Sometimes I can go an entire day and not think about it. I mean most times it’s every couple hours or something, and I’m not even really aware of it anymore, except by the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and the slick, cool film on the palms of my hands. And even if it’s just thinking about how I’m *not* thinking about it…

Well, that’s really the same thing.

But on those rare days that drift by and I don’t think about, don’t get a headache or my arm doesn’t shoot with pain or I feel like a 19-year-old attached to a 95-year-old hand… on those days that I don’t get a niggling panic attack or a sudden urge to just fucking scream at someone… when I don’t feel like cowering into a corner or holding my breath when certain people walk by or feeling *sofuckingglad* that Brian is with me, holding my hand, or putting his arm around my shoulder, or just standing beside me, breathing and watching and protecting me even though he’s not even consciously aware of it…

Those rare days often end up in panicked nights. With fitful dreams and nightmares that seem more real than life. With images and senses that are more tangible than the ones I pick up with my eyes, ears, and fingertips.

I guess it’s because my brain is a little fucked up.

I mean, your brain would be fucked up too if you got smacked in the head with a wooden baseball bat so hard the fucking thing cracked. So hard that shreds of your skin peeled off your forehead and onto the bat. So hard that a clump of your hair was ripped outta your head and got caught in the wood of the bat.

That’s pretty fucking hard.

So I get chronic headaches and shooting pain and I have this fucking hand that sometimes makes me so mad that I just sit on it to make it stop shaking. Just press my hand to the ground and focus as hard as I can and even stamp my foot on it and wish and pray and sometimes cry because it’s never ever fucking going away. And so I get nightmares and panic attacks and wake up shivering and get so fucking angry sometimes that I can’t even try to control it.

But I do. I control all of it. Because I don’t want to let it win. Don’t want to let fucking Chris Hobbes screw up my life more than he already has.

I mean, yeah, fuck, it wasn’t fair, I didn’t deserve it, no one deserved it and I fucking hate Hobbes so much for doing this to me. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with this feeling of it all just being so fucking *wrong* that I puke. Have to run to the nearest toilet and hang over it and spit up bile until my stomach stops clenching. Till I stop shaking.

But then…

I chastise myself for being such a fucking princess.

Because guess what folks. I’m walking. And talking. And I can feed myself and go to the bathroom myself and I don’t need anyone to help me to do anything. And most importantly, I’m fucking alive. Alive.

That’s what’s really important.

It’s one of those things you don’t really get until you sit in a physiotherapy ward for eight hours a day, trying to learn how to pick up a fucking tennis ball, while you’re surrounded by people in wheelchairs, just trying to learn how to stand up. Or move their head. Or breathe.

Fucking hell.

And then I feel guilty for still dwelling on it. Thinking about it. I should move on. And I *have* moved on. I mean, I don’t talk about it. And I don’t try to let it change my life any more than it already has. It’s buried. Done. Gone away.

Like Darren said. I’m pretty fucking reasonable about it. It happened. It’s over. End of story.

Except I guess it’s not over.

It can’t be over. Not if I feel like I do, like I did, when Darren asked me. Asked me what *I* did to get back. To take my revenge for the fucking awful thing that happened to *me*.

And… when I didn’t have anything to say back… I knew. I knew I did nothing. Fucking nothing. I was too chicken shit or self-involved to do anything.

I saw Hobbes after, at the AIDS hospice. He wasn’t remorseful. He couldn’t fucking give a shit. In fact, he threatened me. Nothing to say that he wouldn’t do it again. If not to me, to someone else.

And I fucking let him. Let him walk away. Go on with his life. Forget it.

Forget me.

Fuck, I dreamt about revenge. I had these wild dreams of chasing after Hobbes with the bat, still streaked with my blood and stuck with shreds of my hair. I’d be waiting for him, and I’d see him and look into his face and swing the bat and I’d hit him in the skull and feel the *gush* as it connected with his temple. I’d be looking down on him, lying still and silent on the cold cement. All bleeding and wasted and dead.

