"Open the door Brian. I'm dripping wet and I'd like to dry off." Lindsay called through the closed iron door.

"And you fucking brought my son out in this weather." Brian pulled the door back on its tracks harshly and turned an eye on the hallway for some confirmation of his statement.

"No I didn't bring 'your' son out in this weather." Lindsay pushed pass him roughly and went inside. She was perfectly aware that climbing six flights of stairs hadn't dried the soles of her shoes fully and she was intentionally dripping puddles all over Brian's floor. "The way you talk about 'your' son sometimes makes you sound like the Today's Parent poster father and me sound like the irresponsible airhead that you sometimes leave him with." Lindsay finished her comment by shrugging out of her jacket and shaking it out, further dampening the floor. The acrid smell of cigarette smoke and just plain 'burnt', hung on the air and she made a mental note to talk to Brian about that too.

"You didn't pay for it so you better be damned sure that you're wiping all that up." Brian gestured towards the footprints and turned to get back to what he'd been doing when the pounding on his door began. He didn't stick around to watch Lindsay kick off her loafers or move to the kitchen to find something to help dry her hair and also satisfy his directive.

"You're in a perfectly assholish mood today and the way everyone tells it, you've been sharing your good cheer with Justin." Lindsay called toward the bedroom as she eventually bent to wipe up the mess on the floor.

"You're already at the door so save us both the headache of this conversation." Brian called out from where he sat on the edge of the bed facing the bathroom. He'd been huddled over this project for the last twenty minutes and before leaving the room to answer the door, had seriously battled the urge to hide this from potentially prying eyes. The sense that he was doing something illicit and down right wrong came and went as quickly as he could make it go. Now that Lindsay was only twenty feet away, the need to hide was back in full force.

"You know that means nothing to me Brian." By this point the woman had finished her wiping and had found a perch at the kitchen counter to wait out what she assumed the man had been doing. Blue shirt un-tucked, tie gone and sleeves rolled up, she'd assumed Brian was undressing and this mistaken assumption would have given him plenty of time to hide his 'sins' without her knowing...if not for...

"Shit!" Brian dropped the box cutter and the heavy-duty tape dispenser on the floor beside the bed. He'd barely managed to keep his hold on the box he was carrying and it served him right for thinking he could carry the open blade of the cutter and tape in one hand, while trying to balance the box between that occupied hand and his other.

Wincing a little, he set the still open box down beside his foot and opened his right hand slowly. A small red eruption quickly filled his palm with blood and Brian watched it reflect the light in the room for a full two seconds before thinking to do anything about it.

Something about the imagery rang true to him and it felt almost right to see.

Watching the pool crest and start to overflow the edges of his hand, Brian thought first about the box and then about the floor. Kicking the box closer to the bed, he let the edge of the suit jacket that had been lying there fall halfway over the top of the box before grabbing the ash filled iron garbage can and going into his bathroom. For the time being, this camouflage was the best that he could do without getting blood all over his clothes and the floor.

...For some reason or the other, he'd also been concerned about getting blood on the contents of the box.

"What'd you do to yourself?" Lindsay crossed the threshold of the bathroom and then moved closer to get a better look.

Glancing over his shoulder at her, Brian quickly turned his attention back to the stream of water from the faucet and the place in the middle of his palm where it turned from clear to red before pooling and running down the drain.

"Quick, run back and tell the others that I tried to off myself. Maybe then you would have an excuse for that intervention I know you've all been itching to have." A tone laced with biting sarcasm and then nothing as Brian continued to study his hand.

"How did you do that to yourself?" The caretaker in Lindsay instinctively moved to retrieve the gauze from the medicine chest that she'd helped to stock just in case Gus had an accident while visiting the loft.

"I told you. I cut too low and then changed my mind before doing the other arm." Brian pushed at his sleeve and sneered at her as he shut off the faucet. He'd sidestepped her Florence Nightingale efforts and gone back to the bedroom, this time on a mission to hide his activities more carefully.

