Whether it was due to a slight shyness or the family moving twice before he was ten, Justin didn’t have a great deal of friends as a child. Consequently, he had a steady stream of imaginary friends, back when there were no college classes or film production deadlines, and he had what seemed like an eternity of free time to play alone in his room or in the backyard.

There was Ryan, his imaginary twin brother, conceived not so much out of a desire for a sibling but because the first thing he taught himself to draw was a rough sketch of his own face, and an intangible person seemed more real when he had a drawing to refer to. When his mother left him in the living room with the television on, Justin would turn off the soap opera or game show, remove all the cushions from the couch, and build what his mother called a fort and what he called a house. Ryan and Justin each had their own rooms in the house, and throughout their day they would crawl through the throw-pillow hallway and visit each other to trade action figures and discuss what they were going to be when they grew up. Justin was always going to be a famous artist, but Ryan vacillated between astronaut, doctor, cowboy, and fireman until Justin became aggravated with his hyperactivity and announced one day over dinner that Ryan had moved to Philadelphia.

Another short-lived imaginary friend was Josephine, a princess from the far-off country of Rainbowland, which Justin would later use in an argument with his mother as proof that a person’s sexuality is predetermined. In reality he invented Josephine after a visit to the museum, where he was amazed by a painting with intricate folds and shadows in a woman’s gown, and tried to recreate it through a series of sketches of Josephine in formal wear. But the princess turned out to be boring, preferring tea parties to running around in circles around the kitchen table, and Justin soon banished her as well.

The majority of his imaginary friends were animals. When his mother’s allergies prevented him from getting a dog, he created an imaginary dog named Fred, who would help him hunt for frogs in the bushes of the backyard. He rode his Big Wheels up and down the driveway with an imaginary turtle named Mr. Gribbleton perched between the large plastic handlebars. He had an imaginary rat named Nibbles who would run up the arms of any visiting older relatives, perch on top of their heads, wiggle his nose, and amuse Justin through the adults’ boring post-dinner conversations. When his mother would come into his bedroom, let out a frustrated sigh, and ask him who he expected to pick up after him, Justin would calmly inform her that all the cleaning would be taken care of by Lucky, his imaginary monkey.

His parents indulged the invisible wildlife, though Justin would become annoyed when he heard his mother talking on the phone to her friends about his “adorable” imaginary friends, and he sometimes invented fake ones just to throw her off. In one of his clearest memories, just as he’d decided that Lucky had outlived his usefulness, his father came home, swept him up into a full-body hug that he would be too big for just a few months later, and asked him where his monkey was.

“Helping mom with laundry,” Justin answered. “Lucky likes housework. But tomorrow he’s moving away.”

“Well, who needs a monkey anyway?’ he father replied. “You’re my little monkey.” Then he tickled Justin until he squirmed out of his arms and chased him around the living room until Justin laughed so hard he thought he’d never be able to breathe again.

Justin hated memories like these, not just because it reminded him of the many embarrassing stories his mother could relate if prompted, but because it cast his father in a favorable light. If he had beaten his son or left his family shortly after his children were born, it would be easier to think of Craig Taylor as a monster. Bad memories were the always easiest to recall, but occasionally a good one would slip through, surprising in its novelty, and fucking up the pure, clean hatred that Justin had worked so hard to cultivate.

Brian was out with Michael when Justin got a phone call from his mother. After he hung up with her, he thought about calling one of them on their cell phones, since he was sure they wouldn’t mind the intrusion. They’d invited him to go with them, but he’d been in the middle of his first non-Rage drawing in months, and was too excited to stop. Justin held the phone in his hand for a moment and then placed it back onto the base. A distraction would be nice, and it would be healthy, but it would be too soon. The feelings were raw, too close to the surface of his skin for him to be around other people, where it could leak out in a moody sneer or an angry outburst. If life had taught him nothing else, it had taught him how to give an amazing blow job, and it had taught him how to deal with pain. Though maybe, he thought as he settled onto the couch with a sitcom rerun on mute and a pillow under his head, that was Brian, both times.

The loft door shuddered open about an hour later. From his position on the couch Justin couldn’t see anything, but he imagined Brian tossing his jacket onto his desk chair, taking a beer from the refrigerator, and stretching out his long, perfect body in an unintentionally sexy stretch before draining half the bottle in one gulp and throwing the bottle cap towards the garbage can, where he would step on it the next morning, curse, and blame Gus for leaving crap on the floor during a recent visit.

