Pink Triangle
Author:  yoursweater
Written for fanfic100.

FANDOM: Queer as Folk
CHARACTERS: Brian Kinney, Lindsay Peterson, Gus & Justin Taylor
PROMPT: Family
WORD COUNT: 2,788
RATING: PG-13
SUMMARY: Lindsay has a breakdown in the middle of the night, when Gus is twenty and Melanie has taken Jenny Rebecca to stay at a not so nearby motel -- the second act to yet another round of breaking up.

Author’s Note: And now it’s time for me to write everything that’s been stuck in my head since November 1st.



Lindsay has a breakdown in the middle of the night, when Gus is twenty and Melanie has taken Jenny Rebecca to stay at a not so nearby motel -- the second act to yet another round of breaking up.

“Oh God, Brian. I’m going fucking crazy!” She sobs, her voice distorted through lips pressed against the receiver of the phone. “What’s wrong with me?”

Blinking, his eyes bleary, Justin listens for another second, maybe more, before he falls back against the mattress and only half rolls over, awkwardly elbowing the middle of Brian’s back. He feels the bumps of Brian’s spine pressing against his elbow, but a mere grunt is the only noise that even hints at Brian waking up.

“Hey. She’s freaking out again.” Justin whispers, trying to explain as he leans over the bare skin of Brian’s warm shoulder. He drops the phone in front of Brian’s nose, and even as it bounces over the mattress, they can both hear Lindsay’s voice pouring from the small speaker. It sounds as though she’s a song playing through a bass-less car radio.

Brian cracks one eye open and huffs, reaching for the phone as he pushes himself up, until he’s sitting properly, both feet on the cold wax-sticky floor.

A few murmured words and then impending doom is diverted, so he rolls over and attempts another round of sleep.


…


Fifteen minutes later, Brian pulls up in front of the Munchers’ Mansion.

Yes, a short story shorter, once Pittsburgh legalized the whole dyke-on-dyke marriage scenario, they had been back in like, three hours. Almost as quickly as they had disappeared over the border, at least.

So Brian’s climbing out of the car just as Gus pulls up in his own, defiantly looking less panicked than when the same scene had played out almost four and a half weeks ago.

“Fear not, sonny boy.” Brian sing-songs, throwing one of his arms around Gus’ shoulders as they walk up the front path of the house, steps accidentally identical. “You still have a sane father.”

Gus laughs and ducks out from under his father’s arm, steps turning to a jog as he approaches the bright red front door, an Emmett Original.


…


Inside, Lindsay has crawled between the couch and an armchair that was a present to both her and Melanie almost eight years ago. It takes Gus and Brian damn near ten minutes to find her, but they do, and her hands are pressed over her face as she breathes quickly, three steps away from hyperventilating.

“What the fuck happened now?” Brian asks, but it sounds more of an accusation as he crouches down beside the green arm chair. His hands hang in front of his knees, fingers cold from the midnight air.

Lindsay looks up at him with tears in her eyes and manages to sob, voice breaking, “I was doing the laundry, and, and, and I found one of her socks stuck to the leg of my jeans!”

“Mom? It’s me, Gus…” Gus calls from the other side of the couch, where he stands with both of his arms stretched out, fingers wiggling.

Brian gapes, sneers, “She’s not suffering from a bout of memory loss, Gus.”

“Brian!” Lindsay cries through a sudden breakdown of laughter, trying to paw at his hands as Gus drops his arms and looks perfectly put out -- an expression that Brian’s fucking sure Justin taught him when he was just a toddler.

Brian turns back to Lindsay, “Listen. I have a fucking flight in exactly five hours. So get up.”


…


His supposedly better half appears half an hour later with a latte in each hand.

“Linds, I got you a chocolate mocha…” He calls, voice trailing off as he sets the cardboard cup down on the kitchen counter, on top of recently refinished tiles.

From the other room, he hears Brian, “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what she needs. Caffeine!”

“It’s decaf, darling!” Justin replies, voice clear, and Gus makes a sour face at him from where he’s balancing on a stool on the other side of the counter. Laughing, Justin shakes his head and tries to peel the lid off of his own drink without burning his fingers.

Gus reaches across the tiled surface and breaks a corner off of a cookie that he knows Justin bought for him anyway, and manages to pop it into his mouth just as Brian and Lindsay are walking through the kitchen door, his arm around her shaking shoulders.

“I’m not going through a mid-life crisis already, am I?” She asks the three of them, her eyes wide and lips red like her hot to the touch cheeks.

Immediately both Justin and Gus shake their heads ‘no’, just as Brian answers, “Probably.”

“Fuck you!” Lindsay squawks, elbowing Brian in the side. He starts to laugh, lips and teeth and personality crooked, as she pushes away from his body and moves to the kitchen table instead. She eyes the latte Justin is still wrestling with and asks, “Did you put vanilla in it?”