And then I’d wake up. Pushing the dream to the back of my head with drugs. Dulling it. Forgetting it.

Being reasonable.

Fucking reasonable.

Christ.

So what *did* I do after I got bashed?

I focused on my health. I moved in with my mother. Then I moved in with Brian. I went to school. I worked my fucking ass off. I tried to forget. Tried to put it all behind me. Tried so fucking hard to get rid of that label. To stop being “the gay kid who was bashed”.

Yeah, that gay kid.

Me.

Seems like someone else most times. Because I don’t really remember what happened, not really. I mean, sometimes I think that I do, but then I wonder if that’s just my mind playing tricks on me – pulling together all the stories that people told me and creating something that I think is a memory, but really isn’t.

And the fucked up thing is that I’ll never know. I’ll never really know if the scene I have in my head is real or not. If the feeling of being there with Brian in front of my whole fucking class… if I’m only imagining how I would’ve felt or if that’s a real feeling. The brush of his lips on mine. In front of everyone. Every-fucking-person I know in school. I think I would feel amazed. Proud. Excited. Horny. Happy. Elated.

In love.

But I don’t really know if that’s how I felt.

The best night of my fucking life.

Gone.

Stolen.

And when I try to forget what happened, it’s hard not to forget that part too.

Fuck, what a goddamn liar I was. Telling Darren that I tried not to think about it.

Liar, liar, liar.

Yeah, I *tried* to forget. But I sure as fuck wasn’t successful. I thought about it all the time. I think about it all the time. All the time. All the fucking time.

How can you not think about it? Knowing that there’s a person out there that hates you so much that he wants to kill you? Hobbes hates me. Me. For who I am. For who I love.

He hates me and tried to kill me and he, or someone just like him, might try again.

How the *fuck* can you not think about that every fucking second of your life?

Jesus Christ.

But my stupid words were heard.

And Darren chickened out. Like I did.

Now he’s reasonable, just like me.

Reasonable.

Fuck.

And yeah, I have this stupid comic book. Which wasn’t even my idea, it had to come from Michael, from someone totally removed from the situation. Had to come from someone else to remind me that maybe it was a good story.

And maybe that’s all it is to me now. A story. Where Rage swoops down and saves JT and everyone lives happily fucking after.

But Brian isn’t Rage and I’m not JT. Brian tried to save me. He called out my name. He came running over. Maybe Chris would've killed me if he wasn't there. But one hit was all it took. All Hobbes needed to fuck up my life forever.

And mess Brian up too. People tell me that he held onto me and wouldn’t let go till the EMT pulled him off me. They told me that he wouldn’t let go of my hand and that he sat by my bed for three entire days. Not eating. Not sleeping. Just sitting there waiting. Michael told me that he'd never, ever seen Brian like that. That he cried for hours. That he wouldn't talk to anyone. That it was like he got hit too.

Brian went through a fucking lot. And he tries to forget it more than I do. He wants to forget it, and maybe that’s why I tried so hard too.

I don't blame him for wanting to forget. I get him. He doesn’t like to dwell. And the pain that he went through is completely different than the pain that I went through. I can’t say that I’ll ever know what it’s like to see your lover in jeopardy like that and I hope to fuck that I never, ever do.

But by the same token he can’t say that he knows what it’s like to almost lose your life over something so fucking senseless as getting your brains whacked outta your head by a homophobic asshole.

We both suffer in our own ways.

And we both deal with it in our own ways.

I pick up another sketch and start scribbling on it. My hand starts shaking and hurting so much my eyes sting and I feel my heart beating in my temples and that sharp prick of pain searing through my brain behind my eyes and into my stomach. And I swallow back the harsh taste of bile rising from my gut and I won’t let this fucking make me stop. Won’t let this win. Yeah, it hurts, yeah, it’s awful, yeah…

I almost can’t do it anymore. I’ve been drawing for an hour, and at first it was okay, but now I can hardly hold the pencil and all I can do is scribble. Rub dark lines across everything I’ve done. Make it more tangible. Real. Alive.

