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| basements. PART: 25/25 PAIRING: Brian/Justin RATING/TIMELINE: R/Alternate Universe ARCHIVE: Ridiculously & QAFVault.com LJ ARCHIVE: LJ Memories SUMMARY: He never expected college to be like this. (Go back to Chapter 24) Author's Note: Here it is. I want to thank you guys for reviewing every chapter, it seriously made writing it so much more fun. And I decided that there won't be an epilogue. I started one, and I got three paragraphs in before I realized there wasn't anything else to say. I'm happy with the way this ended, and I hope you guys will be too. That said, enjoy!  chapter twenty-five: the beginning. Justin takes three extra shifts to fill his days up. He sits in the typically uncomfortable hospital chair for three days straight, never moving, rarely blinking, barely breathing. He doesn’t know what to say when Greig’s parents come in, both teary-eyed and wanting to know the latest. Helena has to introduce herself as Greig’s friend because they’d never even been introduced before, had no idea they’d had a shotgun wedding. That’s when Brian starts trying to hide in the red vinyl of his chair, trying to disappear into it like magic. They leave after getting the latest update, though, and go back to their thousand dollar a night hotel, two blocks away just in case anything happens. In case anything changes. In case anyone dies. “I don’t know what to do.” Helena whispers to him one night, when their eyes are blurry and both of their mouths are dry. “If something happens to him, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Brian nods, and knows exactly how she feels. “You need to phone me. Right now. Fuck you, Justin, where are you? Have you talked to Brian yet?” Justin listens to the short message eight times, trying to pick Lola’s voice to pieces so he can see if he can hear what might be wrong. Maybe the movie got canned out of spite thanks to Liam. Maybe Brian left again, and ended up in some gross prostitution ring three miles west. It’d be a step up. On the ninth, he phones her. “Have you talked to Brian yet?” She asks, not bothering with hellos, and her voice is kind of shaky and the complete opposite of everything Justin knows her as. That’s when his stomach starts to hurt. Justin shakes his head, then remembers that she can’t see him. “What happened?” He finally manages to ask, his voice already starting to waver. She’s silent for a second, and Justin knows that she’s trying to piece her words together, to use some tact and all those other things that she never does. “I got a call from Oliver this morning.” She starts. “Brian hasn’t been at Astoria for four days, and he was wondering if you’d heard from him yet.” “Should I have?” He asks, voice soft. Lola exhales and now she’s fighting tears, too. “Greig was in an accident.” She whispers, and a chill goes up Justin’s spine, his throat starts to tighten and his eyebrows knot. He pauses, then, “Is he okay?” She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t say anything for too many seconds, for too many thumps of Justin’s heart. “He’s going to be okay, right?” Her voice is teary as she says, “They don’t know yet.” He finally goes home after five nights spent at the hospital, his body on autopilot as he’d moved out of the plastic chair, softly demanding that they phoned him if anything – anything – changed. If he lives. If he dies. If he falls into a worse coma than the one he’s in now. If they have to decide whether to pull the plug or not. The apartment is empty and cold, and he almost cries at the leftover pizza box on the living room table, not touched since Greig took the last piece. Brian walks into his bedroom, and slides between the sheets of his bed fully clothed. The knocking starts fifteen minutes after he gets home. He doesn’t hear it until the sound gets frantic, louder, and then the neighbor starts to bang on the wall that connects his apartment to the next. That’s when he jumps, startled by the noise that seems to come too suddenly. So he crawls out of bed and shuffles through the dead air of the apartment, keeping his eyes down, trying not to look at anything that may jump out at him from the shadows of yesterday. And when he gets to the front door, he isn’t surprised. Justin stands in the hallway, eyes red and puffy, but nothing compared to Brian’s. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t force a single fake word. He stands there, though, hands in his pockets and hair messy from running fingers through it too many times. It’s only a split second but it’s there, and then Justin is stepping forward and his arms are going around Brian’s warm sides as Brian’s go around his shoulders, hugging him too close, too tight, too needy to feel something real that won’t be taken away from him. They stay in Brian’s bed all night, pale arms wrapped around a narrow torso as Brian holds a damp pillow over his face, quietly sobbing into the material, too many emotions from too many days pouring out before he can stop them. First comes the sadness, full of swollen cheeks and puffy eyes, and then the anger. Justin lays on the bed and watches the ceiling because it doesn’t move, never moves, even as Brian throws his pillow against the floor, picks it back up again and then smashes it over the top of the night stand with a frustrated shout. The dresser comes next, and he throws each object off of it against the wall, until the ground is covered with splinters and shards of glass, and Justin knows that Brian’s bare feet are bleeding. And when he’s done, he doesn’t feel any better. But he crawls back into the bed anyways and lays down next to Justin’s body, drained and weak and full of everything that he never was. The next day they go to the hospital together, insomnia sketched gray over both of their faces. Everything is forgotten except for the waiting room – the arguments and the fights, and the everything else. The world is forgotten, because nothing really matters, too bad that it was something like this that made them both realize. Brian sits in the same red chair, Helena next to him with Justin on his other side, body shifting back and forth in an orange one. He finds himself gripping Justin’s fingers, his own tightening whenever a doctor in a white jacket walks by, on