Justin nods and hands the cup over the counter to Gus, who carefully sets it down on the table in front of his mother. He answers, “Of course. And skim milk.”

“Maybe you should marry him next, Linds.” Brian smirks, body dropping into the chair opposite Lindsay’s, his legs stretching out across the terra cotta floor. “You could finally be the man in the relationship.”

Justin aims a perfectly innocent palm to the back of Brian’s head as he passes by, and slaps.


…


“So… you don’t think she’s suicidal or anything, do you?” Gus asks, after Lindsay has fallen asleep (read: passed out) on the couch, and Justin has yelled at Brian for slipping some (read: enough) Jim Beam into her latte when no one was looking.

Brian shakes his head, but Justin still sees the half-second of worry flicker over his features.

“Your mother will outlast us all.” He answers, then, voice tight, “They always do.”

At the pseudo reference to the ancient history of the ongoing Kinney family saga, Justin reaches across the table for the bottle of JB and pours and inch in the foamy bottom of his Starbucks cup. Kinda gross, but also, kinda necessary.

Before it gets to his mouth, however, Brian intercepts it like he never has to a football, and throws the drink back. Justin scowls.

“Hey Gus, you don’t think your father’s an alcoholic or anything, do you?” He asks, voice light and bordering on teasing as he reaches back across the table and snatches the cup away from Brian, who’s almost wincing at the burn in his throat. Justin thinks it’s probably just for show, though, the big fucking drama queen.

Gus laughs, and in that second, twenty years flicker over what had once been the blue in Justin’s eyes. He sees himself in the bottom of the cup as he pours another shot, and this version of his own body is young. Young and fucking invincible.


…


Lindsay stumbles back into the kitchen forty five minutes later, one side of her face red and dented with pattern of the couch fabric, her hair prickled with static. She falls into the chair that sits between Brian and Gus, both pink-cheeked from the alcohol in their systems as they sit crookedly in their wooden chairs.

“Where’d that come from?” She asks, eyeing the bottle of JB that Brian’s clutching, albeit a little possessively. Justin begins to wait for his knuckles to turn white around the neck of the bottle.

But Brian only smiles and tips the bottle forward like a baton, answers, “Why, from under your sink, of course!”

They all wait for a silent moment, watching as a reply begins to form on the tip of Lindsay’s tongue. After a half second it dies, and before the words are even out she forms new ones to say. She reaches for the bottle and grumbles, “Gus, get mommy a glass.”

While Gus starts to get up and out of the chair to grab a glass, Brian hides a smirk behind a hand while Justin tries not to cover his face and just slide under the rickety ‘antique’ table.

Gus comes back with a plastic cup from Disneyland, circa fall of 2005. The face is covered in a faded army of Disney characters, Mickey Mouse all black ears and huge yellow shoes. He sets the object in front of his mother carefully.

Honestly Brian kinda just wanted to watch her drink straight from the bottle.

“Remember when you were a baby, Gus?” Lindsay asks suddenly, patting down the hair on the back of her head with one trembling hand as she pours herself a generous helping of alcohol with the other.

Gus frowns and shakes his head, manages a, “Uh… not… really…”

“If we’re going to sit here and reminisce, I’m going the fuck home.” Brian interrupts, already starting to get up out of his chair. Justin looks up and blinks slowly, eyes perfectly bleary with forgotten sleep. An argument begins to form in his head, and he tries to ready himself to just complain his way into crashing on the Munchers’ living room couch.

Quite frankly, the fifteen minutes that separates here and their house are just too fucking far away right now.

“Fuck! You’re leaving me, too?” Lindsay asks, her voice taking on the distinct whine of a person with far too much alcohol in their system. Justin cringes, ready to cover his ears and hide.

He’s never been very good at calling dykes out of trees.

“Oh for Christ’s sake.” Brian grumbles, but sits back down.


…


Justin shuffles away at some point and falls asleep on the living room couch after realizing he probably should have had caffeine in his supposed-to-be-caffeine-in-the-first-place drink.

“Mom, you really should try to get some sleep tonight.” Gus tries, still in the kitchen as he forces back his own yawn. He looks at the microwave’s digital clock with sleepy eyes, then over at his father, still in the kitchen chair that he’s been in since he arrived -- only now he sits, completely passed out, the near empty bottle still clutched in one hand.

Across from Brian, Lindsay is propped up on one hand, one hand that’s stretching half of her face to ungodly proportions, and it’s around that time that Gus begins to wonder why you can’t just pick the damned family you’re born into.

“Dad!” He shouts, throwing the once-latte-now-makeshift-shot-glass across the table. It conks Brian on the corner of the forehead and bounces off, and once it lands, rolls across the kitchen floor. Brian doesn’t even blink. “…Dad? Dad!”