Pulling the still "Mark" rumpled duvet off the bed, Brian dropped it in a pile on the floor and managed to cover the presence of a medium sized cardboard box that no one knew existed. "I got blood all over this fucking thing." Brian lied as Lindsay glanced at the duvet on the floor. He'd taken a seat at the side of the bed and waited to see whether she'd question his explanation.

"I see a box-cutter and I see tape. Where's the box?" The woman bent down to pick both objects up from the floor and Brian got up again, deciding it was best to lead her out of the room.

Twenty minutes of sitting in that bedroom before Lindsay had come...being there alone in the quiet had started to wear on him and if not for wanting to finish what he'd started, he would never have lingered there at all.

"Why did you come over here again?" Brian reached up to run his left hand over his face, all the while checking to see how much more blood had pooled in his right palm since the time he came out of the bathroom moments before.

Deciding to sacrifice the 'box' curiosity for her overall mission tonight, Lindsay dropped the tape and the now closed blade of the box cutter on the table beside Brian's bed. She'd been thinking about the last time she'd seen the man and the invitation to dinner that she'd extended almost a month before...almost a month before when seeing Brian smiling, eating...cursing...and hearing that he and Justin had been together again, had made her think the worse was behind them.

Letting the tips of her fingers skim the surface of the sheets that were still on the bed, Lindsay mentally regrouped and replaced her doting attempt to see that Brian wasn't cut too badly, with the raw attitude that she'd intended to challenge him with tonight. That raw attitude had seen her send Melanie and Gus home ahead of her after leaving the diner and had seen her determined to make Brian stop where Debbie and the rest had failed.

Watching her friend through the panes of the glass dividers, Lindsay noticed his fascination with his palm and the doting side of her held tight to the gauze again. After all was said and done, just because she intended to perform her one-woman intervention tonight, didn't mean that she had to watch him bleed all over himself while she did it.

One foot in front of the other, Lindsay took three steps along the edge of the bed and Brian held his breath as he listened to the sounds of her footfalls on the floor. In another second or two the trick step would creak and tell him that Lindsay had finally left the bedroom without any discoveries and without any information that he would just as rather went unnoticed.

...But.

Instead of the creak that he'd been waiting for, Brian heard the muffled thud and he closed his eyes a little before screwing off the cap on the bottle of Absolut that had been sitting on the kitchen counter in front of him. Lindsay, it seemed, had found the box that she'd deduced was the missing third of the scene of objects on Brian's floor.

Shoulders tensed and green gray eyes focused on the glass cabinetry on the wall in front of him, Brian mechanically filled his glass as he listened to the deafening silence from the other room.

He'd given himself an equally mechanical shave that morning after Mark finally left and by now he'd managed to grow his usual five o'clock shadow, or more accurately according to the clock on the back of the stove, his seven o'clock shadow. He'd survived another day at work without once reliving the things he'd said to Justin at the diner that morning and without actually planning the interlude he'd begun as soon as he entered the loft tonight. Grabbing a beer from the fridge and bringing his bunch of keys with him to the bedroom, his next stop after getting home had been to unlock one of the cabinets that ran along the wall under the glass dividers and retrieve the box that he'd been keeping there.

He'd removed the box, gotten out the heavy iron trashcan...his lighter...and of course, the box cutter. Given the fact that he'd now been discovered, Brian wondered why it was that he hadn't just tossed the entire box into a dumpster somewhere. Part of him also wondered what it was that he'd planned on keeping and using the tape to seal up in that box again...once he was done.

Looking down into his glass, Brian waited...and...

...Looking down at the duvet beside her foot, Lindsay pulled back the cloth to see what it was that her foot had clipped. Brian offered her no protest and no sound came from the kitchen besides the hollow clang of his now empty glass. Lindsay brought a hand to her mouth as the contents of the box came into view.

Seconds later, Brian tossed back his second double and waited for the preaching or the pity to begin. Neither one of which was welcome, but at this point that man realized that one or both was inevitable. "I asked you why you came here?" He spoke up again and waited for Lindsay to digest what it was that she was seeing the bedroom.

