Brian pulled the door back and walked straight to the kitchen. Drink, drug and sex. The routine was old and he was well versed with how this night would play out. He heard the sound of his keys on the counter and it all sounded so far off somehow. Like when you knew exactly what would happen in the next ten seconds or so and you just stood off on the sidelines in your own head and let it all play out. He felt the arms close around his waist next and he felt his body rock forward slightly as the weight melded itself to his back, the backs of his thighs, his neck.

Reaching out to the bottle that Lindsay had stopped him from finishing earlier, Brian unscrewed the cap and pushed back against the weight of the lips at the base of his neck. He'd managed to lift his head and take a deep swallow and now he watched the next ten seconds play out with the bottle moving his hand back down to the counter and slowly pulling itself from the grip of his fingers. He'd moved a little then to push the man off him, if only to get some air or some space before the rest of the night unfolded. Despite the fact that the dick pressing into his ass was hard, none of it involved him...he didn't need to be there for it to happen.

"Let's go to the bedroom." A man's voice demanded as the trick that Brian vaguely remembered picking up spoke from somewhere behind him.

This proximity was starting to grate on his nerves and Brian found himself leaning forward again just to give the burnt air of the loft some space to flow between their bodies. He'd driven the entire way back with this man's eyes piercing into the side of his head and he'd ridden the elevator up six floors with this trick's hand down the front of his pants. Eager didn't begin to describe his guest and unfortunately for Brian, he wasn't anywhere near as wasted as he needed to be, to appreciate the situation.

The man was at his ear now and this time Brian pushed him back roughly. He'd pulled the bottle back to his face and all he wanted was for this man to give him a chance to catch up. They'd get to the bedroom, but first...he'd have to let him catch up.

"Go lock the door." Brian turned his head more to get the trick away from his ear and less to make sure that he was heard. He bent forward at the counter again, once again needing to get that air on his neck and just plain needing the space. He felt the instant relief of the man peeling himself off his back and he brought a hand up to his ear to wipe some of the spit away.

This had seemed like a good idea when he made the turn onto Liberty and in truth it still did. There was no sense in passing this night alone and there was no sense in coming back here with nothing to aid in the pretense that his loft didn't stink or that his life didn't stink. Rubbing a hand over the stubble at his chin, a second or two passed as Brian listened from somewhere else as the door closed behind him. Shrugging out of his jacket, Brian let the leather lie where he tossed it and he brought the bottle back to his lips again. He'd need the distraction tonight to help him figure out the next few hours of his life and to figure out what account would be the likely cover for his disappearance from the agency over the next week or so. Distractions and disappearances...on top of the misery he'd been creating for himself, just by seeing Justin tonight, the loft...the office...the Pitts...this place he'd been occupying for the last couple of months was fucking unbearable and he needed to get away and...

...That hand was back down the front of his pants and Brian took another deep swallow as the fingers did their work. Just another third or so of what was left in this bottle and then maybe his dick might start to respond.

"Troy told me you were hot. Shit, everyone did." The trick was talking to himself or maybe to Brian as he reached for the buttons at Brian's fly. Now Brian could remember the circumstances of the pick up and that this trick was somebody's friend from L.A...he was a model... somebody's gay cousin that they'd brought out for a night of fun and fucking on Liberty...somebody who thought himself lucky as hell that Brian Kinney had settled on him in the minute or so he'd spent sifting through the crowd in Woody's.

Brian pushed an elbow into the man's rib cage and leveraged himself from the body behind him. "Just fucking cool it okay, there's no reason to act like you haven't had cock in a year." Brian spat his words while he reached up to unbutton his shirt. He'd moved toward the bedroom, bottle still in hand and despite his acerbic tone, he could hear the trick close at his heels.

Leaving the bottle on the nightstand, Brian ignored the images of the box cutter and the tape and he ignored the innocuous shape under the wadded up duvet on the floor. Lindsay had the good sense to recover his shit after accidentally digging it up and he found another reason to love her just that much more...good sense...the things she said made good sense...but not everything she did or said made him love her for it.

"I wanna fuck you." The trick was naked and stretched out on his stomach in the middle of the bed when Brian turned back to look at him. He'd been gone down 'haunting lane' for the last few minutes and had been jarred out of it by that sequence of words.

"Obviously when Troy and everyone else were telling you all about me, they left out one key detail." Brian dropped his words as he dropped his pants. His tone wasn't angry or pissy...the most accurate description would have been 'unaffected'. There was no use reacting to some bullshit thing that a man who would be gone before his cum dried on the sheets, had said.

