuck do you think?”

I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, just...hang on a minute.”

Brian waited while I disabled the alarm, and pulled open the door.

“What the hell was that about?” he demanded, shrugging off his coat as he stepped inside.

“I...” I hesitated. “I kind of...changed the alarm code,” I mumbled, avoiding his eyes.

He frowned suspiciously. “What for? Did you give it to someone?”

“No!” I assured him quickly. “But...I just thought...I wanted...look, I'm sorry, okay?” I said, unable to offer an explanation. And I took off for the bathroom without waiting for a reply.

When I emerged, I had been sure I was about to get an earful from him. I hadn't even been trying to make him mad then, I just...I was still scared. I'd just wanted to feel safe, and I was so sure he was going to launch into a tirade.

But all that had happened was that he'd asked me if Thai sounded good for dinner (I'd been too upset that day to think about ordering it before he got home) then sat down to do some work on his computer. He didn't mention it again all evening, and I felt just a little bit safer.

The only other thing that came remotely close to making me feel safe anymore were Brian's arms around me, holding me against his body...something that was happening less and less. When I wasn't screaming at him over nothing or lying on the couch staring sightlessly at the wall, I was trying to make him as happy as I could without it being sexual...cooking dinner, making him coffee...trying to let him know I didn't hate him, just couldn't have him touch me like he normally did. Just wanted him to hold me and hug me and make me safe again. But it was becoming increasingly difficult...who would want to hug someone that kept screaming at him?

There were times when I'd seen him relaxing on the couch or something, and I'd just gone and curled up in his body. I was always a little nervous about it...always afraid he'd try something else, something more that I couldn't handle, or shrug me off. But he never did, and it was nice, just laying there with him. When we weren't fighting, and I wasn't wanting to crawl out of my own fucking skin, or making excuses as to why I didn't have the time or energy for sex, it was nice just to be with him. Made me feel just a bit more like myself. Made me stop wanting to fucking die and escape this, and just relax a little with him.

During the time when Brian wasn't available, for whatever reason, Daphne had told me repeatedly that I could call her whenever I needed. She had just been...great. I really didn't know what I'd do without her. She'd been visiting a lot, including each time I had to go to class. She was there to pick me up and drop me back off at the loft, and usually stayed until Brian came home. She listened while I talked about how horrible I still felt, how shitty things were with him lately...she'd suggested I tell him a couple times, even offered to do it herself, but she'd stopped bringing it up after I'd nearly had a meltdown at the idea.

She'd also asked me every day if the clinic had contacted me yet (we'd given them my cell number so they wouldn't call the loft) and when I'd finally been able to tell her, voice weak with relief, that the test had come back negative for everything, I was able to let her hug me for a while as we sat together, breathing just a little easier as some of the weight on our chests lifted. Still, she made sure to tell me in a tone that left no room for argument that I was still going back for my next appointment in a couple weeks. I had been shaking when I'd received the call, and had to sink into a chair when they'd told me I was okay so far. I knew there was still a good chance that whatever I might have just hadn't shown up yet, but right then I was just so fucking relieved I didn't care.

One day, she'd been over at the loft, and I'd been confessing to her that I was worried about falling behind on my school work, after missing all week. I didn't know what I was going to do, just knew that I couldn't let myself be shut up in those tiny classrooms and those narrow hallways with all those people all week. So that day, Daphne and I had gone up to the school together to request that I be allowed to bring my work home and do it. It had been a long, exhausting process, but eventually they had consented.

We'd had to make up some story about a family crisis, and me subsequently needing flexible hours, and all but one of my teachers was permitting me to do the work at home. That meant that only two times a week did I have to leave the relative safety of the loft and go to PIFA for a couple of hours, which were the days I picked up and dropped off my work for my other classes, as well.