Fuck this one. On to the next. I push one drawing aside and grab another. Make it more. More. Darker, harder, ouch, fuck, Christ, more, this sucks, next one, crumple it up and throw it down, they all suck, it’s all shit, it’s meaningless, worthless, stupid, oh God, this fucking hurts, but I can’t stop. Can’t stop. Can’t stop.

Next.

But no matter what I draw, how much I say, how much I hurt, I don’t feel any better. Harder. More. Harder. More. Like fucking. Make it better, do it more. Do it harder.

But it’s not helping. It’s as real as my dreams of fucking Chris up with the bat. And nowhere near as real as my nightmares of what happened.

Reality is always more powerful than fiction.

Next.

The door slides open and Brian comes in. He says something, but I don’t answer. And then I feel him. Staring at me from across the room like warm arms wrapping around me, his presence so close, so near, so overwhelming… I feel the love for me that he keeps trying to hide, and it makes me know that he does love me…

But I push it away. Ignore him.

Next.

If he loves me, he’ll understand me.

He walks around the loft for a bit, and I tune him out. Focus on this. Try harder, try to make it real. Next one.

And then Brian comes over and looks at what I’m doing.

I stop. My fingers cramp up tight, pulling up into crooked useless hooks, and I feel a hundred years old.

I tell him about Darren. What he said. How it made me feel. And Brian starts in again, with things he’s told me a thousand times. Telling me how success and fortune and happiness are the ways to combat hatred and to punish people like Chris.

And that’s good.

To a point.

But then it gets old.

And I know it works for Brian. I know it’s how he pushes through the million things I know he’s had to push through in his life.

But it’s not fucking enough for me. When Chris Hobbes attacked me in the locker room that last year at school, I remember fighting back, and holy fuck it felt so good. My hand connecting with his face, feeling that hard pain in my knuckles and knowing that I did it. I fucking did it.

I wasn’t helpless then.

Why do I feel so helpless now?

Brian puts his hand on my face and touches my cheek and I don’t *want* that now, and push his hand away.

I don’t want to hurt him. But he has to know.

He has to understand.

That I can’t forget. That it’s not behind me. That’s it’s never fucking behind me.

It’s always there. Always, always, always.

And I’ve been looking for people to take care of me and love me and look after me… to make it easy and say things and make promises they can’t keep… and I can’t do this anymore.

He keeps trying to touch me, and I keep pushing him away.

I love Brian and I know he loves me, but when he says he was there...

He wasn’t.

He wasn’t fucking there.

Trapped in my head as I lay on the hospital bed attached to a respirator. Fading in and out of consciousness for those first three days. Losing weeks of my life in a coma. Then waking up with this fucking intense fear and only wanting to see him.

He didn’t feel that. Didn’t feel the anger that I felt. Didn’t have the feeling of helplessness, of shame, of self-hatred.

He didn’t lose what I lost.

I stare at my sketch again, feebly trying to make it more. Darker. But it’s useless. All fucking useless.

Like that fucking painting in Spain. People talk about it, how important it is, how brave I was to put it all into a fucking comic.

It’s useless. Meaningless.

Insignificant.

I tell Brian this, but all he can do is stare at me. He has nothing to say. Nothing. Because there’s nothing that he can do, or anyone can do to make this better.

I push the rest of drawings to the floor and stand up, pacing to the bedroom, then back again. Feet thumping on the hardwood and it’s all I hear over the rush of the blood in my head.

Walk back and forth and go to the kitchen and pour a glass of water and stand there for a second. I look over at Brian, sitting there on the cushions in his makeshift living room. Just sitting there, staring at one of my sketches.

I put down the glass and walk over to him, looking down at him, my arms crossed.

He looks up at me and doesn’t say anything. And I see the fear in his eyes again. I see him looking at me in a way that he hasn’t for months now. Hasn’t since I came back. Here.

Looking at me like I’m fragile and I might just fucking fall apart, and like he’s scared of saying the wrong thing.

Looking a little broken.

