The Dark Road Rating: R Fandom: Queer as Folk Pairing(s): Brian/Justin Summary: Six years ago, Justin took a bat to the head. Now, Brian takes an Italian wood floor to his, and Justin deals with the ramifications. Warnings: Amnesia!Brian, who acts like a total asshole. And way more sop than I generally condone. Notes: Done for the lovely [info]allie_quixotic as a return for the blind!Justin fic I forced asked her to write for me. Love you, darling <3 Generously betaed by [info]camelhaircoat. Also, apologies for the sudden influx of fic from me D: I swear this is the last thing I'm posting for a while. Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. --J.R.R. Tolkien ?Shit, shit, shit ? Brian, fuck, don?t ? just?? Justin thinks that he knows exactly the way Brian felt six years ago when he knelt in the semi-darkness of a parking garage as he helplessly watches blood leak from under Brian?s brown hair and onto the new Italian hardwood. Detachedly, he thinks of when he told Brian that was the stupidest thing you could ever buy for an art studio, and how Brian flippantly replied that he should just put down drop cloths, since he was getting the best whether he wanted it or not. He knows the fit Brian will pitch when he?s been stitched up and returned home and sees the stain. Maybe Justin can find a cleaning service capable of getting rid of it before that happens. His gimp hand finds his phone and his fingers seek out the buttons and he struggles to compose himself for the 911 dispatcher, but it only works for a second. He knows that, underneath the hysteria and the self-loathing and the fear, Brian?s voice hadn?t wavered when he?d made the same call all those years earlier. He wishes he were Brian so desperately that, as he tries to stop the blood with his turpentine-soaked rags and paint-smeared paper towels, he pretends his hands are Brian?s sure ones and his hitched breathing not a part of him at all. When he can?t think of any other way to calm himself down he stops trying to differentiate between the various permanent wailing sirens in his mind and those actually headed toward them. Justin holds Brian tightly in his arms with his fingers rigid to Brian?s bloodied pulse and shakes with suppressed sobs. -- ?Would you get down and wash up already? We have reservations that we?ve been waiting fucking six months to use and you?re covered in paint,? Brian remarked disparagingly from where he stood at he foot of Justin?s ladder. Justin grinned down at him and reached up to get at the blank spot of canvas he was working on covering. ?One more minute,? he begged, and then winced when a bolt of pain shot through his wrist. His brush slipped out of his hand and clattered onto the cement right by Brian?s Gucci shoes. Brian snatched it and then started up the ladder, where Justin was holding his hand. Brian set the brush in the paint can hanging from the side and then took Justin?s wrist in his hand, applying pressure in all of the familiar spots. Justin leaned back against the rungs and let Brian do what Brian did best ? take care of him. Brian shifted his weight on the ladder, went to turn so that he could unzip Justin?s fly, tripped and slipped and didn?t even get out the surprised cry he began when he landed on the stone-cold floor and started bleeding out from a gash behind his ear. -- For a long time, Justin can?t bring himself to call anyone. Brian?s been away from him forever, something about possible hemorrhaging in the brain and needing surgery to relieve the pressure. He knows that what is going on now behind those big double doors is not that different from what took place while Brian waited in the hall on a chilly May night calendars ago. Finally, though, he takes out his phone and calls his mother. She?s the first person he thinks of, the person his mind equates with warmth and comfort and reassurance. The tears that so far had only gathered in his eyes begin spilling out and he hiccups when he tells her what happened and where he is and how fucking scared he is. He tells her that he wants Brian to hold him right now, because that is the only thing in the world that will make him feel better. She says she?ll call everyone and will be on the soonest plane, which is the next best thing. He wipes his tears with his bloody hands and leaves red streaks on his face that he doesn?t notice. -- He falls asleep in the white hospital hallway with his head against the wall and dreams of Brian twirling him in a black tuxedo on a vinyl fake-wood dance floor while his entire graduating class watches, dumbfounded. He feels Brian?s hand warm in his and the strong arm around his waist when Brian lifts him up and spins him in the air. He tastes the kale and the shot of Beam Brian did before he came to this cheesy hotel when they kiss, and he hears the stunned gasps of his classmates behind