I wrote this as a gapfiller between S1 and S2, a long while back. And then the waiting ends. by Aimee Ivory The first night Brian came watching over Justin was the night after the family had learned that Justin would make it through. It wasn’t much different from the past nights, which he had spent in the almost endless halls of the hospital waiting for a doctor to provide them with news, only this time he came back long after the visitor hours and after everyone had left. Justin had fallen into a coma and the doctors weren’t sure when he’d wake up, so everyone was sent home to rest and get a good night’s sleep. They were told that there was nothing they could do. Brian came there after a visit to Babylon, after drinking, fucking and drugging himself, only to sober up almost completely as soon as he set a foot into the building and realization hit him that pretending the bashing hadn’t happened wouldn’t work. When Brian sauntered out of the elevator, the nurse who was working the night shift eyed him up and nodded. “Good evening, Mr Kinney,” she said, waiting for him to approach her desk but Brian didn’t. Rolling his eyes at her expectant glance when he passed, he headed on to where they had set up Justin. “Mr Kinney!” the nurse called after him. Her voice echoed through the empty hallways and made her call sound vaguely more like a question than a warning. The sound of feet shuffling over the linoleum floor caused him to turn around. The nurse smiled and seemed in no way annoyed, which annoyed the crap out of Brian. He knew that she would try to use sweet talk on him. So he braced himself and met her eyes defiantly. Before she could even take a breath and open her mouth to speak, Brian began to talk. “Look, Linda,” he started, reading out her name from the tag on her white blouse. “No matter what you want to say, I’m not leaving. And now you have two options: Either, you let me sit here for a while and I won’t cause much trouble or you can call your security service, risk waking all your patients and be sure you’ll have a hell of a lot explaining to do tomorrow.” Linda crossed her arms in front of her chest and sighed. “You’re awfully convincing, you know.” She smiled at him meekly and glanced into Justin’s room. Brian smirked. “I’m in advertising.” “I bet you’re successful. Anyway, Mr Kinney, I hope you understand that I have to send you home before the early shift arrives. If anyone finds about this, I will get into trouble.” He nodded and then turned back to watch Justin’s sleeping form through the window. He looked almost peaceful. Actually, Brian thought, Justin was lucky. He neither had to endure all of the questions everyone was asking about what exactly had happened nor did he have to put up with the prognoses the doctors were giving about his condition – at least yet. Brian had no idea how long her had been staring into the room, had been waiting for Justin to make the slightest movement, but suddenly Linda was back and handed him a plastic cup, filled with steaming coffee. “Half an hour, then I’ll ask you to leave,” she told him and then added: “You know that it can take a while until he wakes up?” Brian nodded. “The doctors said it could take a day, a week, three months.” “Listen, Mr Kinney, I work the night shifts from Friday until Tuesday. I don’t know if any of my other colleagues would appreciate you showing up. But I understand why you come here.” Brian snorted. He was certain that she had no idea how it felt to be responsible for someone’s death. ‘Almost death’, he corrected himself, inwardly shuttering at the sound of the word. “When I was twenty-three, I had a terrible fight with my boyfriend at that time. He took off with the car because he was so fed up with my whining and was involved in an accident that night. Some drunken truck driver pushed his car into the end of a traffic jam on the highway. He barely survived, and then was in a come for almost three months.” Brian tore his eyes away from Justin, when Linda fell silent. “If I hadn’t come to the prom, Justin wouldn’t be here. It’s…” Linda shook her head fiercely. “There’s nothing you can blame yourself for. You’re not responsible for other people’s actions. I know why you don’t want to see them. You fear that they are going to blame you, don’t you?” Brian hated how she seemed to be able to read him. Instead of admitting she was right, he just glared at her. “I doubt that they would. Anyway, now that it has happened, there’s only one thing you can do: Wait.” Brian Kinney wasn’t good at waiting. He was particularly good at writing copies, picking out the best shots for a new campaign and bossing people around. However, waiting was nothing he was something he was particularly bad at. It was a waste of time really. Yet, he was forced into doing so. But if he had to, then certainly not with anyone else. The family would be fussing over him, trying to make sure