Reams of uncolored comic pages showing Rage and J.T. on some adventure or another...some pages crumpled and soiled, others still crisp...half done pencil drawings showing Brian eating, sleeping, showering, his face, his eyes...his hands...the edges of paper napkins that by the looks of things depicted more of the same...movie ticket stubs...receipts...flyers...sticks of Big Red gum...something that used to be white but even though it was now partly reddish brown and unrecognizable, was hauntingly familiar at the same time...a Wiffle ball...Justin's pullover...

"I want to know if it helps any." Lindsay pulled her eyes away from the box and spoke softly. She'd come to stand in the doorway of the bedroom and she let her gaze fall on the model for the many drawings she'd just seen. Brian had his back to her and she took in the set of his shoulders, his un-tucked shirt, the line of his pants and finally, his bare feet.

"If what helps any?" The man turned his head a little and now Lindsay could see his profile.

"This thing that you're doing Brian. This purge...this very literal controlled burn that you're doing to both you and Justin." Still speaking softly and slowly, Lindsay turned to gesture toward the room behind her. Standing in there after Brian left, she'd managed to separate and identify the distinct smell of cigarette smoke and the more raw acrid scent of burnt paper.

Brian set the glass on the counter and turned to face her. He could feel the edge of the counter in the small of his back and he lifted his eyes to find her searching face. "We're not gonna talk about that so you might as well go home." The fingers of his left hand dancing nervously on the countertop beside him, Brian waited for her to start.

"Justin was in tears when he left. Debbie says he asked to leave as soon as he heard you'd left the diner for the office." Taking one step and then the second, Lindsay ignored the creaking and came to stand a few feet from Brian.

"What does any of that have to do with me?" Brian let a false smirk play over his lips.

"Everything." Lindsay took a breath before continuing. "It has to do with regret and his sense that he deserves any of the shit that you dish out to him and his not being able to take this anymore." The woman had put both hands into her pockets now and she unconsciously played with the little packet of gauze that was still balled up in her hand.

"Justin is a big boy. He can take care of himself. He even told me so." Brian let his voice trail off as he turned to retrieve his glass once again.

"Can you take care of yourself?" Lindsay moved in to interrupt his refill and snatched the glass away. "Is this what big boys do when something feels too real for comfort?"

"Fuck. Off." Brian spoke slowly and enunciated every syllable as he leaned in toward Lindsay's face.

"You still love him and burning everything that you've kept of him won't get rid of that fact. It stinks in here from the smell and even though some of the paper is already gone the smell more than reminds you that it was here." She'd been pleading with him and Brian turned away having seen something closer to pity in her eyes.

"I hope you don't plan on telling anyone what you saw." Brian swaggered and staggered toward the sofa, all the while taking in the ugly red clot that was forming in his right palm.

"You know I wouldn't do that." Lindsay dropped her eyes a little to acknowledge the fact that many a thing that had passed between them would never be repeated for anyone else to hear. Not even Melanie knew some of the things that she knew about this man and over the years, not even his much older friendship with Michael, had managed to convince her to share those confidences with Brian's 'best-friend'.

"That's right. 'I won't tell if you won't tell'." Brian smiled as he dropped himself on to the sofa and turned his head to look at her while he spoke. His eyes were glassy and remote and based on the familiar words he'd just spoken, Lindsay heard the echo of the alcohol and she saw some of the things that had happened between them in another lifetime.

She met his eyes but didn't reciprocate the smile Brian had just offered her. "I thought you were the one who told me that you can't live in the past." Lindsay scrubbed a sock covered toe over the hardwood at her foot before moving off to stand behind the sofa.

Leaning his head back so that he could see her above him, Brian met her eyes before scoffing a little. "I also said that those who forget are doomed to repeat their courses." He closed his eyes on the end of his words and let that same half smile continue to play over his lips.