him when they smile secretively at each other in the fluorescent lights. Brian says ?ridiculously romantic? and he laughs and turns and Chris Hobbes nails him right in the head with a baseball bat and ? --and he wakes up screaming with a nurse shaking his shoulder and the other people passing by giving him odd looks. ?Sir,? the nurse says in what must be a patented no-nonsense, brook-no-argument, fear-no-evil voice. ?Sir, Mr. Kinney is out of surgery. His doctor would like to speak with you.? Justin draws a shaky breath as he stands to meet the serious-faced man waiting for him at the end of the hall. -- Michael and Justin?s mother come into Brian?s room hours later and he finds himself enfolded in a hug from both of them at once. His mother lingers, brushing at his face with her smooth fingers, whispering, ?Honey, honey, it?s going to be fine.? He wants to believe her more than he wanted to be Brian those hours ago at the studio. ?Justin?? Michael gently asks. ?We had reservations at Per Se,? he says softly, the first words he?s spoken since going into the hospital. ?Brian was looking forward to it so much. More than me. He ?? ?What did the doctor say?? he probes carefully. Absently, he wonders if his mother is offended by Michael?s creepily mothering attitude. Justin can?t see any faces, not even Brian?s impassive and expressionless drug-induced sleep. He feels blind and suffocated under his mother?s gaze and Michael?s burning stare. ?I ? I don?t ?? He swallows, and his dry throat scratches and burns. ?Justin?? Michael presses, his voice tight. He thinks Michaels? going to hurt him if he doesn?t tell him, but he can?t, can?t say it or even get his mouth to work, can?t do anything but fixate on Brian?s pale face and the stitches in the one bald spot on his head where the doctors worked. Then his mother comes over to him and silently begins to clean his face with wet towels she conjured out of nowhere, and he knows no one could ever come close to replacing her. -- When Brian wakes up the next day and says ?Who the fuck are you?? just like the doctor said he might, Justin lays his head down in his arms on Brian?s bed and sleeps, because he can?t possibly begin to deal with anything right now. -- Justin thinks it is God finally punishing him for any of his numerous transgressions since Brian remembers everything up to maybe a month before Lindsay gave birth to Gus. He?s not receptive to Justin, either, not even when Michael tells him over and over about how they?re partners and they live together and no they?re not in Pittsburgh anymore, they?re in New York, because love really is sacrifice and Brian learned that about two months after Justin left a year and a half ago. He thinks the entire thing is a big fucking joke and that it?s Michael and Emmett and Ted joshing with him about how he?s going to turn thirty in just a few short months and will be too old to remember anything. He asks Justin how much they?re paying him to play the part of his concerned lover. ?It?s very likely that this is just temporary,? the doctor tells him firmly when Justin starts to have a panic attack in the hallway. Michael can?t get through to Brian at all, because Brian won?t even entertain the slightest possibility that they?re telling the truth. ?Head trauma like this sometimes causes slight amnesia, but the idea of it being permanent, especially in Brian?s case, is far-fetched. You?ll just have to wait it out, but in the meantime, you might try jogging his memory.? Justin thinks of when Daphne and Brian rolled up the rug in the loft and they danced haltingly around in the bright summer sunlight, and of when Brian took him to the parking garage, and Gus?s first birthday party. He thanks the doctor, takes a few deep breaths, and goes back to their apartment to root through the photo drawer. Brian never condoned having a photo album ? that was just too breeder for him. He rarely took pictures himself of events, occasions, or even anything; photography was, for him, always a work-related activity and never something he would do just for the hell of it. But when Linds and Mel or Michael snap photos, they always send copies, because they know Justin cares about those sentimental things even if Brian doesn?t. Justin keeps them all in a drawer in his desk that Brian knows about but doesn?t really touch or go near. He takes the most prominent ones he can find with shaking hands and grainy eyes, of the two of them, of their family, a few of himself, several of Gus. He shoves them in his messenger bag and goes back to the hospital, where Michael is sitting beside Brian?s bed and is giving him a timeline of the past six years, which Brian is getting very frustrated by. ?I would never fucking do that,? he spits with a violent hand gesture. ?Even if I ignore e...
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