Justin must’ve looked like shit, because when Brian crossed the room to examine his prone form, he rolled his eyes in response.

“Did you watch the last episode of Buffy again?” Brian asked as he took the chair opposite the couch. “I told you not to buy that fucking DVD. You and Daphne, going on and on about how touching it was that they all became slayers, like two weepy twelve year-old girls.” He took another long drink of the beer and then rested it between his legs. “You know what always makes me feel better after watching thinly-veiled feminist metaphors? Sucking my dick.” He drained the last of the beer and placed the empty bottle on the floor. “You sucking my dick, I mean. Not that I can suck my own dick. Because if I could, I would make you move out.”

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a moment, obviously buzzed from his night at the bar, and Justin felt almost angry at how beautiful he looked. In the middle of the night, in the middle of a crisis, it was unfair how his presence alone could almost make a person forget why they were miserable, but not forget completely.

Either Brian sensed the anger or just became annoyed at the lack of a response, because his eyes snapped open and focused quickly. “What the fuck, Justin?” he said softly, igniting the twisting inside him all over again, because Brian was the only person in the world who could make “what the fuck” convey more concern than any other sentence imaginable, and Justin hated it because this – these little moments of misspoken words – were often more than he needed, but not enough to change what was happening.

“My father’s sick,” he said, surprised at the dryness in his throat.

Brian’s face betrayed no emotion beyond the simple processing of the information, as if this was a riddle he knew he could solve before anyone else. “How bad?”

“Chest pain,” Justin responded. “He’s having bypass surgery tomorrow night.”

Brian nodded slightly. “That’s pretty routine. He should be okay.”

Justin had been lying on his side for too long, and a twinge of pain went through his neck as he sat up and realized that the idea of his father dying wasn’t what bothered him.

Brian seemed to realize it at the same time. “You don’t have to go see him.”

“My mom said I should.”

“Your mom says a lot of things you never listen to,” Brian responded. “Come to think of it, so do I.” He stood and crossed to the couch. “You’re a stubborn bastard, Sunshine, and there’s no point in changing now, since I don’t have the energy to readjust my paradigm.” Brian leaned down against the side of Justin’s face, his lips against his ear, smelling like beer and cigarettes and some expensive French cologne that Justin always suspected was just repackaged Calvin Klein.

“Fuck him,” Brian whispered, sending chills down his side with the burst of hot breath. “Send a card.” His knelt down on the couch, one knee on either side of Justin’s body, moving his mouth down the curve of his neck, making small circles of his tongue on Justin’s skin between his words. “Dear Dad, Unfortunately I was too busy making a film, getting on the Dean’s list, beating off prospective employers with a stick, and bring fucked in the ass.” He sucked softly on Justin’s shoulder. “Brian says hi. Love, your son.”

Justin broke the the kiss by turning his head to look at Brian. “Didn’t it bother you when your father died before you had a chance to tell him you love him?”

Brian groaned and rolled off Justin, collapsing beside him on the couch. “No, because I didn’t love him.” He shot a glare at Justin to discourage any further discussion on the subject. “And yours is an asshole. You don’t owe him anything.”

“It’s not about him,” Justin argued. “It’s about me. “ He turned his body to face Brian. “If I don’t talk to him, then his disapproval hangs over me the rest of my life. I need to face him, show him who I am, and make him accept me.”

Brian reached up to put his hand on the side of Justin’s face and draw him closer. “You’re such a fucking idiot,” he whispered.

Justin thought about saying, “I love you too,” but instead just forced a small smile and leaned in to kiss him.

*

Watching the sun rise across the loft ceiling wasn’t as interesting as Justin thought it would be. Actually, it was probably the most boring thing that had ever happened in the history of their bedroom. When the pink glow of dawn first appeared at the edges of the blinds, Justin had dimly hoped the beauty of the sunrise would inspire him to do something more productive than staring at the ceiling, that the way the light played off the corners of the room, the picture frames on the nightstand, or Brian’s sleeping body would send him running for his sketch pad. Instead it annoyed him, because it wasn’t anything particularly beautiful, just light where light hadn’t been before, and he felt a surge of hatred towards the sun itself for being so prosaic.

He felt Brian shift beside him, and looked sideways just in time to see his eyes snap open.

“Go to sleep!” Brian yelled, surprisingly loud considering the hour, and startling Justin, who hadn’t known he was awake.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Brian.”

Brian pulled the blanket up over his shoulder and readjusted the pillow beneath his head. “Save the blasphemous proclamations for the next time I fuck you, and go to sleep.”