his way to a coffee break. The blond squeezes back, pulls the knot of hands into his own lap and tries to breathe. Their bones ache and Brian’s back feels twisted, but they all play the waiting game just like everyone else, pacing bets and putting poker faces on for when that moment comes, the moment where they’ll all know, and everything will be over. Greig is given back his life that afternoon, and Brian will remember the numbers 3:22 forever after this day. The doctor says that he came out of the coma, has some broken limbs but he’ll be fine, and Brian can finally breathe properly for the first time in weeks, like someone had their hands tightened around his lungs and just now let go. It’s when Helena goes into the small recovery room to see Greig that Justin wraps his arms around Brian’s middle and fights the fight between laughing and crying, the overdrive of emotions in him not knowing how to pour out. Brian doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t look frozen anymore. The palms of his hands are no longer numb, and the roots of his teeth don’t ache. So while Justin takes Helena down to the cafeteria to get a bucket of crushed ice, Brian slips into the room, smelling like bleach and blood, face still stained and hair still unwashed, still everything he never thought he’d be. Greig’s blinking slowly and the tubes running in and out of his body make Brian nervous, but the door still clicks closed behind him, and he still feels his legs walking him over to the side of the bed. “You fucking asshole.” Brian breathes, and all of the air that he’s ever held inside of his lungs comes out at once, this big whoosh that he’s waited for his whole life. In the bed, Greig wheezes like he’s ninety years older, and it’s barely a laugh, but he’s still alive. He crawls onto the plastic mattress next to Greig’s weary body, pretends that he doesn’t see the IVs and the everything else, because all that is okay – Greig’s here and he’s breathing, and he isn’t well but he’s alive. And Brian, Brian might be okay now. Wrapping one arm around Greig’s waist the best he can, he rests his head on his friend’s narrow shoulder, and it feels thinner than it ever has, but he closes his eyes, and he breathes in the smell of life and death. They stand at the entrance of the hospital, cigarettes in both of their mouths. Brian looks more relaxed than he’s been in days, but he’s still wound up inside, the thoughts floating through his head aren’t so quiet anymore, and they haven’t quite left yet. The feeling of insecurity, that’s what it is, but Brian’s never liked that word, so he berates himself for using it. He shifts from foot to foot and takes another drag, letting the feel of the thick smoke work it’s way down through his lungs, and out of his skin. “For what it’s worth…” Justin tries, but his words end up trailing off. Brian looks at him and shakes his head, says ‘no’ without saying anything at all. Wraps his arms around Justin’s shoulders, and takes one more drag. It always seems like one more drag is all he needs. Greig’s bruises start to fade, and so does time. Classes end and the air turns hot and thick with summer, leaving Justin to drop one shift at work and trade off another so he can cope with everything as it changes around him, morphing like a character stuck in a typical science fiction novel. He runs into Liam one day, and maybe it’s by accident, but also maybe not. They talk outside of the art building and murmur between each other for a while, words quieter than they’ve been in a long time, maybe ever, because Justin’s a little more subdued and Liam’s a little more okay with the situation. The blond tells Liam about Greig, who the ex remembers from the parties and the premieres and the everything elses, and Liam tells Justin that the movie will probably be making festival circuits this fall. And they part after that, with a half-hug and forced smiles worthy of the past. Justin watches Liam walk down the sidewalk, towards the student parking lot where whatever is in store for him waits. Liam waves once more when the car door is closed and the window is down, and after that, Justin turns, and he goes the other way. Astoria closes down because of renovations for a week and a half, which leaves Brian to his couch and his own devices – devices that translate into mostly just smoking pot all day and listening to Greig’s hourly phone calls, complaints about the physio that the doctors are making him do. He hangs up and every time he feels okay, the summer sun streams through his window and reminds him of other seasons that were much like this that just didn’t feel the same. The front door opens around noon, and the smell of greasy food drifts from the kitchen to the living room, making Brian take his attention from of the incestuous talk show just long enough to glance over his shoulder. Once he surveys the heavy duty brown bags, done up with staples that look industrial sized, he’s silent, listening to the southern screaming as it comes from the television, listening to the tenant above him banging around, listening to the dishes clinking together in the kitchen. He flips the channel and lands on something that reminds him of not too long ago, a time that was maybe weeks or months before this day that had him sitting on the same couch, but somehow, now it seems like forever ago. Then Justin’s standing beside him, setting two plates full of heart attack down on the coffee table, a silent apology for all the nights that he could have been here without the baggage on his back. He asks, voice quiet, “Isn’t it the one where the guy dies in the end?” Brian nods, attention never wavering from the screen, not watching as Justin sits down next to him, a small body on a second hand couch. “Yeah.” He whispers, finally, nodding for confirmation. “It is.” The blond reaches forward and picks the pack of cigarettes up off of the table, then leans back into the couch and pulls a cigarette out with only one hand. He relaxes into Brian’s side and kisses the side of his head, lips pressing just under his ear. And while he lights up his cigarette and tosses the carton back onto the table, Brian reaches forward and picks up both of the plates, handing one to Justin as they watch the final scene of a movie they’ve both seen before. |