Brian POV

I woke up the day Michael’s month was up with a pounding headache. We hadn’t heard a thing from him and we had an appointment with a lawyer today. It was someone Mel had recommended; she specialized in things like this. First, though, we had to go to the police station and report him for embezzlement.

That thought just made the pounding in my head intensify. God, I had really hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to this, but he put this on himself. Justin started to stir, so I crawled under the duvet to make sure that his day, at least, started on a pleasant note.

We showered together after I was done and he took care of me in there. He groaned a little when he got up and I looked at him with an eyebrow lifted.

“Getting old, Sunshine?”

“Fuck you.” He laughed and gave me a light slap on the ass. “I banged my knee on my desk yesterday.”

I turned around and grabbed him. He squeaked a little in surprise, but I just lifted him onto the counter.

“Which knee?”

“The left one.”

I lifted his knee and looked at it. There was a dark purple mark just below the kneecap. I blew on it carefully and then lifted my head and threw him a mischievous grin.

“All better now, Princess?”

He laughed and jumped down.

The headache lifted a little after that, and coffee and toast helped, too. We dressed carefully; we wanted to come off as professionals to the lawyer, but not as rich assholes just out to squash the little guy. We had no idea what this woman was like, and better safe than sorry.

The agency had started making money, but most of it went back into the business; we only took out what we needed to live on, and not in the style I used to live, either.

We had bought two new suits for Justin; he needed them for when he had a client meeting, but I still used the suits I already had. The cars were a tax write-off and the furniture for the loft had been paid with credit cards; we were still paying off on those. So, it wasn’t as if we had a lot of disposable income, and we could actually use the money from Rage to maybe pay off some of the debt.

We stepped into the police station and went to the desk sergeant.

“Hi, we’re here to report a case of embezzlement.”

He looked at us and then nodded once before picking up the phone and telling somebody on the other end that there were people here who wanted to talk to them.

“If you take a seat, there will be someone with you momentarily.”

He indicated the chairs along the opposite wall. We went and sat and waited. We didn’t have to wait long before a woman came down and talked briefly with the sergeant at the desk and he pointed towards us. She came over and stuck out her hand as we got to our feet.

“I’m Detective O’Malley, how may I help you?”

“My business partner cheated me out of the profit of our joint comic book.”

She looked a little surprised; I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that it was Justin doing the talking or the mention of a comic book.

“Ok, come with me and I’ll take your statement.”

We walked with her up the stairs she had come down earlier and into a little room with a table and four chairs. I noticed that there was no mirror on the wall, so I figured it probably wasn’t an interrogation room.

She pulled out a tape recorder and set it on the table.

“Tell me the whole story.”

Justin POV

I told her everything; well, not everything, but all the things she needed to know to ascertain whether or not they were going to investigate and maybe arrest Michael. Fuck, I didn’t want to have to do this, but he left me little choice if I wanted my money back.

When we were done at the police station, it was time for lunch before we had the appointment with the lawyer Mel had recommended. I could see that Brian was tense, but couldn’t really blame him; we had just reported his best friend to the cops, not something you think you’ll ever have to do. I was so grateful to him for doing this with me, for being on my side in this.

We didn’t say much during lunch; there wasn’t a whole lot to say, really. This was just something we had to do and get it the fuck over with. We had told everybody that we would be doing this today and they were all behind us, even Vic. I could see that it was killing him, but he knew that it was the only way.

After lunch, we drove to the lawyer’s office, still in silence. When we got there, it turned out that she was nothing like I had imagined. She was about 5’2”, long black hair that hung loose down her back, and she was wearing a dress suit that was probably by some expensive designer.

“Hello, I’m Sandy Fischer.”

I shook her hand.

“I’m Justin Taylor and this is my partner, Brian Kinney.”

She led us to her office and we sat down across the desk from her.

“Tell me what I can do for you.”

I took a deep breath to try and calm down before I started talking.

“A friend of ours and I wrote a comic book together. About a month ago, we found out that he had used the profit to pay for some repairs to his store. I’d like to sue him for my part of the profits.”

She didn’t even bat an eyelash when I introduced Brian as my partner, but I guess if this was someone Mel knew, chances are she’s not a homophobe, more than likely, she’s a dyke.

“And there is no way you can settle this without involving lawyers?”

“We gave him a month to come up with the money and we haven’t even heard from him other than to try and get me to back off.”

She asked a lot more questions and we answered them as best we could. We also told her that we had reported him to the police earlier in the morning. Finally, after about two hours, she put down the pen she had used to take notes and looked at us.

“Here’s what’ll happen. First, I’ll prepare some papers and have a clerk serve them to him, and then, we’ll wait and see what he does. He might get arrested before we can do anything, but that’s not going to stop me.”

She explained some more about the process, but I don’t think either of us really heard her properly. I had never in my wildest dreams, or rather nightmares, thought that I would one day be in this situation.

When we left the lawyer’s office, it was about time for lunch. We had only taken the morning off work and we had to go back. Brian called Cynthia to ask if we should bring back some lunch for her and Ted and it turned out that they had everything ready and waiting for us at the agency.

Brian turned the car towards the agency, and when we arrived, the conference room table was decked out with sandwiches, water and some fresh-cut fruit.

Brian POV

I lifted an eyebrow at Cynthia and she gave me a little smile.

“We just figured it had been less than fun today and you could use a little pampering.”

I felt a surge of gratitude towards these two. They had turned out to be a godsend for the agency, but also to be good friends to both Justin and I.

We ate our lunch while they filled us in on this morning’s happenings. There hadn’t been much, thankfully, but we had planned it that way. We didn’t have any meetings today; we just had to work on some of the pending campaigns for some clients.

That evening, when we came home, we went by Emmett and Ben’s place to fill them in on what had happened that day. Vic was there and both he and Ben looked so sad, but resigned. I think they had hoped that Michael would come around before it was too late; hell, I think we all hoped that. Emmett invited us to stay for dinner, but we declined; we needed to be alone for a while.

After dinner, consisting of take-out Thai, and a movie, we went to bed and just enjoyed each other for a few hours. We needed to get some semblance of normalcy into a day filled with things neither of us ever thought we’d ever experience.