“It’s not like me being awake keeps you awake,” Justin argued. “I’m not making any noise.”

“You’re thinking too loud,” Brian said as he closed his eyes again.

“You can’t hear my thoughts.”

“Yes I can,” Brian muttered. “I have powers.”

Justin rolled onto his side. “Your Rage-ian powers of mind control?”

“And my Kinney-ian powers of narcotics,” Brian said. “Bathroom cabinet, top shelf. Take a Xanax and go to fucking sleep.”

Justin ignored the advice, instead choosing to move closer to the warmth of Brian’s body, but his mind was racing so much he couldn’t even close his eyes.

Brian groaned softly, threw the blanket off, and sat up. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do.”

“I’m not really in the mood,” Justin said.

Brian smirked as best he could at such an early hour. “You know, there are actually several seconds during the day when I’m devising plans that have absolutely nothing to do with sex.”

“News to me,” Justin replied. He reluctantly pulled himself into a sitting position and rubbed his eyes. “Okay; what’s the plan?” He noticed Brian removing a cigar from his nightstand and frowned. “It’s a cigar plan?”

Brian got up off the bed and disappeared into the living room without answering the question. He returned with a small trash can and a familiar tin canister. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he broke open the cigar with a soft cracking noise and began emptying its contents into the trash.

“Step one,” Brian explained. “We smoke an obscene amount of weed. Step two, we go to the hospital and see your father. Step three, you stop angsting all over the place and we get some fucking sleep.”

Justin craned his neck to see over Brian’s shoulder and confirm the ‘obscene amount of weed’ part of the plan. “You want me to visit my father while I’m high?”

Brian filled the empty cigar casing with sticky clumps of marijuana, licked the edge, and sealed it up again. “This way, instead of being paranoid that he hates you, you can be paranoid that he knows you’re high.” Brian turned around and sat cross-legged facing Justin, and put the blunt into his mouth to light it.

“Has anyone ever told you you’re seriously fucked up?” Justin asked.

“People have written dissertations about it,” Brian said through a mouthful of cigar.

They took the first few hits in silence, creating a cloud of smoke that hung over the bed like an early-morning fog. The dense air seemed to warm the room, which was always drafty in the winter. The previous day it had rained: an angry, cold rain where the thick drops of water settled into stagnant puddles that froze through socks and shoes, as if foreshadowing the ice that would inevitably follow.

“It’ll be Christmas soon,” Justin commented as Brian blew a stream of smoke towards the ceiling. “You’ll have to get a tree this year, because of Gus.”

“I delegate that to you,” Brian said as he passed the blunt to Justin. “And I delegate all other holiday activities to the dykes.”

As he drew in a lungful of smoke Justin thought about how he and Brian hadn’t gotten each other any gifts the past Christmas. Brian would reluctantly attend Christmas dinner at Debbie’s, but it would be a challenge to get him to accept any presents, which was a shame, since this was the first year Justin had any real money of his own.

“If there’s something you want for Christmas,’ Justin said. ‘You should tell me, because I know Santa.” He held up his hand and crossed his index and middle finger. “Me and Santa are like this.” He took another, smaller hit and exhaled it quickly. “Thanks to one drunken night in Vegas.” He passed the blunt back to Brian. “It was totally before I met you.”

Brian chuckled slightly as he accepted the blunt, lowering his head as if to hide his smile. Most of the time Brian refused to admit when he was amused by something, always the sarcastic and pessimistic badass , which made the moments when he was genuinely pleased all the more striking, and Justin wondered what adjective phrase one could use when come-in-your-pants, drop-dead-fucking-gorgeous wasn’t nearly enough to describe how beautiful Brian was at this moment.

“I fucked Santa Claus once,” Brian said.

“I would be surprised if you hadn’t,” Justin replied. “So are you saving Santa’s lap all for yourself, or are you gonna take Gus to The Big Q to see him?”

“I’d rather blow Donald Rumsfeld.”

Justin shuddered as he accepted the blunt back from Brian. “Donald Rumsfeld is creepy.”

Brian looked through one of the bedroom doors, over towards his desk, as if contemplating something there. “You know what’s hot?”

“My ass,” Justin replied without missing a beat.

Brian blinked and looked back at him, opening his mouth and closing it before finally speaking. “Now I forgot what I was gonna say,” he muttered, but then shrugged dismissively. “Just some shit about work.” He held out his hand to retrieve the blunt. “Your ass is probably hotter than whatever it was.”

“Definitely,” Justin said.

