I'm Here
Title: I'm Here
Author:
jojothecr
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Characters: Brian & Justin
Summary: 4.09. My humble theory how this episode could have continued...
"I'm fine," Brian replies softly, shaking his head.
And Justin can't help wondering if 'fine' will forever mean the naussea, headache, anguish and fear Brian doesn't talk about. If 'fine' will ever again mean what it used to.
Beta:
positive_pat
Disclaimer: Not mine
Author's Note: This is the last fiction I've finished before the writer's block and I'm a bit afraid it will be the last for a while...
I'm Here
Justin sits down on the edge of the bed and forces the soup-plate with the chicken soup into Brian’s hands. Brian takes it with resignation and respect for Justin, who has just showed how much energy is hidden in his young, healthy body. A sudden sharp stab of jealousy at Justin’s youth, his health, his beauty surprises even Brian himself but he must keep all his strength now not to throw the food away and tell Justin to get the fuck out. Justin’s stare is intransigent and Brian comes to the realization that he’s too tired to start another fight.
Justin remains silent, but he’s watching Brian intently. He knows, and he can feel, how annoying to Brian he is now, but that is the last thing he’s caring about. All he’s interested in at that moment is to get some food into Brian, knowing that he needs to be strong so he can fight. And keep fighting.
The sky clouds over suddenly and heavy raindrops start to bounce against the window, painting transparent traces of heaven’s cry on the glass. The temperature in the loft drops down a few degrees, but there are little drops of sweat pearling on Brian’s forehead.
“I can’t.” Brian states swallowing the third spoonful of the soup with an effort and clenching his teeth, as he hands the plate back to Justin. Ignoring the warning look on the face in front of his eyes, Brian leans his head against the wall behind his back and closes his eyes.
“Brian.” Justin’s voice is soft, but monitory. Please just a little bit more. Only two, three more spoonfuls would satisfy him.
Brian looks up at Justin, tiredness and sickness tattooed upon his face. He opens his eyes wider, trying to keep them open. Gentle shadows fall on his cheeks from his fluttering eyelashes.
“Really,” he whispers and there’s not even a hint of the anger that had forced Justin to yell at him only a few moments ago. “I’ll throw it up.”
“Alright,” Justin nods eventually, because he can see that Brian is actually fighting with his own digestive tract. He places the soup-plate back on the nightstand. “Maybe later, okay?”
Brian sighs deeply and nods, only to silence Justin. His stomach is storming and just the smell of the soup dancing around his nose makes it much worse. He sits up slowly and lowers his legs off the bed to toe off his shoes. He tries to take his socks off, but then his head spins and he has to cling to the nightstand to keep him self from falling forward. Justin’s arms, wrap around his waist quickly, helping him to sit up, but Brian pushes them away angrily.
“Fuck off!” He barks, but his voice is shaded with pain and sounds weak even to his own ears.
“Sure,” Justin replies, unaffected and pushes Brian onto the bed.
“I’m not dying,” Brian protests - although he surely feels like he is - and makes an attempt to get out of the bed. Justin’s hands on his shoulders presses him back down.
“And don’t even try to. You’re not going anywhere, anyway.”
Brian stares back at him, anger and wrath mixed with anguish and nausea flame in his eyes and Justin is sure that if Brian were strong enough, he’d chase him away. Again.
But Brian doesn’t have the energy now, so he shakes his head and closes his eyes, trying to make Justin disappear. But nothing seems to be working to his benefit, because Justin kicks of his shoes and sits beside Brian, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them.
“You are so stupid,” Justin sighs. He closes his eyes, praying for the tears not to fall.
He can’t hide the fear with anger as easily as Brian does. He’s too scared to even try to. The sudden explosion of fury has made its effect, but it’s long gone now. Only the desperation is left.
Yawning, Brian sits up and crawls to the end of the bed. He brings his knee close to his chest to put his elbow on and rests his palm against his forehead. He takes a few shuddering breathes, but the world keeps spinning.
“Thanks,” he mumbles ironically.
“This isn’t fucking funny!” Justin snaps back. “I would really love to kick your beautiful ass right now. What the hell were you thinking?” He turns his head to look at Brian, who’s starring back at him, blankly.
“Are you really… really so arrogant or so fucking selfish, that you… didn’t say a word?”
He shakes his head and looks away.
“Justin.” Brian says so softly that Justin nearly doesn’t hear him at all. It might be a warning or plead, but Justin doesn’t care. Right now there’s a fire of quandary running through his veins and he’s not about to stop, whether Brian likes it or - more likely - not.
“Why are you doing this?” Justin asks, starring absently through the curtains separating the bedroom. “Why do you keep pushing me away?”
“Justin, don’t. Just please, not now.”
