Pairing: B/J, B/Other
Rating: NC-17
Category: Angst, Drama
Archive: Across the Pond--anyone else ask please
Summary: Brian works through the events of Ep 104
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone, much less these fine characters. I refuse to make any money off them in any event, so please don't sue me.
Notes: Thank you to Kimdy for keeping me from being lazy about making this right (and for dragging me into this fandom squealing and whooping for joy), and to Cori for the reassurance. :-)
Spoilers: If you haven't seen Episode 104, the story is one big spoiler, and it might not make much sense if you haven't seen it anyway...



Alive
by Nicole D'Annais
Copyright 2000



I woke up with two things on my mind--going to see Ted, and forgetting all about Saturday night. Not that Saturday night was bad. No, Saturday night was too, too good. That was the problem.

Ted. Ted, lying in the hospital, unconscious. I had to focus on that. Then the rest would go away.

Breakfast was quiet. The diner was as loud as usual, but our table was dead. Poor word choice, but that's what it was like. Which was fine. At least then nobody was talking about the weekend.

"Would somebody please say something?"

Michael started in about Saturday night and his perfect score who turned out not to be so perfect. Followed, of course, by Emmett's story, which, at least, was mildly interesting, if only because it involved leather.

Before anyone could expect me to tell my conquest story, I followed Emmett's undertaker thread. For a brief second, I thought I was safe.

"What about you, Brian? What'd you do?"

Thanks, Emmett. Assorted memories from Saturday night ran through my mind like a video, but I managed to ditch them and remain casual. "I made it an early evening." Not entirely a lie; I did go home early for me. I just neglected to mention I had company. Nobody questioned me, and Emmett started babbling until Debbie stopped by and reminded us it was time to go to the hospital.

I'm not saying I was relieved Ted was in a coma. But it was a convenient way to get everyone onto something else before someone decided to question my Saturday night story. They knew I never went home early on a Saturday.

At least not alone.

***

I love my job. Figuring out the best way to manipulate people into buying what we tell them to buy, putting together a campaign, selling it to the client, seeing it on billboards, hearing it on the radio, catching it on TV--there is no better job than advertising. When I'm at work, I'm completely focused--either on my job, or on a different kind of score. But usually the job, despite what some of my coworkers might say.

Today...I couldn't concentrate for shit. I stared at the paper in front of me, unable to make sense of any of the copy on it. Finally I threw it down in disgust. This was the worst day of my life. I was allowed to have a lapse in concentration.

"Excuse me for barging in."

No, *now* this was the worst day of my life.

Melanie annoyed me for a few seconds before she dropped the bomb. Ted wanted me to decide to pull the plug.

What the fuck?

***

The sauna didn't help. Maybe it was because I felt the weight of Ted's life hanging around my shoulders. Add in the 'sympathetic' looks from my friends, and the sauna was only making things worse. So I took off in search of something else to distract me.

I ended up at Lindsay's. Okay, fine, Lindsay and Melanie's. I could see Gus, and maybe that would distract me. But no sooner did I show up and take him from her when Melanie came down the stairs and ruined it. Then I knew why I'd really gone there.

"I don't give a shit what Ted wants, I'm not doing it, you understand?" But no matter what I said, they wouldn't listen. Melanie finally let loose on me and I had to get out of there before I hit her. Lindsay would kill me for that.

Distraction. I needed something to take me out of myself. And I knew the perfect thing. The perfect club. Not one man. Not even two. Three--thatmight do it. But we'd only barely gotten started before I realized not only was it not helping, it was just...wrong. It made me ill.

So I left.

***

I went home and took a long shower. Apparently not long enough, or I would have missed Lindsay's visit. She knows me, and dyke or not, she doesn't have the decency to be male enough to hide it. I hate that.

I still don't know what made me ask her. I hadn't even thought about it, but suddenly the question just popped out. "What about us? We don't have any beeps or wires or little white dots telling us we're alive. So how do we know? I guess we just take each other's word?" It didn't sound right to me.

She said Gus made her feel alive. I'd tried that. I cared about the kid. But holding him that afternoon hadn't made me feel any more alive. It should have. I mean, I'm a part of him, biologically. It should have made me realize I'm really here. But it hadn't.

Ted. She thought the fact that Ted needed me would make me feel alive the way Gus needing her did. Of course, she was also sure I'd do the right thing, so I'd say she was not on her Brian-predicting game for the day.

She left, and I wandered around my apartment with no idea how to fix whatever had broken inside me. I wanted to go back to the way I'd been last week. No worries beyond the next campaign and the next fuck.

And Ted was holding me back.

Fine, then. Time to cut out the cancer eating at my psyche.

I got dressed and headed to the hospital.

***

I tried. I ranted quietly at him. I called him names. When that didn't work, I told him he should die more often. But still I felt nothing. Except a hand on my shoulder.

Well, if berating Ted hadn't worked, I'd try the sex thing again. It usually worked. Maybe I just needed to throw myself into it more enthusiastically.