Brian took a hit off the blunt, leaned forward, and Justin met him halfway for a kiss, where Brian exhaled the smoke into his mouth, and Justin breathed it in just to blow it back. They did this a few times as the kiss deepened, and when they finally pulled apart there was only the smallest cloud of smoke rising from their parting mouths.

“Now that was hot,” Justin said.

Brian contemplated the small, remaining bit of the blunt, and then leaned out to extinguish it on the bedside ashtray. “We should bring some more with us,” he suggested.

Justin shook his head. “I’d rather not get arrested for possession while visiting my estranged father in the hospital where I once recovered from a serious head injury.” He lazily rolled off the bed and moved to the closet. “My life is already enough like a bad soap opera. I think there’re hash brownies in the fridge, if you want to bring that.”

“Why the fuck do we own hash brownies?” Brian asked.

Justin took a pair of jeans and a sweater out of the closet and began getting dressed. “Darren gave me a couple after Emmett threw a party for some weird stoners.”

Brian shrugged, apparently deciding this was better than nothing, and disappeared into the kitchen. When Justin emerged from the bedroom he was standing naked in front of the refrigerator eating one of the brownies. He put the two remaining brownies into a plastic bag and handed it to Justin, who shoved it into his pocket and informed Brian that he should probably put some clothes on before they left the house.

Brian paused a moment to consider this, looked down at his nude body, and said, “If I don’t put clothes on, everything we do today will be free.”

“What?” Justin said through a laugh.

Brian moved closer to him and placed him arms on Justin’s shoulders. “If I go naked,” he said, his breath on Justin’s face smelling like weed and chocolate. “And you decide to give your dad a lecture on the benefits of being queer, I can be your visual aid.” He gave Justin a quick kiss. “And people will give us things for free.” He kissed him again, and when he pulled back he was wearing an uncharacteristic grin. “Cause I’m pretty.”

Justin burst out laughing, placing his hands on Brian’s chest to avoid falling down. “You are so stoned.”

“You’re so stoned,” Brian retorted.

Justin closed his eyes, and the more he tried to stop laughing, the more hysterical their situation seemed. “That weed was laced with something,” he said.

“If it is, then I got a damn good price.” Brian pulled back from him, clasping his hand as he withdrew and pulling him towards the door. “Let’s go.”

“Brian…”

“Right, clothes,” he said, and turned back towards the bedroom.

In the parking garage, they stood outside Brian’s car for about five minutes while Brian struggled with the remote, succeeding only in setting off the alarm, and then becoming confused when Justin suggested he put the key in the door.

“No,” Brian argued. “No one does that. You just hit the button, and –” The alarm sounded again, and Brian mashed down all the buttons until it stopped.

“Perhaps this is a sign that we’re too high to drive,” Justin offered.

Brian nodded, took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, and handed it to Justin. “Call a cab.”

Justin hit the zero key and put the phone to his ear. “Hi; I need a cab,” he said, and when there was no response he held the phone out to discover that the display showed only a zero. “It says oh,” he told Brian.

Brian took the phone back and studied it. “Everything has so many little buttons,” he muttered. He managed to dial information, and handed the phone back to Justin.

“Hi; I need a cab,” Justin said when the operator answered. “I’m in…” he looked around at the concrete walls and rows of cars. “A building…where I live.” But the cell phone company had already used the caller ID to connect him with the nearest cab company, which Brian must’ve used before, because the dispatch operator answered by verifying the phone number and address, so Justin only had to grunt his approval.

“It’s a good thing phones are smart,” Justin commented, handing the cell back to Brian.

“We’re smart,” Brian said defensively as he threw an arm around Justin’s shoulder and they walked out to the sidewalk to wait.

“You’re not smart,” Justin argued. “Because your plan about getting high and going to the hospital is stupid.” He poked Brian in the chest with his index finger. “And I’m not smart, because I listened to you.”

Brian grabbed Justin’s wrist to stop the poking motion, and then pulled his arm to rest around his waist. “You’re smart,’ he said. “Because you want me. And I’m pretty.”

Justin collapsed into a fit of laughter that didn’t stop until the cab pulled up to the curb beside them and Brian pushed him into its warm interior.

“The hospital,” Brian told the driver.

“Which one?”

Brian turned to Justin, who only shrugged in response.

“How could you not know?” Brian snapped. “You were there for weeks.”

“I was in a coma,” Justin pointed out.

“That’s no excuse,” Brian said.

The driver sighed. “Is it the one by the mall or the one by the train station?”