he was okay or even worse – ask questions about the bashing. Brian didn’t want to picture it ever again: The sound of the bat swinging through the air and then connection with Justin’s head, the sight of Justin collapsing to the floor and the red blood spilling out of his head and onto the cold concrete. He shuddered and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It goes without saying that you’re to let anyone know I was here? Most of all not Jennifer Taylor.” Linda nodded and took a look at her watch. “I’m afraid visitors’ hour is over.” The waiting took him two entire weeks. The night that brought both relief and even more grief was the night Justin woke up. It could have happened anytime: During one of Jennifer’s visits or Debbie’s or any other member of their makeshift family. But it happened right in the middle of one of Brian’s nightly visits. He sat opposite the door, staring through the glass at Justin, who had lain in the same position for two long weeks. At first, Brian thought he had imagined things. His eyelids already felt heavy and his vision became a little blurry, so he had to get up and walk closer to the door. Never leaving the hand which, a second ago, had gripped onto the white cover out of sight, Brian had to steady himself on the wall. A wave of relief washed over him and he considered simply walking into the room. “Is something wrong?” Ellen, one of Linda’s colleagues asked when she approached him on her hourly check on the patients. But Brian didn’t answer. In fact, the nurse couldn’t even be sure whether he had heard her in the first place. Curious to find out what had him so transfixed inside Justin’s room, she walked up to where Brian stood and took a look inside. Completely startled, Ellen almost dropped the brown clipboard she held in her hands. Justin’s left hand seemed to move on his own accord and then held onto the edge of the bed. And then, ever so slowly, the black eyelashes that contrasted so harshly against the pale cheeks began to flutter and Justin’s eyes flickered open. And then the waiting ends. The news that Justin had woken up spread like fire, closely followed by the news that it was likely that Justin might never be able to draw again. Brian had only snorted when Debbie had told him that. Whenever he came to the diner, she would provide him with the latest news before slapping him on the back of his head because Brian seemingly refused to visit their Sunshine. Ted and Emmett sat with him and wouldn’t comment on it at all – they knew better than to tell Brian what he had to do. “There’s nothing I can do for him!” Brian told Debbie once openly, although he preferred not to say anything at all most of them. “ Brian knew he was pathetic, sneaking into the hospital at night and spying on Justin. Brian didn’t know what he was aiming at with it: As soon as Justin woke up, horrified by a night mare, Brian would leave, afraid that Justin might catch a glimpse of him. And still, all the way down in the elevator, Brian thought that maybe, if he could muster up the courage to stay, Justin would forgive him. The last night he spent at the hospital was the night before Justin was released from there. Michael had shown up in the backroom of Babylon, complaining about Brian never answering emails or returning calls and being back to ‘his old tricks’. Annoyed that people wouldn’t even leave him alone in there, Brian had left the club a while later, after going through with his nightly routine. That night the nurse assigned to the night shift – he didn’t know her name – talked too much, although Brian did his best to piss her off. When she finally left, he stood in the same spot as always, watching Justin sleep, his body shaken by nightmares. The door knob was only an arm length away, all Brian needed to do was push the door open, walk over and wake Justin up with a single push of his hand. In his head, it all seemed so easy and he almost reached out and did it. Brian knew that Justin asked about him, wanted to know why Brian didn’t come to see him a single time. He was surprised that Justin didn’t know better. Well, Justin probably would know better, could he remember the prom, how they danced and laughed, how Brian had kissed him in front of everyone. Brian flinched at the thought of what had happened in the car park afterwards: How Justin had proclaimed that it had been the best night of his life and how Brian himself hadn’t disagreed but, even more, agreed by telling Justin that it had been, even if it had been ridiculously romantic. But Justin couldn’t remember. Instead, he was suffering from pain and nightmares. And Brian was suffering from the pure sight of it. But maybe, he thought, that was why he never went in and talked to Justin – because maybe it served Brian well. A constant reminder that it was him who, by letting his tough façade slip away for the shortest while, was to blame.