Justin’s POV:

I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breath. 

My body was gripped by a physical paralysis that was radically offset by the frantic chaos erupting inside my head as thoughts and questions came exploding into my mind.

What the bloody hell was Brian Kinney doing in this shithole at two in the fucking morning? It couldn’t be coincidence…the odds against it were so astronomical they weren’t even worth considering.

He must have been waiting for me, he knew I’d come here. I’d walked into a trap…or a rescue…

Despite my best efforts to stay calm, everything around me began to dissipate rapidly into a swirl of abstract disorder, until that the only conscious thing left in the world was the feeling of Brian’s long fingers in my hair and on the skin of my neck. 

His familiar face swam in and out of focus; as if someone were adjusting the focal length of my vision. The only discernable facial features I could concentrate on were his smouldering green-gold eyes, burning through the fog and confusion of my racing mind. 

Those eyes were not searching for answers- Brian obviously already knew all he needed to- but for the confirmation I just couldn’t give him. Ethan’s haunting words were draped heavily over every attempt to surrender it; 

“If anyone knew what you make me do, Baby, it’d destroy me; I can’t live without you…you’re my life, your part of my soul. If you left, I’d kill myself…and it would be because of you; you made me love you so much…”

I saw again the splashes and splatters of blood across every surface of the room, across the floor and walls and ceiling, all over me, on my face and in my hair, covering Ethan in a scarlet tunic, in a sea of blood. I saw again the flash of steel, the severing of skin, his cry, and above all, my uncontrollable screaming sobs at him to stop, stop, stop. 

Christ. I couldn’t do it, not again.

Gripped by a blind tearing panic, I flung myself sideways away from Brian’s slackened grip, knocking over a display of chocolate bars as I did so. I felt Brian’s hands snatching at my coat, and heard his voice yell out my name as I hit the door at in an unseeing, blundering run. 

Outside, the freezing air hit me like a slap in the face, and I struggled to suck the icy coldness into my lungs as I began to run- not from Brian, but from myself, from my perfidious, merciless world. 

I sprinted down the sidewalk, back the way I’d come, sliding and skidding on the slickness of the fallen sleet. Huge smatters of frozen slush flew into my eyes, blinding me, and I couldn’t hear anything for the pounding in my ears.

Panic was breeding and spreading throughout my body with every passing second. I realized that running from Brian had been the stupidest fucking thing I could’ve done. The words he had overheard in the store could’ve been casually glossed over and covered with more lies, but the action of fleeing had been a naked expression of desperation and terror, demonstrating the depth of my predicament to its fullest extent. 

I ran all the back to the apartment building, not because I wanted to return to Ethan, but because it was the only place I could think to go. I had always been a terrible runner, and my lungs were searing with exertion in the frigid air as rounded the corner into the building’s outside parking lot.

Just as reached the short flight of stairs leading to the glass frount doors, my foot slipped on a patch of icy concrete and slid off the pavement, causing me to pitch forward and land hard on my right knee. I heard the ‘thunk’ of bone on rock and could only wait helplessly for that instant between impact and inevitable pain. 

When it came, the pain was so intense I actually started to sob through gritted teeth, sitting on the step and clutching my injured knee with both hands and rocking backwards and forwards. God, it hurt so fucking badly! I’d bit my tongue when I’d landed and I could taste my own blood; salty and metallic. 

Blood reminded me forcefully of Ethan, and even though the agony was unbearable, I hauled myself off the ground and limped excruciatingly through the doors, dragging my protesting body up the six flights of stairs to my intended destination. 

Almost sobbing with pain and exertion, I shoved open the door to Ethan’s apartment and staggered inside, not bothering to close the door behind me. As I literally fell sideways onto the sofa, Ethan materialized by my side looking alarmed, the bed sheet wrapped around him like an oversized toga. 

“What the fuck’s the matter?” he demanded, an edge of fear in his voice. “What happened?”

When I didn’t answer, he grabbed my shoulders and leaned over me, jarring my knee and causing me to yelp in pain. He ignored my obvious discomfort and gave me a shake that seemed to rattle every bone and nerve in my body. 

I couldn’t tell him the truth; I was horrified about what he would do, what he was capable of.

“Nothing,” I gasped out as he jarred my knee again, sending blinding, white hot zaps of pain through me. The pain was so intense it made me fell dizzy and nauseous, but Ethan’s hands on my shoulders refused to let me sit forward. “I just fell and landed on my- ahh!- my knee.” 

“You’re lying,” Ethan hissed, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Don’t lie to me.”

Suddenly, as if he had conjured it from thin air, he had one of the penknives in his hand, open, the blade flashing. He nicked the tip of his finger with it and squeezed so that his blood came up to form a bead on his skin. “Tell me the truth, Justin.”