“The train station,” Justin told him, and the cab lurched forward.

A few minutes into the ride Brian announced that he would die without a cigarette, and Justin suggested he check his pockets, where Brian was delighted to find half a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter.

“This used to be Michael’s,” he informed Justin, holding up the Zippo to display it. “But then he said he wasn’t gonna smoke anymore, so I stole it.” He turned it so that it caught the sunlight, making a tiny white square on the seat in front of them. “Because it’s shiny.”

“You can’t smoke in a cab,” Justin told him. “It’s illegal.”

Brian shot him a dirty look and leaned forward to speak to the driver. “If you let me smoke in here, my boyfriend will blow you.”

“Hey!” Justin called out.

Brian removed one of the cigarettes from the pack and used it to point at Justin. “There was a time when you’d blow anything that moved.”

Justin leaned forward to give Brian a mocking smile. “And there was a time when Brian Kinney didn’t do boyfriends.”

“How about if I let you smoke and you give me a good tip?’ the driver suggested.

“Deal,” Brian said, and he lit up. “Also, this guy is not my boyfriend, no matter what anyone says.”

“You’re the one who said it,” Justin pointed out.

“Only because I’m incredibly stoned.”

Justin took the cigarette from Brian’s hand and took a drag off of it. “Call it whatever you want.”

“You’re a one-night-stand,” Brian said as he took his cigarette back. “It’s just been a really long night.”

Justin laughed, and probably wouldn’t have been able to stop if he hadn’t turned his head just as the large brick hospital came into view. “Shit,” he muttered, and he immediately felt Brian’s hand on his shoulder.

“Remember,” Brian whispered. “Don’t worry if he’s a dick, just as long as he doesn’t figure out how high you are.”

“I’m not sure that’s gonna help.”

“Would it help if I was naked?” Brian asked, and Justin couldn’t stop himself from smiling.

Brian removed his hand to extract a wad of cash from his pocket, and true to his word, counted out twice the amount of the fare. They went into the lobby, where an elderly receptionist informed them spitefully that visiting hours didn’t start for another twenty minutes, as if they’d done something horribly wrong by asking to enter.

They sat in two uncomfortable plastic chairs, and Justin stared up at the ceiling, watching one of the fluorescent lights flicker on and off. He looked back down at Brian, who appeared to be deep in thought, until he felt Justin’s eyes on him and turned to face him.

“You know what’s cool about you?” Brian asked.

“I suck cock like a thousand-dollar whore.”

Brian paused to consider this. “You made me forget what I was thinking.” He shrugged. “But that’s true.”

Justin stared back up the light, and he didn’t notice that he was clasping his hands together nervously until he felt one of Brian’s hands cover his.

“Thanks for coming with me,” Justin said.

“It’s not like I had anything better to do, since this aggravating twink was keeping me up all night thinking too loud.”

They sat in silence until the receptionist announced the beginning of visiting hours by banging open the glass partition in front of her desk. Justin signed their names on the top of a pad of paper and was informed that his father was in room 805.

As they approached the elevator bank, one of the elevators opened, and a boy no older than eight dashed out of it, nearly crashing into Brian, who cursed under his breath. Brian got into the elevator first, and when he saw all the buttons lit, he looked out in the direction the kid had run and cursed some more.

“It’s fine,” Justin responded, leaning back against the far wall of the elevator. “I’m in no hurry.” Brian pointlessly pressed the number 8 and the elevator rose to the second floor, where the doors slid open to an empty lobby. Justin sighed loudly and closed his eyes.

“Fuck this,” he said. “I don’t want to fucking do this.” He felt Brian’s hand on his arm, and was about to shrug off the unwanted comfort when Brian shushed him, took his other hand, and moved his body closer.

“Do you hear that?” Brian asked. “The elevator music.”

Justin listened, but it sounded like any other muzak to him: a dull, instrumental version of some old song broken down to a form so simple that it was barely recognizable.

“It’s techno,” Brian said. He moved even closer to Justin and began dancing, his arms around him and their bodies pressed against each other, as if they were in Babylon. He put his mouth close to Justin’s ear and began humming the beat, making a soft thumping noise deep in his throat to compensate for the lack of actual percussion in the elevator version.

Justin held onto Brian’s hips in a trick he employed often when they were out dancing and Brian predictably moved off the beat, a phenomenon apparently unaffected by the fact that this time he was the one vocalizing the beat. Justin vaguely heard the door open and close on the third floor, but his senses were filled with Brian – the smell of Brian’s neck, his pot-soaked breath, the feel of their bodies moving together.