"So this routine is to make sure that you don't forget...that Justin doesn't forget?"

"I don't give a fuck about Justin."

"The hell you don't. Is that why you've kept all that stuff up there and why you're sitting here half in the dark going through it and burning it?" Lindsay tossed the lighter over Brian's shoulder and let it land in his lap. She'd found it on Brian's bed and had it in her pocket since leaving the bedroom.

"You know how I feel about clutter." Brian teased. "Call it fall cleaning or very early spring cleaning." He opened his eyes again to look at the lighter in his lap.

"I know that you were the one who called Ethan to tell him that Justin had been with you. I managed to get Justin to tell me about that." Lindsay came to kneel on the floor behind where Brian sat and she let her hands find his shoulders as she brought her face next to his ear.

"I figured he should know. Based on Justin's track record he certainly wasn't gonna do the honors himself." Brian leaned forward to put the lighter on the table before turning his attention back to his hand.

"Let me see that." Reaching for the gauze packet, Lindsay opened it and pressed it into Brian's palm despite the fact that the man winced at the sting of the alcohol. "Justin screwed up where you two were concerned but he didn't get there by himself Bri." She'd continued press at his hand as she whispered over Brian's shoulder. "You know that. I know you do."

"You're right, he didn't do it by himself. The fiddler helped out by fucking him." Brian's jaw tensed at the end of the sentence and Lindsay felt it against the side of her face.

"No. You helped by not listening and if by chance you were listening, you helped by not doing what you needed to."

Brian snatched his hand away at that and stood up abruptly. "Time for you to go. Like I said, we're not talking about this." He'd crossed the room to the door and pulled it open before turning to look back in Lindsay's direction.

"I don't mean that you didn't show him Brian. I know you and even though I've let things slip sometimes and overlooked the times where you were hurting as clear as day, this isn't one of those times that I've missed something. I saw it in the way that you looked at him, the way you touched him. Jesus Christ Bri, I heard in everything that you said to him and I still hear it in those cruel words that you're saying to him now."

"Get the fuck out."

"No."

"Fine. You stay and I'll leave." Brian pulled at the door fiercely and sent it flying along the tracks to a deafening slam into the other side of the frame. He'd immediately turned to cross the space to his bedroom and retrieved his keys, his jacket and his shoes.

"Brian." Lindsay tried to intercept him as he came back out into the living room and she put herself directly on his path to the door. "You don't run away from anything. Ask yourself why you have such a need to run away from this now."

Brian let his eyes meet hers and all the fire and fury that had been hiding before was now out in full view. "You ask yourself what it felt like when you found out that Mel was munching carpet on the side. Ask yourself why it took so long for you to welcome her back between your loving thighs again." Brian brought his face close to Lindsay's and she could smell the alcohol and feel the heat as he spoke. She listened to his words and then released the hold she had on his arm before letting her own arms hang at her side. When cornered, a wounded Brian gave off all the warning and bit with all the venom of a rattlesnake.

Lindsay kept her back to him as he walked passed her toward the door. She kept silent for only a few seconds. "It hurt me so much because I knew it was partly my fault. Why would you push away the person you love?" Lindsay turned to look at Brian now and she watched him stop dead in his tracks. "I asked you that before, remember? Why would I ever make it so that the person who makes me the most complete would have reason to doubt their place in my life...have reason to believe that I didn't love them the way they wanted me to...needed me to...you didn't have any answers for me when I asked you that Brian, but I figured some out for myself. It was because I was afraid. What if I loved Mel more than anything else and she didn't really feel the same...pushing her away on my terms was bound to hurt a lot less than when she eventually walked away."

Brian said nothing and Lindsay watched him slowly take one more step before reaching for the door and gripping the handle weakly. She couldn't see his face but she could see that she'd struck a nerve. She'd forgotten how thick Brian's armor could be at times and tonight she had been reminded that the loudest voice and the most abrasive manner did nothing but strengthen his resolve. Like Justin had discovered by simply being himself, real emotion...honest emotion...talking to him from a place of kindness and empathy, was the only way to get Brian to listen.