Brian’s voice is pleading now, which makes Justin look at him. Really look at him through the haze of his own rage and Brian’s hypocrisy, through the lies and pretending, and Justin finally sees Brian like he hasn’t before. Perspiring, yet shaking with cold, anger on his face and fear written in his eyes. Frightened Brian, who desperately tries to hide his incapability to solve what no one really can. Brian, who strives every day with what used to be his power now - his own body.
Justin gets off the bed and takes the soup-plate into the kitchen. He takes a bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator and then walks into the bathroom to dip a towel in cold water.
“Here,” he says, climbing back on the bed and places the cold cloth on Brian’s heating forehead. He leaves the bottle on the nightstand and then sits down, studying Brian’s face. Brian’s eyes peep out from the towel and he mouths his thanks. Justin nods, but his mind is somewhere else and Brian frowns, looking at him curiously.
All of a sudden, Brian catches himself wondering since when is Justin so strong. But maybe… maybe Justin was always the stronger. Brian is sure he’d freak out if Justin were the sick one. He still remembers how useless and powerless he felt at the time. It took him weeks to pick up the shattered pieces of his own self and put them back together after the bashing.
“You wouldn’t leave me either.” Justin’s quiet voice breaks the few-minutes-lasting silence.
Brian leans down onto the pillows, starring up to the ceiling. “You don’t know.”
“You didn’t leave me then,” Justin remembers and his voice sounds even quieter now, far away.
Brian takes a few naussea-clouded moments to absorb what Justin has said. Then he props himself on his elbows to look at him, shocked, retaining the towel on his head with his hand.
“You were there every night. And no one knew.”
“Wh-how?” Brian asks puzzled.
“My mom told me after you’d kicked me out of here. She’s one of the many reasons why I’m here now.”
Brian shakes his head and then closes his eyes with a growl. Justin wasn’t supposed to know. She promised.
“Sometimes I thought I felt you.” Justin’s forehead wrinkles from the sad memories. “They say you can sense the world around you when you’re in coma. It’s true. I could feel you - just thought it was a dream. My wish,” his fingers stroke Brian’s hand gently. “Thank you.”
Brian doesn’t say a word, pretending he’s fallen asleep.
Justin sits still for a while, starring nowhere. He listens to Brian’s uneven breathing - shallow now, rapid a few second ago, listens to the regular tickling of the clock on the nightstand.
Since he knows that Brian is sick the whole world seems to be slowed-down, bathing him in desperation-filled minutes. He wants to cry. Yell. He wants to hit something very hard, make himself bleed. Just to do something that would change the invisible pain grasping his heart, which makes it difficult to breathe into something he can touch.
And yet the time runs with the speed of a meteor, making every hour feel like a minute and every minute like a blink of an eye.
“Do you want me to bring you something?” Justin asks after a while of silence on both sides and the chaos of quarrelling voices in his head.
“I’m fine,” Brian replies softly, shaking his head.
And Justin can’t help wondering if ‘fine’ will forever mean the nausea, headache, anguish and fear Brian doesn’t talk about. If ‘fine’ will ever again mean what it used to.
“I’m just tired,” Brian adds and his raspy voice is nearly completely out.
Justin shifts closer to Brian and starts to undo the buttons on his shirt. Brian’s hand covers Justin’s and Brian opens his eyes. Justin doesn’t need to think twice to know what Brian wants to say.
“Let me,” he says, pushing Brian’s shaking hands away.
Brian lifts his head to look at him; one eyebrow raised with an unspoken warning. He wants to stop Justin. He wants to tell him to ‘fuck off!’ and then dig a hole and crawl into it. He wants to tell him to ‘stay, because I’m scared without you’. He doesn’t know what he really wants, but the vertigo, which makes the walls around him spin and Justin’s face whirl stops him from doing anything more than falling backward onto his back anyway.
Justin kneels above Brian, his knees placed carefully at each of his sides. He leans down to brush the errant strands of Brian’s dark hair from his face. He stops for a moment, probing Brian’s sweat hair and looking at his beautiful face. His thick eyelashes, framing his closed eyes are a contrast to his nearly white face. His pink lips, a tone paler than usually, are parted a bit and lightly trembling.
‘Damn your lies, Brian. Damn them.’ Justin sighs.
“Ehm,” Brian’s irritated cough and his crooked smirk, make Justin smile. He places a soft kiss on Brian’s hot lips and then pulls away.
Justin undoes the shirt buttons and Brian sits up slowly to get his hands out of the sleeves, the towel falls from his forehead into his lap. He reaches for the mineral water and takes a few gulps. Then nearly suffocates him self when Justin’s fingers reach the button on his pants. His hand moves by its own will and grasps Justin’s. Justin looks up at Brian’s eyes and after a while sees a pride among the pain and sickness. He nearly wants to laugh. After the whole previous theatrics, Brian still longs to keep his dignity and his pride by pushing Justin away and not allowing him to see the imperfection, the black spot on his body. Justin isn’t sure he wants to see it either; he only tries to make Brian comfortable.