“CMC Music Factory,” Brian said, interrupting his drumming sound. “Remember this song?”

“Before my time,” Justin said, his tongue playing on his lower lip teasingly before finding Brian’s mouth and falling into an easy kiss.

“Suck my wrinkly, old, partially-synthetic balls,” Brian said against Justin’s lips.

Justin was struck again by how unfair Brian’s existence was to the rest of the world, when he could make a man go from zero to hard in one verse of tinny elevator music. But instead of feeling angry about it, Justin only felt the imagined music, their bodies swaying easily against each other, their knees bending and legs intertwining, as if trying to get as close as possible, trying to crawl into each other until there was nothing but flesh on flesh, and the elevator, the hospital, the entire world, disappeared beneath them.

Justin closed his eyes and, feeling Brian’s body linger too long in one position, pushed his hips forward to get him back in synch. “You dance like a retarded monkey,” he said.

Brian pushed back, as if his body was insisting that, while it may not have rhythm on their imagined dance floor, it certainly did during sex. “How does a retarded monkey dance?”

“Like a regular monkey,” Justin said as he moved his mouth up Brian’s neck. “Except that it messes up a lot.” He paused to kiss Brian’s ear. “I had a monkey once.”

“A dancing monkey?”

Justin shook his head, slowly rubbing his face against Brian’s neck. “My monkey cleaned my room, and did stuff for me.”

Brian stifled a laugh just as the elevator doors opened again, and their conversation was interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps. Justin looked over to see an older man enter. He had a gray comb over, a wrinkled suit, wire-rimmed glasses, and a sour look on his face.

The image hit him so suddenly that he would’ve stopped dancing if Brian’s body wasn’t so completely intertwined with his. He looked at Brian, who didn’t seem to notice anything, and then back at the man, who was shooting them brief glances, his droopy frown suddenly familiar.

“Donald Rumsfeld,” Justin whispered to Brian, but he saw the man look over at them again, noticing the sound, and he quieted.

It was clearly Donald Rumsfeld, Justin thought, though he couldn’t explain what the United States Secretary of Defense was doing on a hospital elevator in Pittsburgh. It was most likely something unspeakably evil, and he and Brian should probably run for their lives at the next floor.

But Brian hadn’t noticed the threat, still dancing clumsily to the faux-techno muzak, his hands running up and down Justin’s back as they moved together. Justin gave Rumsfeld another quick glance, and then focused his attention again on their dancing, though his mind was racing.

He remembered the two hash brownies in his pocket and pushed gently on Brian’s chest to get his attention. Donald Rumsfeld could probably smell pot, like those dogs in the airport, and they had to dispose of the evidence before he caught on.

Justin patted his front pocket, but Brian mistakenly took this as an invitation to reach down and grab his dick through his pants.

“No,” Justin mouthed silently. “My hash.”

Brian just gave him a confused look.

“East my hash,” Justin whispered.

Brian smiled and stuck his tongue out suggestively. “When we get back to the car,” he said softly.

“No, not my ass,” Justin argued, but Brian wasn’t listening to anything but the imaginary, un-rhythmic beat in his head.

Just as Justin was about to begin a long explanation of why Donald Rumsfeld’s presence was a danger to their lives, Brian kissed him, opening their mouths together, sucking down hard on his lower lip, and then beginning the kiss all over again, this time not missing a beat as their lips instinctively pressed together.

And Justin thought, Fuck everything else but this man, this moment, this kiss. Fuck the hours he’d lay awake, fuck this hospital, fuck his father. Fuck Donald Rumsfeld.

They continued kissing and dancing as the elevator rose, Brian breathing the “thum thum” of the music when their mouths parted for air, neither of them noticing when Rumsfeld finally exited. When the muzak song ended and was followed by a nauseating version of a Jennifer Lopez song they looked away from each other for the first time since the third floor, and noticed they were at the upper level of the building.

Brian reached out to press the 8 button, and returned immediately to Justin’s embrace, where the dancing was abandoned in favor of another long, deep kiss.

“I remember what I was gonna say,” Brian muttered against the side of Justin’s face.

“Your new, hot ad campaign?” Justin asked.

“What’s cool about you,” Brian said. “Besides the oral talent.” He grasped Justin’s earlobe briefly between his lips, causing an involuntary shudder, and then whispered, “You never go away when people tell you to.”

Justin moved his face back in front of Brian’s and kissed him on the lips quickly. “Lucky for you.”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Yeah, lucky me.”