Gus rests his forehead against his mother’s messy hair, groaning when he realizes that if he moves, she’ll fall to the side and inevitably end up in a pile on the floor, much like the cup.

Struggling to look over his shoulder, Gus manages to arch his neck just enough to see into the living room -- where Justin is asleep on the couch, his body half on and half off of the cushions.

Vaguely, Gus remembers when he was a child and would find Justin on their couch in the morning for no reason at all, his blue eyes bleary and nose stuffed. Gus would wake him up with fingers poked against closed eyelids, and tiny palms pressing against cold cheeks.

“Okay, mom.” He tries, shaking his head as he bends down to slide an arm around her shoulders. And, like he expected, as soon as his grip loosens, her body begins to sway and drift to the side. “Come on. Bedtime.”


…


Eventually he manages to walk his mother into the living room.

He takes inventory of Justin’s body, and realizes that one of his legs and half of his body are already on the carefully carpeted floor. Figuring the damage has already been done, Gus manages to balance his mother with both hands on her shoulders as he uses his foot to prod Justin’s body around. Gravity takes hold a few seconds later, and he gracelessly rolls from the couch and onto the floor.

Justin lands on the ground with a solid thump and groans, but doesn’t wake up.

Gus manages to get Lindsay half onto the couch before he just lets go and her body pitches forward. She manages to launch herself the rest of the way, ending up in an awkward position against the couch cushions, but Gus figures the damage has already been done with the hangover he knows she’ll have in the morning.

He throws the closest blanket-esque thing he finds over her body and leaves her, dangerously close to rolling off the couch and on top of Justin, and starts to look for his keys.

Gus knows that his father is a seasoned veteran at keeping himself upright in chairs while drunk or high, or whatever else he never really wanted to know about his father’s past but was at some point told anyways.


…


“Fuck.” He groans, shifting around, body uncomfortable. He feels rough carpet against the side of his face, and a soft hand pressing against his back. Using one elbow, he manages to roll himself over and onto one side, and only then does he dare open his eyes.

The first thing he focuses in on is Brian, standing across the room from him, propped up in the doorway of what he realizes is the Munchers’ living room. Only he’s got his eyes closed, and he’s leaning against the frame, body heavy and wobbling slightly, like a strong wind is blowing by. And Justin doesn’t exactly know for sure, but he’s pretty fucking confident that the Lesbians don’t own any windy things.

“Brian?” He tries to call, but his voice comes out all scratchy and rough. Justin groans again, not bothering to notice how one of Brian’s eyebrows lazily arches up, the only part of his heavy body that responds. Moaning, Justin pushes his body the rest of the way up, and barely manages to catch Lindsay as she comes close to rolling right off of the couch and on top of him. “Fuck!”


…


He manages to scrawl a note and drop it on the kitchen table before he leaves, one arm slung around Brian’s waist, the same waist that is as wobbly as the rest of him. Justin closes the front door behind them both and then makes sure it locks. Tries to lead Brian down the pathway, and towards one of the two cars that they ended up arriving in.

“Fuck. Brian. We’re going to miss our flight.” He tries to explain, gently slapping the side of Brian’s face with his fingers. Brian opens his eyes, but Justin knows he’s still completely asleep. “Brian! Wake up!”

He doesn’t wake up, instead choosing to stumble down the steps and grab a handful of Justin’s ass on his way to the ground. Brian lands on his knees before rolling to the side, and Justin can’t help but think, how appropriate.


…


When Lindsay wakes up, it’s dark outside and she doesn’t exactly remember the last twenty hours, give or take a few.

Exhaling, she pushes herself upright and blinks slowly, trying to piece everything together.

She finds two notes once she manages to venture from the couch. One is ripped from the newspaper and scrawled over the obituary listings like a ransom note, says, Mom -- If you need anything, call me -- Love Gus.

The second is scribbled on the back of a Starbucks receipt, and it’s wobbly in a few places, but no more true to character than she could imagine. Flight was at 10:05, it says, We’ll call you when we land. Hope you feel better, J.

And sure enough, when she checks the answering machine, there is one new message.

“I figured you’d be asleep. I left you a note, but just in case… We just got back into Manhattan. The taxi Brian reserved didn’t show and a piece of luggage is missing, but we arrived in one piece. I hope you feel better, Linds, and I’ll see you next month for the gallery opening. Brian will too, and--“

From a distance, a distinctive voice calling, “Fuck you, don’t rope me into anything!”

“Would you shut up? There’s a fucking kid standing right there. Christ, Brian!” A string of words hissed, before a purposely cheery, “Call me when you wake up, Brian sends his love -- all of it! Bye!”

Lindsay smiles. She manages to forget about how heavy her head feels, and it’s for just one second, but right now, one second is all that she needs.