But when it was over, I felt nothing except for tiredness as I got dressed. Then I heard a cough. I looked at the door, realized no one was there, and looked at the bed.

And then I felt something. Relief.

But I still didn't feel alive.

***

The doctor had just decided Ted was going to pull through when my cell phone rang. I ignored the nasty looks from the medical staff and answered, ready to tell Michael the good news. Only he didn't want to listen. "Your older baby is here pestering my Mom. Get over here. Now!" He hung up before I could say a word.

So I hurried over there to tell them the news. And, I suppose, to get Justin out of there. It would be easy. I'd be rude and cold to him, and he'd be hurt, but he'd go home and leave us alone. Then everything could go back to the way it was. It was what I should've done Saturday night instead of taking him home with me.

He was upstairs, waiting for me. In Michael's room. The boy definitely has balls. Quite nice ones, actually. I expected him to threaten or sweet-talk me. I didn't expect a direct assault. In my own defense, I did push him away. Twice. Right before I attacked him. I don't know why--it's not as if sex had helped any other time that day. He kissed me back once, twice, and I could feel my pulse throbbing in my lips as he ran his chin down my chest.

My pulse.

I dragged him back up to kiss him again, and I could feel my pulse throughout my entire body. I could have traced my bloodstream at that point, and I wanted to drown in him. I'd never wanted to drown in anyone or anything before, but right then I would gladly have jumped inside him to keep that feeling. It was like as long as I was in him, I wasn't inside myself.

He's certainly not the most experienced partner I've ever had. But when he sucked me off it was like he sucked half the life out of me. But he left half of it behind, and that's more than I'd had for days.

We helped each other get dressed as I told him he was going home and he wasn't going to argue about it. Of course, he argued, but eventually he gave in. With a condition, of course. "Only if I can see you again."

"Fine. Whatever. Now go," I ordered, swatting him on the ass and shoving him toward the door. It wasn't as if I had to keep my word--everyone knows I'm not good for it. It would make him go home, and that was what mattered. I wouldn't have to see him again.

I almost believed it.

***

We went downstairs, and he argued with Debbie once more about going home. She gave him hell. He looked at me, and I shook my head. That must have done it, because he slumped down in the chair and finally appeared to be resigned to his fate. It wasn't until Vic teased the kid that looked up at Michael and realized something was wrong.

Justin distracted me again with his goodbye. I noticed red marks on his cheeks and chin as he walked by; apparently I needed to shave. Then again, the marks looked good on him, so maybe not. I watched him walk away until Michael dragged my attention back to him again.

"Do you have anything to say?"

Fuck. He knew. "No." He wouldn't call me on it. Not Michael.

"Well I do. You can fuck him at your place, you can fuck him in his gym class, you can fuck him at the zoo. But you cannot fuck him in my mother's house--in my room!"

Or maybe he would. Shit. I shook my head after he left. He'd get over it. He always did. Things would be back to normal by tomorrow. We'd all had a rough couple of days.

But Ted was alive. And I was alive.

For the moment, nothing else mattered.

***

I was right, of course. The next morning, Mikey was prepared to forget all about it. He didn't even mention Justin for the next few days, and I certainly didn't bring him up. It's not as if we'd run into him, since he rarely showed his face on Liberty Street during the week, and he had probably been grounded the second he'd walked into his house.

Grounded. Christ, what the hell is wrong with me? He's seventeen. I don't care what the law says about consent, he's seventeen.

And I don't care what the law says.

I stopped thinking about it when we picked up Ted at the hospital. We all teased him and kept him from feeling like a total dick, or at least tried to, all the way back to his condo. He disappeared into his room, followed by Michael. I left them alone for all of a minute before I went after them. Michael had told me about the pictures, and Mikey being Mikey, I had a feeling he would try to make it better somehow. And most likely end up making it worse.

Sure enough, when I got near the door, I could hear him stuttering his way through a botched attempt to mention the pictures without mentioning the pictures. Time for Brian to the rescue.

I got him out of there, and turned to leave, but if Ted couldn't tell Michael how he really felt, apparently he was going to tell me. So I asked him for the truth. Why me?

Like everyone else, he told me the others couldn't do it. That wasn't a surprise. But the rest was, somehow. "You're a heartless shit. You could pull the plug and you wouldn't cry. And you'd know when it's time to go."

He left the room, but I sat there, a little stunned. I did have a heart. I'd felt it jumpstart Monday night, in Michael's old room. It had grown fainter over the past few days, though, as though it needed another charge to keep going. Tomorrow was Friday. Not a school night. Maybe he'd show up.

Fuck! This is ridiculous. Why him? If everyone needed some kind of charge, some kind of proof they're alive, why did mine suddenly have to be a seventeen-year old brat from the suburbs?

Ted's words from moments before came back to me. "I'm in Hell, and this is my punishment."

I should be so lucky.

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END

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