Gift # 32b of 36

[mander3-swish.livejournal.com]

TO: gaeln
FROM: cheburashka_2
BETA: Predec2 & mom
TITLE: Exile
GIFT REQUEST: Fic S5, 'What if' fic of the author's choice. Brian/ Justin, psychologically driven, characters thought processes (a little porn is fine, but not as main focus).

Chapter 4

"What?" Justin exclaimed in surprise.

"Witness protection. Your name will be among the dead. You will disappear - new place, new name, new identity and no contact with anyone in Pittsburgh until it's all over."

"How long?"

"It could take a while.”

“Why? You have the names of the perpetrators, their faces. You know where they parked the getaway car.”

“First names. As for the vehicle, we’ll locate it only if the 7-11 has a functioning security camera that has it on tape. We’ll talk to everyone who works there, of course, but in my experience people rarely notice a car parked at a convenience store for a couple of hours. But besides all that, you’ll have to stay ‘dead’ until the investigation into this bombing is complete, which includes finding these guys, which aren’t the professionals that Schneider usually hires. We'll need to gather all the physical evidence possible that connects this bombing to the organization and to Schneider. We'll need to re-build the case and make it airtight, then indict the perpetrators and connected individuals. So, yes, it may take a while. The thing is that your testimony as an eyewitness will be crucial. It'll save lives, Justin."

"I know. You still haven't given me a time frame."

"I can't give you a definite one. It all depends on how long the investigation will take and then the courts. It could take months, a year... I don't know."

"A year? Shit. My mother will have a fit, but she's reasonable enough. She'll understand. Debbie on the other hand... Brian would probably have to restrain her... Shit! Brian..."

"Debbie? Brian? Who are they?"

"Debbie's like a second mother to me..."

"Like a second mother - she's not a relative?"

"No. We aren't related at all. She’s Carl’s girlfriend, actually. She took care of me... I lived with her for a while my senior year in high school. It's a long story. And Brian is my ex, though as far as he is concerned we were never in a relationship."

"They can't know. None of them, Justin. Especially not an ex-boyfriend. He could be bought off..."

Justin laughed. "Bought off? Brian Kinney? No fucking way! He may not love me, he may not want to be with me, but he cares enough about me not to sell me out. You can take that to the bank. Besides, as the owner of Babylon he’s a victim too."

"It doesn't matter - no one can know. You are our best chance of finally bringing these jackals to justice. Your safety is paramount and the fewer people know that you are breathing the better. Right now there are two of us who know you are alive. My boss will obviously know and the person in the witness protection program processing your new identity documents will know. That's four people. I'd like to keep it that way for as long as humanly possible, hopefully until the day you testify in court."

"My mother has to know. If she thinks that I died in that explosion, it'll kill her. I won't do that to her; she has my sister to think of. She has to know. Period."

"Is she a good enough actress to look like she lost a son at the funeral?"

"Funeral?"

"Of course there'll be a funeral. We want this to be as authentic as possible."

"Yeah, she can handle it. God knows how long she faked it with my father."

"What about your father?"

"Oh, I've been dead to him for a while. Pretty much since I told him I was gay. If anyone will sell me out, it's him. He can't know."

"He won't."

"Listen, about Brian..."

"No, Justin. I'll allow your mother to know, but no one else. No contact - at all, with anyone. No calls, letters, emails, texts, chats, nothing. They have to genuinely believe that you are dead for your safety, as well as for theirs, not to mention the integrity of our case."

"I know, I know. I meant that Brian won't believe that I am dead unless he sees a body. How are you going to get around that, if you don't want him to know?"

“Well,” Carl, who until that moment remained silent, finally said. “I have an idea.”

