You find Ted staring angrily at his hands in Kinnetik, with Cynthia fawning over him, and you think, not again.

You wait. "Well?"

"Blake left," Ted says tersely.

"Again?"

"Yes, again!"

Where should you start? – Well, the trouble with Ted is:

Is:

You lean close. "Theodore, have some balls. Who was it, then? Another blond twink? A… doctor? No wait, don’t tell me," you say, laughing. "Another patient."

"No, you asshole," Ted hisses between his teeth while Cynthia’s hand smoothes up and down his back. "Another counselor. Dan," he spat.

You remember Gardner, whom you had respected even though no respectable executive would let baldness in before fifty, Gardner and his fucking British histrionics, who once said, "It is a simple matter of what you will do when the chips are down, my friend. When the fat lady is singing." You repeat it.

"What the hell are you talking about, Brian?"

"Look, Theodore, there are other men in Pittsburgh. Most of them don't have a drug habit, make more money and have better hair. Other men. Many, many hypothetical men."

"The 'other dicks in the sea' speech? You must really think I’m an idiot, Brian, a complete idiot, like I wouldn't have thought of that - "

"So he loved you and left you. So you’re sulking at the office when you should be making me money. So you’ve reached the point in your life when people can confidently place you in the over-thirty-five group with a look. I say, fuck him. It’s what you do now that matters."

Quiet, for a long moment. "I suppose you might have a point."

"Of course I do. Am I the only one around here with any emotional stability?"

Ted snorts. "Where’s Justin, anyway? I would’ve thought he’d come home for Christmas at least."

You ignore him. "Get back to work, Theodore."

It's true, what Gardner had said. You remember a night, during the time of the fiddler, before you'd thought to bring the men into the loft, before ah, it is not good enough to go outside, the men should come in, and then you will be clean inside and out together, and he will be gone.

You had stumbled outside from the backroom, the road just in front of you; cars and their red and white lights pass and inside one of the cars there was a woman going home, where you knew she would take her small child in her arms and squeeze him too much because she was tired and could not believe that they were both alive after all these years. You'd thought, I know the exact feeling, before bending over to throw up.

You know that Justin knows that you're crap at emergencies. Maybe that’s why he decided to trade your bullshit, for a while, for the absurdity of flying queers and the spandex bulge.

II.

New Year's Eve is such a miraculous time. You sit with Michael and Hunter while Emmett uses you as guinea pigs for his gay fry-up, and you know that any second now Michael will notice the bruise above Hunter's shoulder. "Well, honey, after what happened with Deb’s last holiday bash I thought I’d better handle it this year – oh, you should really try this," Emmett says as he shovels cheese onto a plate.

"Em, this is great. Really." Michael eats as he has always eaten, his appetite something to wonder at.

"I was expecting Justin to come home for a while over the holidays," he continues. "I really want to talk to him, make sure they get Zephyr’s characterization right, you know?"

You hmm. "The boy's busy."

It happened like this, sometimes, revelation: you can see the precise moment when Mikey's eyes widen in surprise, and then the shock and the anger before the yelling begins. You've seen it often enough directed at you, after all. The scarfing incident comes to mind. At the time, what struck you most was that the apparition was balding slightly, looked like your best friend and was looking at you as if his life was over. This was not the Almighty you had expected. God, you knew, was not concerned.

"I can't believe you've been fighting at school! Do you know how fucking dangerous that is for you?"

Emmett sympathetically demonstrates the wisdom of this in his frying pan, showing how twelve mushrooms could force one mushroom over the edge and on to the floor. "Mitchell Pinkus at school won't believe that they're actually making a movie out of Rage, you know," Hunter says.

"So, what are you going to do about it?"

"Convince him again. After class ends on Friday."

Pinkus. The name makes you think of tied-off shirts, buzzcuts, people who are angry and who would roll out into the poorly lit streets with a gun wrapped in a tight fist. "I'd advise against it, young Novotny-Bruckner," you say lightly.

There are still times when you fantasize about giving your life for him. You pick up the cheese, chew, swallow. "Not bad, Honeycutt," you say, and touch your menu, from which you have the choice of five kinds of mushrooms.

III.