The doors slid open on the eighth floor, and the bright light of the hallway made Justin squint as they exited and paused just outside the elevator. He could see room 805 from there, and it occurred to him that no amount of narcotics was enough for him to do this.

Beside him, Brian scanned the deserted hallway for signs of approaching staff, and then lit a cigarette. Justin thought about all the things Brian might say if he wasn’t Brian – words of encouragement, courageous clichés, promises of love in the days that followed this one terrifying moment – and when Brian instead said, “He’s a cocking sucking whore, and not in the way I appreciate. Go tell him I said that.” Justin was so incredibly grateful that he pulled Brian into a quick kiss, and walked into the hospital room with the taste of him still in his mouth.

The first thing he noticed was how thin his father looked. He wondered if he’d always been that thin, or if maybe the hospital bed was unusually soft, and his body had sunk into the mattress, creating the illusion of smallness underneath the off-white sheet. Though a television hummed softly in the corner of the ceiling, his eyes were closed, and Justin watched him a moment, disturbed at how insignificant he looked: his slight body, his balding head, his slack face. It was wrong somehow; it was obscene. There was no way he could stand here and talk to this sick old man , but before he had a chance to act on this thought and leave the room, his father opened his eyes.

“Justin,” he said, a note of surprise in his voice.

Justin tried to force a smile, but the best he could do was press his lips together briefly. “Hi Dad.”

His father hit a button at his side that raised the head of the bed slowly, and repositioned himself so that he was sitting upright. “Your mom told me you were in LA, working on a movie.”

Justin nodded. “I just got back.” He knew he should explain more, how he was the Assistant Art Director and it was a film based on a comic book he drew, maybe encourage his father to go see it when it premieres, and bring his girlfriend, and don’t mind the NC-17 rating; it’s not explicit at all.

But he couldn’t say anything, just watch as his father reached over to retrieve a cupful of melting ice chips. As he stretched, the hospital gown shifted, revealing the top of his arm, which was thick with saggy, gray-tinged flesh. It wasn’t exceptionally repulsive, and Justin was sure he’d seen worse among the older men at the baths, but in the instant the skin was revealed he was inexplicably nauseated by it. He pushed the image out of his mind and heard his father mutter something about how they weren’t letting him eat anything before the surgery.

“When is the surgery?” Justin asked.

“Three o’clock,” his father replied as he popped a piece of ice into his mouth. “They showed me this little video about how it’s done. It’s gotten so advanced they don’t even open you up, just make a tiny hole and stick a camera in there; it’s amazing.”

“Wow,” Justin said flatly.

“You still in school?”

Justin nodded. “I took a semester off for the job in LA, but I’m all set to start again in January. If I take a few summer classes I’ll graduate Spring 2006.”

“Better late than never, right?” His father crunched another ice chip and then replaced the cup on the bedside table. “So you’ve finished almost three years. That’s great. That means you can transfer if you want to.”

Justin’s ears filled with a dull noise, but he couldn’t tell if it was an effect of the dubiously-obtained weed or the sudden anger, like a jumble of curse words he didn’t have the focus to thread together. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t talking, wasn’t yelling, wasn’t doing anything but standing with his hands hanging limply at his sides and his eyes stuck on the feeble, white-wrapped body in front of him, like a skeleton, like a corpse.

“Molly was here yesterday,” his father continued without acknowledging Justin’s silence. “Can you believe how big she’s gotten? I swear, every day she looks an inch taller. Must be why she keeps bothering me for new clothes.” His face turned serious. “Is it cold outside?”

Justin nodded.

“It was thirty-five degrees when I came in yesterday, and I hear it’s just going to get colder.” He hit a button and the bed began its motion back into a flat position. “They say we might get a snowstorm before the end of the month. It’ll be a rough winter.” When the bed had finished moving, he yawned and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and Justin saw his chance for escape.

“I should let you rest,” he said, even as his head continued to hum with unsaid words.

His father closed his eyes. “Thank you for coming by; I appreciate it.”

Justin took a step backwards and nearly ran into the bathroom doorknob. “Yeah,” he said, but it came as little more than a whisper, and he doubted his father heard him at all.

Justin walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. Brian was standing against the opposite wall with a crushed cigarette under his shoe, and looked up when he heard the door click closed. Justin met his eyes, which were much too sober. He felt too sober himself, and he needed more than a couple of pot brownies. He needed a shot of whiskey. He needed to throw up. He needed to get the fuck out of this hospital.

“Let’s go,” Brian said, as if reading his mind.