Chapter 5

  Brian thought that the 48 hours after the bomb exploded at Babylon were some of the worst in his life - on par with the moment when a bat connected with Justin's head and with the interminable minutes he waited for an ambulance to arrive while his Justin bled out on the cold cement floor of the parking garage. While Mikey, though still in serious condition, was expected to survive, Brian hadn't heard one word of or from Justin. Neither had anyone else. As painful as it was to see his best friend almost die; as hard as it was to see Ben's despair and sudden burst of rage at the vigil; and as agonizing as it was to be the pillar of strength for everyone in his makeshift family, all of it was nothing compared to the abject fear growing in the pit of his stomach like a cancer that Justin was dead. He didn’t want to believe or even think about it, but as the hours went by seeing the denial on the faces of his friends, hearing the wild scenarios of where his ex-lover could possibly be on their lips and seeing the despair in Jennifer’s eyes, he couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t a possibility. The fact that he didn’t see Justin either alive or dead when he had run into a still smoking Babylon and that he hasn’t been brought into any of the area hospitals gave him hope. Last time he talked to Carl, he had no news. He couldn’t find the resolve to call the morgue quite yet, but decided to do that if he didn’t hear anything by next morning.

  His hope was short lived. He took an exhausted Jennifer home around 8 am Monday morning after checking Justin’s place, the loft and the Liberty Diner again for what seemed like the 100th time. Tucker came in a couple of minutes later; he apparently took a personal day at school. He was followed shortly by Craig, who was bringing a weepy Molly back to his mother. She was staying home from school too. The awkwardness of the encounter would have been humorous in any other situation. But the palpable fear felt by everyone in the room, including Craig it seemed, made it decidedly tense instead. They all crowded uncomfortably in Jennifer’s tiny foyer, but before anyone could do or say something to relieve the tension, the doorbell rang. Craig, since he was the closest one to the door, opened it to reveal Carl standing on the doorstep with a hangdog expression next to a tall, well-dressed man in his mid-forties. They looked at each other briefly and after coming to some sort of wordless agreement between them, they nodded and then looked back at the group congregated by the door.

  “Carl?” Jennifer whimpered. “Please…”

  “Jennifer, this is Special Agent Adam Modig, FBI. Can we come in?” They entered without waiting for a reply and closed the door.

  “No. Carl, please, no…” Jennifer pleaded, running toward the policeman and clutching the lapel of his jacket, tears streaming down her face.

  “Jennifer, I’m… I’m sorry to have to…” his words were interrupted by her wild wail, her sudden dead weight as her knees gave out and by Molly’s piercing cries as she realized that her brother was dead.

  The next several minutes were a blur as everyone except Brian tried to comfort the women and get them into the living room where there was more space. Brian couldn’t move. He stayed rooted to the spot in the entrance hallway, leaning against the wall for support as his brain tried to process what had just happened. He was suddenly sure that if he tried to move, he’d collapse and never get up again. He wanted to say something, but the lump in his throat prevented him from uttering a sound. He never thought that he’d be grateful to Craig Taylor for anything and he would have laughed if someone suggested something so ludicrous even an hour before. But, as they say, there’s a first time for everything and the only way to describe how he felt when Craig screamed at both Carl and Agent Modig “What the fuck happened? Start talking!” was grateful.

  “Mr. Taylor, Jennifer…his body…”

  “His name is Justin!” Tucker interrupted Carl’s speech.

  “Sorry. Justin’s body was brought into the morgue within the first few hours of the explosion, but he wasn’t identified until about an hour ago, at which time the morgue tech working with the remains recognized the name and notified me…” Carl explained.

  Remains. That word jarred Brian “awake.” He couldn’t reconcile that word with the vibrant man that Justin was. Is. Justin and “remains” were incongruous. Those words were as incompatible in the same sentence as their meaning was in the natural world. The world without Justin in it didn’t make sense; it was unnatural, incomprehensible, unreal. Untrue. It could not be.

  “How…how the fuck could he not be identified?” Brian growled, finding his voice again as he lurched from his spot in the hallway into the living room. “His name, his face, everything about him was all over the news, TV and the fucking internet less than four years ago! He’s not someone you’d forget. If you see him once, you’ll remember him forever! Especially if the tech knew of him, how could he not recog…”

  “Brian,” Carl said quietly, interrupting, “he…Justin was too close to the point of origin of the blast. He…he was burned too badly. His body was unrecognizable.” That pronouncement sent Jennifer and Molly into a fresh bout of heartrending screams and weeping and into each other’s arms. Tucker, who was sitting next to them on the couch, lowered his head onto his hands, tightly clasped on his knees. Craig, who was standing by the window, suddenly collapsed into a nearby armchair.