“I’ll be careful,” he says soothingly. He takes the bottle from Brian’s hand and then pushes Brian back down. Placing the bottle aside, Justin can hear Brian let out a whoosh of breath of resignation. Brian lies there without moving allowing Justin to unzip his pants and takes down his socks, only lifting his hips so Justin can pull the pants down his legs. However when Justin reaches out to pull down Brian’s underwear, then panic rushes back like the waves during flood tide and Brian jerks from Justin’s touch, leaving the bed in a rush. The movement immediately proves to be too hurried and Brian has to lean his hands against the wardrobe to keep him self up when the ground beneath him shifts and the world darkens.
Justin sits back on his heels, watching Brian with an uncomprehending look painted on his face.
Getting his balance back, Brian searches the wardrobe to get a pair of reddish-black checkered shorts, which Justin has never seen before and standing with his back to Justin pulls them on instead of the ones, which once made Justin laugh.
Try as he might, Justin can’t even smile now. He stares at Brian, shaking his head. It’s been a while since he’s seen him naked. Since his return ‘from Ibiza’ Brian had always closed the door of the bathroom. He never went to sleep naked as he used to. Always found a reason to push Justin’s hand away. Justin can’t help, but wonder if he’ll ever see Brian’s beautiful body again. The thought makes him feel guilty immediately. Guilty for missing their sex, the warmth and smell of Brian’s body; everything he had begun to love the first time they were together, because now it seems to be the last thing Brian was thinking about.
Brian pulls on a white T-shirt and without a word walks into the bathroom. Justin can hear the rattle of pills; one bottle, then the other and then the water running.
When Brian walks out of the bathroom, his face is deadly white and water drops slip from his wet hair down his temples. He sits down on the edge of the bed, starring down on the carpet beneath his feet.
Justin wants to crawl up to him. Hug him. Hold him. Tell him that everything’s gonna be okay. But he knows it would only make him angry. Brian doesn’t want to be treated as if he were dying. He needs the people around him to act as if nothing has happened, so he can pretend that nothing is happening.
Brian’s sudden gasp for breath stops the air on its way down Justin’s lungs and he’s sure that within a second he will see Brian running into the bathroom. But this time Brian wins his probably daily battle with his stomach and after a few deep breaths lies down on the bed, resting on his side. He wraps his arms around his stomach and pulls his knees up to his chest, closing his eyes.
Justin doesn’t hesitate long before lying down beside him, resting his arm over Brian’s hip. He buries his face in Brian’s soft hair and sighs deeply, fighting the tears, which threaten to spill over his cheeks. He strokes Brian’s arm gently until Brian himself reaches for it and entwining their fingers, presses their joined hands against his flat stomach maybe thinking that the double touch would convince his body to cooperate.
It’s just this simple act that makes Justin’s tears spill out. A chill runs up and down his spine as the “what ifs” blind his mind. What if the radiation will not help? What if Brian will not be strong enough? What if he will die?’ Suddenly Justin doesn’t want to be strong anymore. He wants to scream, now for real. Yell how unfair the world is. He wants to take Brian into the hospital and force the doctors to give him something to soothe his pain and make his naussea disappear. He wants to… do something!
The more reasonable part of his self knows that the radiation will help and then stop one day and knows that the scar will heal. But the frightened portion also knows that the fright will never disappear. It will always be there. Like a ghost, ready to jump from the past and show its power again.
Brian has pushed Justin away so many times that Justin knows what to do. He knows how to fight. But he doesn’t know what to do now, when something else draws Brian away from him. What frightens him even more is seeing Brian scared and Justin knows he is; every time he yells, all the time he rages, only to hide the fear.
Justin snuggles even closer to Brian, protecting his body with his own, trying to chase away the pain, the truth, the memories and the fear. He sniffs against Brian’s hot skin, now wet with Justin’s salty tears. Let Brian push him away. Let him yell and kick, he’s not going to walk away. He’s not going to leave him now, when he needs him most.
“Justin?” Brian asks so weakly Justin can barely hear him.
“I’m here,” Justin whispers, although he knows that Brian wasn’t asking that. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Hmmm.” Brian sighs resignedly, because he can feel Justin’s decision and persistency in his grasp. He doesn’t try to push him away, because maybe… maybe he wants him there. It might be just emollient pills, which make the naussea more bearable, but he feels better and doesn’t want to risk, because…what if it’s Justin, who makes him feel better?
Brian rolls onto his stomach and rests his head on his hands, then reaches for Justin. Smiling secretly, Justin moves as close as he can and lies partly atop Brian. His leg rests between Brian’s, his head on his shoulder blades. He wraps his arm around Brian’s shoulder, soothing him into sleep.
The End