She couldn't see his face and in the minute since she'd finished speaking, she hadn't been able to see the pained expression that Justin would have recognized. It was the same look that had settled on Brian's face as he relived that night in the parking garage for the benefit of kick starting Justin's memory. Now in the loft, he'd leaned the bulk of his weight on the handle of the door and let his eyes find and study the etch marks in the iron.

Lindsay knew better than saying anything else and she stood quietly as Brian turned to look back at her.

"Has he been up there all day?" Jennifer Taylor stood in the middle of Debbie's kitchen and wrung her hands a little as the other woman turned to look at her. Jennifer looked down to wipe the raindrops from her watch and she could see that it was now just after nine. She would have to pick Molly up from the neighbor's very soon.

Debbie had been chopping vegetables and she set her knife down and wiped her hands in her apron to avoid performing the same hand wringing that had occupied Jennifer's hands. "He asked me to get someone else to cover his shift and Vic says he's been in his room since he got back."

"Has he at least eaten something?"

"Who knows?" Debbie turned to drop the chopped vegetables into the pot on the stove. "You know what's at the root of all this, don't you?" She would continue their conversation while she busied her hands.

"Yes I do. He's really taken this thing with Ethan hard. It can't be good for him to be going off on his tour so soon after they started." Jennifer sat down at the table and let her voice trail off as she thought about her son.

"Ethan?" Debbie turned to look back at her. "Sure he's going away now since he won and all but that's not why Sunshine's like this. Didn't he tell you?"

"Debbie you tell me that Justin doesn't even talk to you and he lives here. What makes you think I would have any better information than you do?" Jennifer shook her head a little and waited for Debbie to correct her.

"Oh. It's not 'cause he told me or anything, but from the little we've all been able to piece together, he and Ethan were falling apart long before...and...he'd apparently been with Brian again...the kid found out."

"What?"

"And now, Brian is taking it upon himself to pour salt into Justin's wounds by tormenting him about all this on nearly a daily basis. He comes to see Sunshine at the diner and today it got particularly ugly. That's why Justin left."

"Why didn't you tell me this was going on?"

"Talking about me again? Well here's a tip, the walls in this house are paper thin." Justin walked into the room to drop a glass into the sink. He'd turned to look at his mother and then Debbie.

"Debbie was telling me that you were seeing Brian again." Jennifer sat back in her chair.

"Don't believe the gossip Mom because that's not true." Justin turned to glance at Debbie before finding his mother's face again. "Brian and I fucked but it certainly didn't mean anything at the time and it means nothing now." Justin folded his arms across his chest and waited for the barrage to continue.

"Did something happen between you and Ethan because of it." Jennifer asked her next question, ignoring her son's language and the significance of his comment.

"I'm here aren't I?" Justin responded tersely before pushing away from the sink. "I don't want to talk about this okay. I just came down because I'm going out."

"Where are you going? Dinner'll be ready in twenty minutes." Debbie turned to rejoin the conversation.

"I'll get something while I'm out." Justin strolled through the living room and grabbed his backpack from the landing in front of the stairs.

"I already told you that I know that you're not eating." Hands on her hips, Debbie followed him out of the kitchen.

"Debbie, I'm not a fucking child." Justin bristled. "I said I'll get something and I will." Dropping down to tie up his laces, Justin grabbed for his bag again as his mother came to stand in front of him.

"Sweetheart I'm worried about you. Maybe you want to come home for a little while? Take a break from the diner and just concentrate on your art...get better...get over things?"

Justin huffed a half laugh under his breath. "Going back is the last thing that I want right now." He'd turned toward the door and left the two women in varying degrees of shock in the middle of the living room. His own shock would match theirs when he opened the door to find Brian standing on the other side.

"Is Brian who you're going out with? After all that shit this morning, he's picking you up?" Debbie came forward and glowered at Brian. The man had remained silent and unreadable in the doorway and Debbie's eyes darted between his face and Justin's as she waited for an answer.