I push my hands over my eyes, digging the butt of my palms into my eyesockets, hoping somehow that’ll push the tears back in. I don’t want to cry over this. I’ve cried too fucking much already. I can’t cry.

“What do you want me to do?” he asks.

I swallow hard. “Nothing,” I mumble out. “I told you I don’t want to talk about it.” I keep my hands over my face and take a deep breath.

I hear him get up, and come stand in front of me. I know he wants to touch me. Know he wants to put his arms around me and hold me and take all this away. I know he doesn’t want to go through all *that* again, and I don’t want to either, but I don’t think I can take it right now. I don’t fucking think…

“I thought we were partners,” he says, throwing my own words back in my face. Fucker.

“Fuck off,” I spit back at him, pulling my hands from my eyes and seeing him standing there.

“You don’t mean that,” his voice is soft and I don’t know how he stands me. How he can tolerate me.

I breathe deeply and whisper, “You’re right. I don’t.” I stare down at the ground and pull my arms tight around my chest. I wish I could disappear.

“Justin,” he says, and I refuse to look up. Don’t want to see those hazel eyes that can make me do anything. That I die for. “Hey, Justin,” he says it again, and I give in.

I slowly raise my head and look at him, clenching my hands under my armpits. I stare at his chin. It’s safe.

He sighs through his nose, hard. “You’re okay now.”

“I’m not okay, Brian!” I scream it out suddenly and I don’t know where it comes from, just tearing out of my throat and heart, scaring me, scaring him. He jumps a little, taking a step back, staring at me.

I stick my curled up gimp hand in his face. “This isn’t okay!” my voice sounds harsh and I don’t hear it, don’t know it…

“It’s never going to be okay! I’m never going to be okay,” I bite my lips and feel my forehead cave in and I swipe at my face, pushing away the wetness from my cheeks.

His eyes are hollow. He didn’t want to hear that. He wants to believe that everything is all right and that the things that he tells himself to make the world a fucking better place are the same things I need to hear.

But they’re not.

And this isn’t about him. Not fucking at all.

He puts his hand out to touch me, but stops mid-air. His hand, hanging there between us, reaching out to me. But he’s scared to touch me, scared to go there, scared to make any fucking move.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I will break. Maybe I am fragile.

Can’t fucking stand this anymore.

I push by him and blindly head up the stairs to the bedroom. I feel dizzy. I feel tired. So fucking tired. I might puke, I might cry, I might scream, I might die.

Crawl onto the bed and curl up against a pillow, closing my eyes, trying to drown out everything. Make the visions stop. Calm the hatred. Stop my brain from whirling around a dozen scenarios and trying to remember, all the fucking time, trying to piece together snatches of memory and story and pull into something that makes sense.

But none of it makes sense.

Brian stays away. An hour passes. There’s nothing but silence.

Then footsteps. Then noise in the kitchen. Bottles, glasses, the microwave. Cupboard doors opening and closing. Then steps up to the bedroom.

Quiet. I can feel him standing over me, and I know he knows I’m not asleep.

“I don’t wanna fuck, Brian,” I say, not opening my eyes. “You can’t just fuck this away.”

“I know,” he says and his voice loses it and disappears into a whisper. He clears his throat. “I know,” he says again, louder, stronger.

I feel the bed dip down, and I open my eyes, and he’s sitting cross-legged beside me, with all this shit in his arms. He puts everything down carefully on the bed.

Doesn’t say anything, just holds up a bottle of pills. Those extra strength headache pills I used to take. Then he raises his other hand, holding a bottle of Jim Beam. He wiggles one, then the other, watching my face.

“No more fucking drugs,” I mumble, barely lifting my head.

He raises his eyebrows at me.

It makes me smile. Just a little. “You know what I mean,” I say and prop my head up on my elbow. He pours a glass of Jim and passes it to me, then pours himself one and drinks it back quickly.