The elevator ride down was quick. The music was a string version of some pre-teen pop song, and rather than dancing, Justin leaned his head back against the cool metal wall and concentrated on keeping his breathing even. On the cab ride back to the loft Justin closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the window, unable to look at Brian, fearing that his failure would show in his eyes.

He thought about everything he hadn’t said back in the hospital room, and felt ashamed for the first time in recent memory. He hadn’t told his father much about school (I got a 4.0 last semester and at a career fair two companies said they want to interview me after I graduate), about the Rage film (I fought movie executives and won, made more money than you did this year, and not only did I stand by my values, but my values are going to be sucking cock on the big screen next summer.), or about Brian (We’re living together, and not because you threw me out, or because someone hit me over the head with a bat, because we want to, because we love each other.).

Instead he’d given one-word answers, backed down when his father baited him, and left at his first opportunity. He’d talked about the weather.

Brian didn't speak as they walked into the building and rode the elevator to the loft. If he were thinking clearly, Justin would attribute this to exhaustion, noting the darkness around Brian’s eyes and how he blinked irritably at the overhead light they’d left on in the kitchen. But instead he felt sure that Brian knew somehow, that Brian had gained omniscience through the supernatural status Justin had ascribed to him long ago, knew of his cowardice, and was so disgusted that he couldn’t bear to speak to him.

He was distracted from his theory when Brian’s forearms rested on his shoulders and he pressed their foreheads together, blurring their already foggy vision. “Can we fucking go to sleep now?” Brian said, his voice instantly erasing all doubts and shame.

Outside their bedroom the sun shone in brightly, violently reminding Justin that he hadn’t slept at all. It had been a long night.

Brian collapsed only half underneath the covers, his head tilted upwards, and was breathing deeply within minutes. Justin lay next to him, staring at the brightening ceiling, thinking about his imaginary armadillo.

Alex the Armadillo had dark eyes, strong claws, and a long, sticky tongue that extended impossibly far out of his tiny mouth. His skin was a soft gray that looked like it was covered in pebbles. Alex lived under Justin’s bed when he was five years old, serving to scare monsters away by lashing them with his long tail, though he didn’t interact with Justin much beyond this defensive purpose. Sometimes Justin would look up from where he was playing with toys on his bed and see Alex wandering leisurely to the closet, only to return to his post under the bed a few minutes later.

Justin remembered where the idea for Alex had come from: a trip to the zoo in Philadelphia, where he saw an armadillo for the first time, and then spent the night at his aunt’s large, old house, where it first occurred to him that monsters might be hidden below pieces of furniture.

He could remember the crawling animals on display in an artificial habitat. The coldness of the glass on his fingertips. The softness on the roof of his mouth where he’d burnt it earlier that day while eating a slice of pizza. And two hands - impossibly large, strong hands; immortal, superhero hands – underneath his arms, holding him up so that he could see.

He was roused from the memory by a slight rocking of the bed, as Brian, obviously awake, rolled over to face him. Brian sighed, looking comically irritated even as he pulled Justin into a lazy hug. He moved his face closer, as if he was going to kiss him, but paused just before they made contact.

“What do you want?” Brian asked.

Justin had expected more of a sarcastic diatribe about how his sleeplessness was continuing to disturb Brian. This was too simple of a question for Brian’s tastes, and yet too difficult for Justin to answer right away. What did he want? To forget, to let go, to sleep; a million things too abstract to bother vocalizing, and under normal circumstances he wouldn’t have bothered trying. But Brian’s soft, warm breath was on his face, the room was bright with the aging day, and he had nothing else to do to pass the time.

“A sequel,” Justin replied. “For the studio to option a Rage sequel right away.” He shifted his body so that he was positioned more comfortably against Brian. “To graduate college earlier. To work part-time on Rage and have that pay enough that I can work full-time on experimental artwork.” He continued, the thoughts he couldn’t find a moment ago now coming faster than he could verbalize them. “For my mother and Debbie to not have to worry about money. For Ben and Hunter to never get sick. A monkey butler. A scholarship to graduate school. A father who loved me.”

Beside him Brian was completely still, the only sign of his consciousness a brief fluttering of his eyelashes. They were so close together that the image doubled and blended into itself, becoming a mass of interlocking threads, like brushstrokes, like a web, like the shadows and lines that bleed through the gaps of a house made of pillows.

“I might be able to get the monkey,” Brian whispered. And Justin started laughing, which somehow turned to crying, which somehow turned to sleep.

The End