Brian felt his knees going weak, but he willed himself to stay upright and get to the bottom of this nonsense, because he just couldn’t believe that Justin was gone and none of the explanations so far made any sense.

“How was he identified?” he demanded.

“A part of his driver’s license survived. When they plugged the partial information into the database, his electronic record came up. Also, this was found on his body.” Carl produced a sealed plastic evidence bag with a tarnished, silver bracelet in it. Brian instantly recognized it – the only thing of Ethan’s that Justin had kept and the only thing of Ethan’s that Brian tolerated – a medical alert bracelet listing Justin’s allergies. The fiddler apparently gave it to Justin for his birthday. Although many of such bracelets existed, this one was unique – its elongated hexagonal shape was inscribed with a tiny treble clef in one corner and a tiny paint brush in another, making it utterly unmistakable.

“There was also this,” Carl continued, producing another evidence bag containing a watch – the only thing of his father’s that Justin had ever kept.

“I gave him that watch on his 16th birthday,” Craig whispered. It seemed that Craig had finally understood the difference between someone being dead in empty, shallow words that one screams in anger, and in cruel, merciless reality.

“There’s no mistake?” Tucker asked.

“None. The blood sample also matched what Justin had on record at the hospital from the time of the bashing.” Carl concluded quietly.

“Do we have to go to the morgue to identify the body?” Craig asked.

“You don’t have to do shit, asshole! He’s been dead to you since he was 17, why bother now?” Brian said, barely containing a sudden fury. “I’ll go. Take me to him!”

“I’m sorry, son,” Carl said apologetically, “but only the next of kin, a blood relative, can identify the remains if there’s no spouse.”

“I don’t care, I want to see him.” Brian demanded. “I won’t believe that he’s dead until I see the b…until I see him.”

“I’m sorry, but who are you exactly?” Agent Modig asked.

“Brian Kinney. I’m his…”

“Ex-boyfriend, of sorts,” Carl explained before Brian could finish his thought. “They’ve been on and off for a couple of years. It’s been ‘off’ for the last few weeks, sadly.”

“Fuck you, Carl!” Brian exploded.

“Is it true, Mr. Kinney? You weren’t involved with Justin Taylor at the time of his death?”

“No,” Brian reluctantly admitted.

“Then, I’m sorry, but Carl’s right. You shouldn’t have even been here for this. I thought you were a relative. If the next of kin, his parents, give their permission…”

“Brian has my permission,” Jennifer whispered raggedly. “Whatever their relationship was like, however they ended things, Justin loved Brian…unreservedly. He’d want… he’d…” then she dissolved into tears anew.

“Mr. Taylor?” Agent Modig asked.

“I haven’t been involved in…in my son’s life in a few years now, so whatever Jennifer says is fine with me.”

Brian certainly didn’t expect that from Craig Taylor.

  “Jennifer, Brian...” Carl said, hesitating slightly, “you’ve already identified his belongings. Things found on his body. The blood matched. There’s no need for you to go to the morgue. You don’t want to see him that way. You don’t want to remember him that way. Trust me.”

  “I don’t fucking care, Carl. I need to see him,” Brian said.

  Carl looked at Agent Modig for approval, then they both nodded their agreement. Brian walked towards Jennifer, crouched at her feet and took one of her hands in his.

  “Jennifer, you don’t have to do it. I’ll go for you. You shouldn’t see him that way, mother T… I don’t want you to see him that way…mom.”

  “OK. OK, Brian. Thank you,” she managed to say. “Tucker?”

   “I’ll go,” he said, understanding her perfectly.

  “Agent Modig, I’d like to stay here for a bit. Would you take Brian to the morgue?”

  “Certainly.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Craig Taylor, surprising pretty much everyone.