I get up and sit cross-legged on the bed, then take the hit of JB and he grabs my glass and pours me another. I drink it back and feel the warmth in my stomach, that nice even burn that spreads out to the rest of my body. He reaches out to me and I think he’s going to take my glass, but instead, he takes my gimp hand in his, and drops the palm-sized heating pad in my fingers. He’d warmed it up in the microwave and it feels fucking awesome on my tense muscles.

“Thanks,” I say, and raise my head a little to look up at him through my bangs

He’s got that look. That fucking *look* about him. I hate that I put that there again. I hate that Hobbes did this to both of us.

I roll the beans in the heating pad in my fingers, back and forth, back and forth. The sound is kind of soothing. We sit in silence for minutes more. Face to face. Sitting cross-legged on his bed. In this place where most of our conversations take place. Where we talk through grunts and sighs and cum.

But not tonight.

My fingers ease up, and I start to pull on them again, stretching them backwards, trying to straighten them.

He reaches out slowly, then takes my hand in both of his, and starts slowing massaging my hand, pushing his thumbs up the middle of my palm, easing out the tension and kneading my muscles the way he used to do all the time.

I let him.

He concentrates on my hand, flattening my fingers and pressing into my palm. Slowly my fingers stop cramping and I realize he’s not really massaging my hand now as much as just holding it.

Just sitting here, face to face, cross-legged on the bed, holding hands.

“I don’t think I can keep it in anymore,” I say. He lets go of my fingers, and wraps his hand around my neck, pulling our foreheads together.

“Then do what you have to do,” he says back. His voice is soft, and I know he doesn’t mean those words. I know he’d rather shove his opinion down my throat and make me do what he wants me to do. Make me stay here with him. Make me safe.

But I can’t be safe. I can’t play by the rules anymore. I need to do something. More than just scribble on a piece of paper and think it means something. It means nothing.

I think I need to stop being so fucking reasonable.

BRIAN’S POV

Jesus Christ.

It’s like two years ago all over again.

But I’m not so fucking egotistical now to think that I can solve all of little Justin’s problems.

Nope. Not at all.

I get home and he’s sitting there in the living room, surrounded by sketches, and completely focused on drawing. I take off my jacket, open the fridge and grab a beer, then stand in the kitchen and watch him. Scribbling on a sheet, then tossing it away and picking up another. It’s fucking silent in here except for the sound of his pencil running over the paper.

*scritchscritchscritch*

I missed that sound when he wasn’t here.

I go up into the bedroom and change out of my suit, hanging it up. Trying to save on drycleaning bills, of course. But after spending a day peddling my ass, I feel like I’m coated in slime. Pull on my jeans and a t-shirt and still…

*scritchscritchscritch*

Gets more heated. Harder.

Angrier.

Fuck. Something’s set him off. And he hasn’t said a fucking word to me. So unlike Justin. He’s always talking. But not now.

Just silence.

I don’t like it.

I wander over to the computer desk and watch him for a second more. See the content of the pictures he’s scribbling.

Holy fuck. It’s for the comic, but I don’t think they’re gonna publish this. Rage and Zephyr are ripping dicks off and shoving them down throats. They’re kicking guys in the face and poking out eyeballs and it’s fucking violent. I thought Rage was a positive superhero. Not this.

God.

“Since when did our heroes become the merry butchers of Gayopolis?” I ask him, daring to look down at more.

“Someone has to do it, since fags are too cowardly to stand up for themselves,” he spits out, grabbing another one. I don’t even know what he’s doing, just scribbling over and over on the same pieces. Picking them up and adding more.

Pushing himself.

That’s what he’s doing. He’s fucking pushing himself till it hurts. He’s making it hurt.

Fuck, Justin.

He starts scribbling again, and I see his fingers jerk on the pencil, tensing up and shaking a little. He stops and starts pulling on his fingers, pushing them back, easing them out of the curled mass they try to form. I’ve seen it happen. His palm just folds over and his fingers curl up uncontrollably.

I reach out to take his hand, to massage his palm like I’ve done a hundred times. “Somebody’s pissed off,” I say lightly. But he snatches his arm out of my grip, pulling away from me.

“Yeah, you would be too if you got your head bashed in,” he looks at me like he’s forgetting who I am.

