I think the first time I truly realized It... my very first conscious epiphany... was after that moment in the comic shop when Brian brought over a steak to apologize in his own unique way. Of course, I think on some level I'd known, even before that incident, that our relationship was... is... had already changed.
Perhaps the cogs of fate, destiny, kismet, whatever you want to call it, started the day two other men entered our lives. Some people might think they were only Brian's concern, not mine. But then, whatever was Brian's business was my business. What had Ma said to Uncle Vic once? "Whatever affects Michael affects me." Swap my name for Brian's and there you have it. The perfect phrase which described us perfectly. We came together as a pair, or perhaps more precisely, as one being, as BrianAndMikey, like some mythical two-headed space- alien, joined together at the side, unable to tear away from the other without ripping and spilling out all their guts first.
But I'm getting off track.
Maybe It had all begun that strange, wonderful night when Gus was born and Justin had tagged along with Brian and me. Maybe that moment when all three of us were running gleefully down the hospital corridor had cemented something which was meant to be, had inevitably lead us down the primrose path that we are now today. Or maybe inevitability had only occurred somewhere later down the road. Maybe during that time when I'd tried pushing the boundaries in a cramped toilet in Babylon before backing away in cowardice, blaming it on the drugs. Perhaps It'd happened the moment Brian had fucked Justin in my room. Had desecrated something sacred that I held dear, something which was supposed to belong only to us. To BrianAndMikey. He'd enacted out a fantasy that was supposed to be mine. Had It happened then? When I'd yelled at him and he'd said nothing in return? Or maybe It'd happened during ...
I don't know.
Maybe It'd happened during all of those times, and I just hadn't noticed, had deliberately chosen to close one eye and ignore the sluggish unraveling of the cords which had begun to stretch and pull taut between us. Until finally the truth had struck me and I saw It in the aftermath. It hadn't happened when Brian punched me. It wasn't the violence that did It. As I said, It had happened during the aftermath.
What had that blond actress from one of those episodes in Star Trek Voyager said? "Have you ever ended a marriage? If you did, you'd know it was a quiet thing." Something like that. Or close to it. Maybe it was some other line completely. In any case, It had happened like that. Quietly. No melodramatics. Not to my recollection anyway.
That night when Brian tried to placate me with his bloody present, he'd told me it was my mother's heart. It hadn't exactly happened then either. It was afterwards, when he'd left, sometime during that short hour where I sat there in the dim stillness of the shop, and stared at the box. Just sitting at the counter and staring at the way the redness slowly seeped through the rest of the covering. Watching at the way tiny crimson streaks gradually crept upon the pristine whiteness of the cardboard. What had I said to Brian? "It's dripping blood."
And then was the moment I knew.
That was the moment that I realized It. That was the beginning of the end. The moment I really figured out that my fantasy had disappeared. The invisible cords that once bound us together as one being had snapped, as quickly and suddenly, and in the end, as inexplicably as the day I'd met him and fate had tied us together in a flight of whimsy. That was the moment I saw the death of BrianAndMikey, the sign which signaled the collapse of a tiny, exclusive internal world that used to revolve around the two of us. It was strange. I had expected something... I dunno, more dramatic I guess. Like the earth should have suddenly dropped out of orbit or something. Like somebody out there in the vast infiniteness of space should have said "I feel a disturbance in the force, Luke. As if thousands of lives were being destroyed, and then nothing".
But it didn't. Not that I know of anyway. And even if someone had said that, it wasn't thousands of lives. Just one.
Hmm.. sorry... what did you say? How, exactly, did I come to my epiphany? How did I get from watching a bloody steak to realizing I would never work out with the object of my decade-long desire? It's going to sound like a fucking cliché, I know, but it was the moment I realized Brian had told the truth. He had handed me a heart. Except it wasn't my mother's. It was my own. And it was then that I realized he'd finally murdered BrianAndMikey, ripped out the beast's bloody core and returned the prize back to me. I guess it's a good thing he did it because I don't think I would have had the courage to do it myself.
Later that night I'd gone home and asked Ben to cook it for me. It tasted good, and I felt warm as part of my heart returned back to the place it belonged. Inside me. That tiny ache, that little empty void inside of me, which had been dug out and lost when I'd met Brian Kinney so many years ago, was filled again. I was whole again, my own person. And I smiled when Ben softly kissed my shoulder when we were in bed that night and he asked what I was thinking about.
"Nothing. "
Ben had frowned then, his perfect brows furrowing in confusion. Incomprehension was an adorable expression on him, and I touched his cheek softly, fingers slowly trailing down the side of his face. He raised his hand to do the same, and his own fingers lightly traced the bruise near my eye, gently, ever so gently, touching the sensitive skin. "Does it hurt?" he asked, lips wincing at asking what seemed like an obvious question.
I smiled again.
"It doesn't. Nothing he does will ever hurt me anymore."
Because BrianAndMikey is finally dead. Dreamily, I moved closer and clutched him towards me, cutting off any further attempts at conversation, luxuriating in the comforting warmth of his strong body, softly placing my head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart beat. I felt tired but happy. My eyes closed as I listened, lulled to rest by the sound of his heart.
Just before I fell asleep, I could have sworn I heard the sound of my own, beating together in time with his.
And I smiled.