I could not believe he was going to do this to me now. 

Now, when I was so obviously weak and shaken and petrified. I looked into his eyes and saw no compassion or sympathy or even any humanity; all I saw was his sadistic excitement. When he smeared his bloody finger across my face, I abandoned all attempts at self control and began to wail in terror.

“Shut up, you idiot!” Ethan ordered, slamming his hand down on my mouth and nose, jerking my head back and suffocating me. “Do you want to wake the whole building up? Now tell me what happened, or…” 

Ethan held the blade of the knife against the skin of his arm, less than an inch from my eye. Imagining what it would be like to have Ethan’s blood flowing over my face, I began to scream, my pleading muted against his unrelenting hand. Tears of helplessness and terror began to slide down my face as I tried pitifully to pull his hand from my mouth.

And then, impossibly, miraculously, spontaneously, Brian was there.

I felt Ethan’s weight lifted from my body, heard first his yell and then the crash and thump as his body hit the floor some distance away. I fought to fill my burning lungs with the air Ethan had deprived me of, gasping as I looked around wildly, trying desperately to understand what was going on.

What I saw in the next second scared me more than anything Ethan could ever have done or imagined. 

Brian was standing there, seeming to tower over everything, about a foot away from me. He was staring straight into Ethan’s eyes and visibly trembling with fury, an embodiment of ferocious, fierce, murderous anger. Rage.

“Don’t move, you motherfucker, or I’ll teach you what it means to really fucking bleed. I swear to God I’m gonna kill you.” Brian’s voice was so contorted with fury I almost didn’t recognize it. 

His anger so powerful and overbearing I could feel it pulsing through the air in waves, reverberating around the whole room. I could actually see the pounding adrenalin rushing through his body, the pulse in his neck hammering furiously. What frightened me the most was the look in his eyes; he was willing and able to fulfil every one of his threats.

He took a step towards Ethan, who was stricken with terror, cowering, begging for mercy, writhing on the floor where he’d landed. A coward. I saw Brian’s eyes flicker with his towering aggression, his hands closed into tight fists, his jaw clench and muscles tense. 

For a long moment, each second seeming to draw into eons, Brain and Ethan just stared at one another; an epic clash of Rage and terror.

And then, seeming to make a massive effort, Brian turned away from Ethan, from the revenge that was rightfully his, and looked down at my face. I loved him more at that moment than I had ever before.

It was a tremendous sacrifice, the most heroic thing I had ever witnessed. It was of that rare and underestimated type of heroism defined not by what was done, but what was not done. Grace under fire.   

“C’mere,” Brian ordered softly, holding out his arms to me. 

He was still shaking with the adrenaline, his voice still warped by the towering emotions, but the gesture had been heartbreakingly tender. I scrambled off the couch only to fall onto the floor with a whimper of agony as my knee gave out completely. Brian swiftly bent down to me and lifted me under the arms, holding and supporting me against his warm, solid chest.

His arm was tight around my waist, his hand cradling the back of my head against his shoulder. His feel and smell and touch were all so familiar and reassuring that I couldn’t help physically clinging to it like a baby animal clings to its mother. I was safe.

“Now listen, you fucking sadist, and listen good.” Brian growled, his voice soft and dangerous. I wanted to turn my head to see what Ethan was doing as he was addressed, but Brian held my head firmly against his shoulder.

“The only reason you’re not dead is because I don’t need to be changed with manslaughter. You’re not fucking worth it.” I felt his grip on me tighten slightly. “But don’t think you’ve got off easy- you’re gonna fucking pay for what you’ve done to Justin. I’ll be back tomorrow with the police, and if you’re not here, I swear to God I’ll spend the rest of my life hunting you down. You got that?”

When I heard Ethan’s snivelling acknowledgement, I could tell he was crying, he was terrified. I suddenly remembered what he said he’d do if I left him. But even if it was my fault, if Ethan killed himself tonight, it would just prove his guilt; it would show the world how much of a coward he really was…

“Good. I’ll be watching you.” 

With those words, Brian half-carried, half-dragged me out of the apartment door, and I caught a last fleeting glimpse of Ethan, curled up in the sheets on the floor, crying. When we had descended four flights of stairs, Brian stopped and propped me gently against the wall of the stairwell. He took my face tenderly in his hands.

“Hey, shh, it’s OK. Stop, you’re safe now.” I realized with a slight shock that I must’ve been sobbing the whole time, because I was still taking erratic, hiccupping gulps of air. I put my hands up and gripped Brian’s wrists, leaning my forehead against his and tried desperately to quell the noises I was unconsciously making.

“That’s it; just breathe…What’s wrong with your knee? Did you fall?”