Might as well have smacked me. “Yeah, I know… I was there,” I say to him, catching his gaze. He stares at me for a split second, and it comes flashing back to me and I don’t want to fucking think about it. Don’t think about it.

Don’t think about it.

Don’t.

I break his stare. “I thought you’d put that behind you and moved on,” I look away, back down at the sketches. I can feel his eyes on me for a second more, then he pulls on his fingers again.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he says softly and goes back to drawing.

I clench my jaw and swallow hard. Not going back here. I can’t…

Reach out and touch his hair, running my fingers over his ear, along his neck. His skin is warm, damp, overheated. He’s fucking vibrating with anger, and reaches up and grabs my hand, pulling it away. I hold onto his fingers tightly, but he yanks them back, out of my grasp.

He starts to tell me about Darren. That’s he not going to identify his attackers. Can’t say I’m surprised. Fear gets the best of us all. And I don’t blame him, not at all. He has to live the rest of his life. And if that’s what gets him through, then that’s what he’s got to do.

But then Justin starts to talk about himself. About doing something. Revenge. And I keep trying to get at him, keep trying to touch him, to calm him, but he keeps pushing me away, and rolling his eyes at my words. At the things that get *me* through the day.

So I stop.

Just. Fucking. Stop.

Everything.

Remember him squirming away from me when I tried to fuck him that first time after the bashing. Remember his body leaning away from my touch. Remember his fits and angry spells and feeling like I was dealing with a fucking 12-year-old.

And now it’s back.

It’s fucking back.

He drops his pencil and storms away and I sit here silent. Nothing to say, nothing to do. Just sit here and ride it out. Let him say the things he wants to say, he needs to say. I can hear them. I can take it.

He paces for a bit, then comes back and stands in front of me. I can see he’s trying not to cry, and I fucking hate that. God, I want to hold him to me, press his face to my neck and stroke his hair. Kiss the side of his head and whisper into his ear and tell him that everything’s going to be okay.

But I guess everything’s not going to be okay. He screams it at me, and I step back, away, feeling smacked again and trying to remember how to deal with this, how to handle this, and thinking how fucking stupid I was for not realizing that this would happen.

I let him stomp away. Let him leave me. As long as he stays here, in the loft, it’s okay. I can handle it. I have to handle it.

He’s quiet for a little bit, lying on the bed. He might be sleeping, might not. I don’t know.

So I pull out the new bottle of JB and heat up his heating pad, and as a last resort, grab the bottle of pills. Just in case.

I stand beside the bed and stare at him a minute – his eyes are closed but his breath is coming so quickly I know he’s awake. He’s just lying there, still.

Then he tells me he doesn’t want to fuck, and it makes me feel fucking awful.

Like I don’t know any other way of dealing. Maybe I never used to. But this is now.

I climb onto the bed, and drop all the stuff. He wants a drink, so I pour him one. Then another.

And we sit there.

I don’t know what to say.

He doesn’t know what to say.

Some words pass, and against my better judgment, I tell him to do what he needs to do. I don’t mean it. I want him to listen to me. To do what I want him to do.

But part of the reason I feel the way I do about him is that he *doesn’t* always do what I want him to do. And he’s smart. He’s fucking smart. He won’t do anything he shouldn’t. Won’t do anything rash.

And he’s right. He needs to deal with this. If he’s still feeling like this… after two years, after everything…

Then he needs to deal. And I feel like a shit because I never noticed. Never realized.

He finally lets me massage his hand, and then he collapses on to the bed and I follow, curling up my body into his. He lies on his side, away from me, and I wrap up around him, pushing my legs against his, my stomach against his back, my face buried into his shoulder blades.

“I still don’t want to fuck,” he says quietly.

“I know,” I say back. And wrap my arm around him tightly.

I breathe in his smell, feel his chest rise and fall beneath my palm, the warmth of his body pressing all down mine. Press my lips to his neck and let his hair tickle my nose.

Hold on.

I close my eyes and wish that I could change the world.