The diner is full, because this was where they all came, New Year’s Eve, happy to take advantage of Deb’s special New Year fry-up: $14.99 for mashed potatoes, beans, two rounds of root beer, a coke and a generous heap of turkey in the burger.

"And what’re you going to be doing tomorrow? Fucking the night away, as usual? Or are you actually going to come to the party?"

"Oh, you know," you say.

"Why hasn’t Sunshine come home for Christmas?" Deb asks again. "Who the hell works through Christmas and New Year, anyway?"

"You did, Ma," you say, taking the burger and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

Down the street from the diner, people pray, rising and falling and rising and falling, and you scoff, but cannot keep the goddamned (ha!) voice from saying: I want that. Just a little.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. But most of the time, he's just a thief in the night. He just taketh away. He just taketh the fuck away. But not tonight, oh, not tonight. You return to the loft and set the alarm for a criminally early time, and wait.

IV.

It is a long drive to the airport under a sky, strong-mooned, early as all fuck, and any minute now Justin Taylor will be descending to earth.

You've thought that maybe, Justin will come back spoiled, will insist on getting a huge car and pulling hard on cigarettes like Bogart or a chauffeur or Bogart’s chauffeur. But you don't really expect it (who says you don't have faith?). But then there he is, and he’s just the same but better, stronger, freer now, standing at the gate and walking toward you until you are forced to acknowledge the blond, relieved fact of Justin in your arms and against your lips. You pull away and look around the room, at the faces of the strangers staring at you, the glares of evangelists and the boy in the corner fanning himself. You tighten your grip on him and touch his ear, so that you are somehow closed, the two of you, barely there, lost in the hubbub of people who cannot know how much beauty has been missing for months.

"Lindsay wanted me to babysit Gus today, you know," you say.

"That must have gone over well."

"Mel called me a bastard, but really, what choice had I but to be myself? I missed you," you announce, before shame could settle in. "I absolutely missed you."

"I thought you didn’t do absolutes," says Justin, grinning.

Then you drive and drive and drive until Justin bugs you into getting lemon bars for him, at which point you stop driving and Justin huddles in his seat to avoid being recognized by seasonal twinks. Then you drive some more, and then there is Justin pressed up against the side of the elevator, Justin inhaling at your throat, Justin moaning when you grind up against him helplessly.

And oh, it is easy and selfish to kiss him and touch him, then kiss and touch lower. Justin in your arms, again in your arms, through the too-early darkness and in your arms.

***

"I have a present for you," Justin says later in the small hours of half-day. You smile the slow smile that, whenever you catch yourself in one, makes you sure that you still look below thirty.

They are sketches of you, of course, funny and weird and beautiful: doing the softshoe, sucking on Justin’s toes, walking a dog (oh dear God no), posed like Brando in that scene from A Streetcar Named Desire, playing with Gus, asleep and obviously snoring.

"It was for me too, you know," Justin says. "Who knows what I’d have done if I had forgotten how the unibrow of the great Brian Kinney looked." He flips to the back of the sketchbook. "Those are for Mom. What do you think?"

Working with artists, you know that portraits are a risky business. Even photographs aren't always truthful, certain. The cry of presence. But this - the curve of Jennifer’s arm and the way she sits, as if she was pushed happily into position - just certainty. And what more - once the experiment is over, once people stop fucking in the dark with their eyes closed, once honesty tumbles out - what more is love than that? You know that this will make Jennifer cry, and say, "I can’t believe it, Justin, I just can’t believe it," like the time he had returned in time for her wedding to the skinny realtor after all. Justin had a way of making you realize how much beauty had left you on the sly, the violence and theft of it.

"Do you like it?" Justin asks.

"I do like it. I really do."

Where are your pearls and gold bracelets? ...And here you are. Diamonds. A crown for an empress... Here's your plantation Stella, right here...

V.

"Look who decided to visit humble old Pittsburgh tonight," you say.

Eyes look up, half-buried in pie, Emmett’s mouth actually falls open in surprise, and Lindsay slaps you hard on the arm, yelling, "Bastard!"

And Justin is stepping forward, he is smiling, he is radiant, what else is to be expected from a man for whom the answer could be no but was not, dangerous, who stayed not out of need but choice, nicknamed -

"Sunshine!" Deb shrieks, throwing her arms around Justin, lost son that he is.

"HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR!" hollers Emmett from the stove.