I managed to stem the flow of sobs, but I didn’t feel up to explanations yet. I just nodded and whimpered that it hurt, everything hurt; inside and outside and everywhere in between. Brian gathered me to him again, holding me tightly in the safety and comfort of his strong arms.

“I’ve got you, Sunshine…you’re safe now.”

~~~

Thirty Minutes Later

Brian’s POV

Turning my back on Chin-rat had been the hardest fucking thing I’d ever done.

The fear I’d felt when I’d sprinted up those rickety stairs, following first Justin and then the sound of his screams, was nothing to the unearthly, superhuman rage I had felt when I’d come upon the scene in Ethan’s apartment. Rage so powerful it seemed to sever body and mind in a weird kind of out-of-body experience.

I’d wanted to kill him, and I knew that if I hadn’t made the decision to focus on Justin instead, I would have beaten him, if not the death, then certainly unconscious. But what I’d felt for Justin had been more powerful still, and so I’d trusted it.

I carried Justin up to the loft in my arms, ostensibly to prevent causing additional pain to his injured knee. But in reality, I’d just simply wanted to hold him, to feel his body relax against mine, and to reinforce the fact that he was safe; now and forever.

I laid him down careful on the couch propped up against the arm rest, and between the two of us, we managed to divest him of his damp jacket, shoes and socks. Justin was deathly pale and trembling, but he was still responding coherently to my words and touch.

“I’m gonna get you a blanket,” I told him quietly, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze. I gestured at his right leg, “Take your jeans off so I can look at that knee of yours.”

When I went back to him with the blanket and a few extra pillows, Justin had managed to struggle out of his tight jeans and was sitting up, clutching the injured knee, his eyes clenched shut with the renewed agony caused by the movement.

“Let me see it,” I ordered, gently pulling his hands away. 

It was truly ugly. Justin’s knee had swollen to at least twice the size, the bruising every possible shade of blue, violet and red. It was going to need medial attention of some description, and probably an x-ray or two.

“It hurts,” Justin whimpered, as if that weren’t abundantly clear from the contortion of pain on every one of his facial features. He was still shaking and I wrapped the blanket around his upper body before turning my attention to his lower half.

“I can see it hurts, Sunshine,” I assured him gently, “It’s a nasty bruise. I’m gonna put some ice on it to stop the swelling.” 

I carefully lifted the injured leg and positioned a pillow under it to keep it elevated, and then as gently as I could, laid a cold pack on the extensive bruising. Justin hissed and bleated with pain, but obediently followed all my instructions without protest. I made him swallow a tablet of Ibuprofen (one of the few drugs he wasn’t allergic to), praying the anti-inflammatory would ease the swelling and take the edge of his discomfort. 

“Now, try and get some sleep,” I encouraged him softly, crouching by his head and stroking strands of damp hair off his clammy forehead. I touched his eyelids with my fingertips to make him close them before pulling the blanket down to cover his legs. “If you need me, just call. I’ll be right over there.”

“Brian,” Justin whimpered softly, scrunching his eyes shut as his face crumpled, “I’m sorry… I’m sorry I ran from you…I didn’t…I couldn’t…”

“Hey, hey, hey- no more waterworks today, OK?” I admonished gently, stroking his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. “I know why you ran, Sunshine, and I understand. You have nothing to be sorry for. Now get some sleep, you’ve been through a lot.”

I sat with him, perched on the edge of the sofa by his waist, long after he’d fallen asleep. As I watched his sleeping form, isolated now on its peaceful island in the dreamworld, I felt bitter remorse and self-hatred washing over me. Tears and bile began rising in my throat.

I’d waited too long. I’d waited until it had come to this; until Justin was helpless and almost broken from the daily torture he’d been forced to endure and conceal.

I’d suspected abuse more than a month ago, but I’d never been able to find a mark on Justin’s body to prove it. It had never occurred to me that the cuts and burns and bruises could be inflicted on the inside, on one’s mind and soul. And while I puzzled and supposed, Justin was spiralling deeper into Ethan’s manmade hell

Yet I had waited until two days ago, until I’d overheard a hustler at the diner asking Justin why he went to a certain convenience store very late almost every night. It wasn’t the strangeness of the question that had set the alarm bells jangling, it was Justin’s reaction; his unmistakable look of terror. I knew then that my worst fears were a reality.

God, why? Why hadn’t I done something sooner? Why hadn’t I spared him the pain?

“I’m sorry, Sunshine,” I whispered brokenly to Justin, stroking his beautiful face, peaceful now in the innocence of sleep, “I’m so sorry…” 

As I bent and gently kissed his forehead, a tear spilled over and fell onto Justin’s cheek. I traced it along his cheekbone very gently with my fingertip, drawing a line of silver along his angelic features. 

“No one will ever hurt you again, Sunshine,” I promised him in a whisper so soft only I could hear it. “I’ve got you.”