"I didn't know he was coming here, and I didn't ask him..." Justin turned to answer Debbie's very vocal outrage and also to answer his mother's silent question. He'd dismissed them both in order to get an answer to a question of his own. "What the fuck are you doing here Brian? I'm on shift tomorrow morning again if you wanna come by then for another pound of flesh."

Brian remained silent and held up the small sheet of paper for Justin to see. The street light behind him caste a deep shadow over Brian's face and Justin pushed the door open a little wider so that some of the light from the house would fall on whatever it was that Brian was holding.

A cheque.

"You said to come to the loft for that and besides, why not give it to me in public tomorrow?" Justin looked up at Brian's face and took in the features that were now fully illuminated.

The older man dropped his eyes to Justin's chest before reaching forward and stuffing the cheque into the hip pocket of Justin's jeans. "It's the same one from this morning, but I wanted to talk to you before I left." Brian's voice was a whisper.

"Left? And where the hell are you running away to this time?" Debbie stepped forward again and Brian winced. It had taken Vic appearing from somewhere inside of the house to make her back off and leave Justin to talk to his unexpected visitor.

Hearing Debbie's voice become muffled behind him, Brian took a few more steps across the porch as Justin closed the door completely. Just over the sound of the rain on the roof, Brian could swear that Jennifer had joined in on the outrage as well as soon as he was out of view.

"What do you want Brian?" Justin finally spoke up.

"Don't you wanna know where I'm going?" Brian turned so that Justin could see his profile in the cool light. It was just as cool as it had been when he and Debbie had left for the diner that morning and Justin pulled his jacket up around him. He'd been doing his best not to consider Brian's form under the smooth wet leather of his jacket, not to consider the hard set of the man's shoulders and certainly not to consider the icy clarity of Brian's eyes when they'd been face to face in the doorway.

"I don't care where you're going."

"Liar." The word punched out from Brian's lips along with an explosion of smoky looking air as the warm mixed with the cool.

Justin shook his head a little and turned to look down the street at where the Jeep was parked. "You know what? I don't even care why you're here. Forget that I asked." Justin pulled his backpack up on his shoulder and walked toward the steps to the street.

Brian turned around just then and Justin stopped as he watched him bring the lighter up from his pocket to light the cigarette that had been pressed at the corners of his lips. Justin watched the cool ice of the night melt away for a second or two as the fire cast a warm glow on anything its light could reach. For a second or two, Brian's eyes didn't look icy anymore and for a second or two Justin actually wanted to know whether a cheque and a mysterious goodbye were the only reasons why Brian had come.

"I'm gonna take a little trip. Mostly business. Not that you should care or anything, but this isn't one of those dramatic 'I need to get out town so that I can forget' jaunts. I'll be back in a week, two tops..." Brian paused as he waited to see if anything would change about Justin's eyes. "I just wanted to tell you that I wouldn't be coming for my pound of flesh anymore."

Justin silently considered the unreadable stranger that wore the face of a one-time lover. "I know that you've sat down and crafted this little scenario down to a tee. You don't do anything without planning it all out before. So right now it'll have to be enough that you understand what you're doing here and what all this is supposed to mean, because I certainly don't and I'm really too tired to care." Justin whispered his words and kept his eyes on Brian's as he spoke. He swallowed hard when he was done.

Taking a deep drag from his cigarette and rolling his lips into his mouth, Brian took a few steps toward Justin before tilting his head down to meet Justin's face. A kiss over unwilling lips and eventually an opening and a warm tongue, Brian exhaled into Justin's mouth and pulled away slightly only after the smoke began to move around their heads. "Tonight I figured something out. Burning it makes it disappear, but it takes a lot longer for the smell to clear out of the air." His cheek still touching Justin's, Brian closed his eyes a little as the scent of Justin's hair confirmed his revelation. He'd turned and walked away a moment or two later and Justin bit back his tears as he watched him go.

~To be continued~