Brian had noticed, naturally, that I was doing more school work than usual at home. It was pretty obvious, so I'd had no hope of concealing it from him. He'd tried more than once to get me to unwind and go out with him. Or he'd start kissing my neck while I sat at the table, trying to draw me away from it in favor of him, and I'd end up panicking and snapping at him and fighting and we'd both be miserable for hours.

I had used the excuse that my professors were coming down harder than ever on the students more times than I could count, and after what felt like the millionth time, I couldn't help but wonder if he knew more than he let on. Though I was sure he didn't know I wasn't going to school...he was gone at work all day...how could he know? If he'd known exactly what that “homework” involved, the exact projects I was expected to complete, he might've figured it out. But I'd been deliberately vague about the whole thing, and I don't think he realized that it was all my usual coursework.

But I was sure he had picked up on my inconsistent moods. Not that I was exactly bubbly any other day, but during those two days I went to PIFA...everything was in excess. If I was angry, I was angrier. If I was depressed, I barely moved the whole time I was home.

When Daphne left and Brian came home, I would often disappear into the bathroom to be alone. I'd shower, or sometimes just sit on the floor, usually crying, just dealing. Or else I'd be over by the window of the loft, staring outside, eyes dry but mind replaying every panicked moment I'd had that day. For some reason, I liked sitting by the window. If I wanted to hide and be alone, I'd go into the bathroom, but if I didn't mind Brian's company, or if I couldn't stand the thought of feeling even a little trapped...I felt almost free over there. I could look outside and imagine myself soaring over the city...rising up above everyone and everything...never touching back down. Never having to come back to deal with reality.

Then a noise would startle me and I'd jump and be forced back to it anyway.

My art itself had undergone a dramatic change. When I could draw, and it was more than just the Sap's leering features, whatever I managed to paint or sketch always ended up sad and angry and dark. I'd even received a note from one of my teachers on a project I'd handed in, expressing their concern about my work and myself, with sincerest wishes that my “family crisis” be resolved soon. It was showing in my work, and I knew it. I just couldn't bring out the sensual pieces I once could, opting for raw, dark, and powerful pieces instead. My inner turmoil on canvas.

Then there were the nightmares.

I'd been waking up at least once or twice a night ever since my first night back here after Daphne's. Screaming, thrashing, crying...the whole works. After Brian had mentioned therapy one day...I began blaming the lack of peaceful nights on stress, the extra homework...and just hoped he would buy it. If he was bringing up therapy...fuck, he had to know something was wrong. Brian Kinney did not do therapists without a very, very good reason.

But perhaps the part that hurt the most, the part that made my chest ache, was the fact that no matter what had occurred during the day...no matter what I'd said to him or how many times I'd turned him down...Brian woke up with me every damn time and held me until I fell back asleep. A couple times I think he was hesitant to touch me, after me not allowing it all day...but then I would fall into his embrace and just cry and fall asleep in his arms.

That was, all except for once...

It had been a truly horrifying nightmare, nearly two weeks after I'd returned. It had been a good day...Brian had had a lot of work to do here at home, and it was one of the rare instances with him that work came before sex. He hadn't made one move to touch me, and we hadn't even fought all day.

We'd gone to bed early, and for the first time since the night after the one I'd returned, he hadn't said anything about me wearing pants and a sweatshirt to bed. He'd wrapped an arm around me, and I'd settled back into his embrace. Everything was peaceful, and nice, and I almost felt...content, for the first time since it had happened. It had also been the first night since I'd returned that I hadn't cried myself to sleep.

It had become a ritual of mine. My breakdown after what was always a stressful day. I'd make sure to fall into that state with Brian after a fight where we're not really mad anymore, but we're in that place in between anger and forgiveness where he'd wrap his arms around me casually, but wasn't quite comfortable enough to try for anything more. I'd pull on my pajama pants and sweatshirt while he was in the bathroom, deflect his remark concerning the clothes with some comment about it being cold, climb into bed with him and wait until his breathing had evened out and I knew he was asleep.

Then, I'd allow myself to cry.

It was a pattern I'd repeated many times, but on that one respite of a day, the tears hadn't come. It had been a much needed reprieve from the usual miserable, angry darkness and arguing that surrounded most days. And then that night...it was the first in what felt like forever that I hadn't cried, had just drifted peacefully off to sleep, holding onto Brian's arm encircling my waist.

But the contented mood hadn't lasted...

Don't...”

You'll like it, come on...”

I don't want to!”

Sure you do...”

I DON'T!”

That's it...get in...oh yeah, you're a pretty one, aren't you...”

Stop! Please...”

Please? Did you here that? He's begging! You want it? You want my dick inside you? Huh?”

No...please, no...”

Why not? It'll be great...you'll love it, I promise...”

Gary Sapperstein's face, twisted into a cruel, merciless smirk, hovered above me. I tried to fight, tried to move, tried to escape this hell...but I was bound and there was nothing I could do about it.

Please, stop...don't...” I moaned. Begged. Pleaded. Anything. I tried everything. It hadn't stopped him.

The evil, distorted features above me were hazy, changing...Sap's raucous laughter ringing in my ears faded... to be replaced by a different face, a different voice. Deep, suave, and familiar.

Brian!” My boyfriend's handsome, chiseled face stared down at me. He wasn't on me...he was just...watching, from somewhere...and the Sap wasn't there, but I still couldn't move. But Brian...Brian would save me... “Brian...help me...please help me...”

But he wasn't. Why wasn't he saving me? Why wasn't he making this stop? Why were...

Why were his eyes so cold?

Brian, please...” I begged him, sobbing. He was so close...I was so close to being free...“Please help me...”

Brian tilted his head to the side as he looked at me, a cold, cruel laugh escaping his lips. “Help you? You got yourself into this mess, you stupid shit.”

What are you doing!?” I screamed at him. He was getting closer, closing in on me...but still not saving me... “Brian, stop!”

Stop what?” he taunted.

Brian, don't! Please...” I begged him, but it was no use. He was touching me...he was all over me and he wasn't stopping...

Brian!”

“Justin!”

My eyes flew open, and I realized three things almost simultaneously. One, it had been a dream. Two, I had been screaming. And three...Brian, my Brian...was sitting up in bed, staring at me, looking almost as scared as I was.

I didn't even bother to fight the sob that racked my body. God, that had been...that had been horrible...that was just...one of the worst nightmares I'd ever had, that was for sure. I was shaking violently, and I was about three seconds from tearing into the bathroom and heaving into the toilet.

Hands on me, teeth biting, not stopping, inside me...and never fucking stopping...

I slapped Brian's hand away when he reached out to rub my shoulder. “Don't touch me!”

He let his hand fall back to the bed, looking apologetic, as well extremely unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do. “Justin...”

“Just don't, please!” I begged him. Just like in my dream. Just the thought of Brian being the one to...

“Justin!” he called out, but I was already on my feet and heading for the bathroom. He must have had the sense not to come looking for me, for which I was grateful, even though I know he could hear with unfortunate clarity that I had thrown up.

I laid there on the cool bathroom tile for a while, crying and trying to will away the mental image of Brian like that...eyes cold and empty, face above mine...hurting me. Brian would never hurt me, but that image in my head wouldn't go, and the idea that he could, scared me. I'd never even given it a thought before this whole fucking thing had happened... the idea of Brian ever doing anything to intentionally cause me pain had just never crossed my mind.

But now I couldn't get rid of it. He could do it. He was big and I was small. He could hurt me if he wanted to. He wouldn't, but...I just couldn't fucking erase it from my mind.

He was still awake when I emerged a good half an hour later. He looked up at me questioningly, but I didn't say a word. He had enough common sense and consideration not to touch me as I curled up on my edge of the bed, as far from him as possible, and went back to sleep about an hour before the alarm sounded.

And this time, I'd cried.

 

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