"Kinney is a top." Trick smiled and Brian thought he remembered his name. He wouldn't use it, but he thought he remembered it. He watched as the man turned over to lie on his back and he tried not to find familiarity in the fearless manner. Maybe being from outside of Liberty made him more irreverent in the way he acted around Brian, but something had to account for the fact that this man had been grinding his cock into Brian's ass from the minute they got into the loft. "I've fucked a lot of tops," Trick continued, "and I can tell you it all ends the same. We get off."

"You talk too much and you're not fucking me?" A familiar request rebuffed, Brian reached for the black box he kept by his bed. He removed a joint and slipped it between his lips as he watched Trick watching him carefully. This man had gone from barely managing to keep his hands off Brian's cock the entire time since they'd met, to reserved and quiet because of Brian's scraping words over the last few seconds. In another time, he'd had that same effect on someone else.

Lighting the joint and discarding the lighter, Brian took a step up on to the platform that ran around the bed before stepping on to the mattress and towering above the naked body below him. He'd taken in the rigid redness between the man's legs and decided to let it inspire his own hard on. Willing himself to enjoy this and letting the booze and the pot relax him, he sank slowly to his knees and straddled the other man's thighs. Trick reached for Brian's penis again and Brian blew out a breath of smoke as the fingers closed around him.

Higher thoughts disabled for the time being...things would play out without much need for concentration or stage direction for this role. Now that he'd had a chance to regroup and a chance to catch up, Brian felt himself hardening in the man's hands.

Somewhere between leaving the porch back at Debbie's and getting here, Justin had changed his mind. He'd changed it a couple of times already and now it wasn't so much that he'd changed his mind as the fact that he'd chickened out. Somehow just seeing the street signs for this particular corner confirmed Brian's presence and now he wanted to run.

...Justin was back at the loft.

This was the place he told himself that he wouldn't let himself come back to come hell or high water and yet he'd let Brian bait him into coming here anyway.

How the fuck did he always manage to do that?

As far as Justin was concerned, he was the one who'd told Brian to stay the fuck away from him, but somehow Brian had managed to corner him, say something undecipherable and then walk away...leaving him... leaving him to feel as though he'd been the one who'd had cold water thrown into his face...again.

Justin looked above him to the top floor windows. He'd been trying to make out whether or not the lights were on and he realized that from all the surrounding street lights and glare, he wouldn't be able to see the lights if just the dim ones were on. He hadn't known what he should expect in coming here but somehow he'd expected Brian to stand there and listen while he bit back for all the shit that he'd done to him in the last month...for being just plain cruel...for showing up the way he had tonight and saying nothing...leaving him with ten thousand dollars but...leaving him with nothing.

No keys to help him get in, Justin stood in the shallow alcove of the doorway to get out of the blowing rain. The cold he thought he was catching would probably turn into pneumonia by morning and again he wondered if finally saying something to Brian was worth it.

"Yeah." Justin whispered to himself. Brian didn't get to torment him and then call 'game over' and disappear without him getting a word in. Not stopping to acknowledge the fact that he just needed Brian to tell him why he came all the way to Deb's to deliver a cheque that wasn't due for another month and where it was that he was going, Justin settled on his anger instead. No matter how much fault Justin thought he was willing to accept, if he didn't talk to Brian before he left, the man would act like none of his visit tonight or the last month had happened, and yet another sequence of events would go unchallenged.

A car whizzed by just then and a huge wave of water splashed up on the driver's side of the Jeep parked just down the road from Justin. It shook him out of his thoughts. He turned to look at the intercom next to him and took a deep breath as he hit the entry code. He could use the code to get in downstairs or he could call and warn Brian that he was coming up.

Going straight up seemed more appropriate to blowing in with fury and Justin followed his legs up the stairs.

"Jesus..." Brian lifted his head from the man's neck. The steady knocking at the iron door had replaced the rhythmic pulses of blood he could feel through Trick's cock in his hand.

They had reversed their earlier position and Brian barely opened his eyes as Trick pushed back toward his condom-clad length. Brian, for his part, had been dragging his own cock back and forth over the man's opening and this interruption couldn't have come at a more inopportune time given that he'd finally decided that teasing was over. It sounded like someone was kicking at his door and Brian turned his face away from the sound to let his lips graze over the other man's shoulder again.

Trick gasped a little and bucked beneath him and Brian dropped his hands to the man's hips. That kicking could provide a drumming accompaniment to what he was about to do to this man and Brian closed his eyes again as if to squeeze out the temporary distraction.

Thud...Thud...Thud...was what Brian heard and...Thrust...Thrust...Thrust was what Brian thought.

Bending the man deeper at the waist, Brian leaned over his body and pushed in with one merciless stroke. He exhaled only after he'd completely staked his claim and whomever it was that was on the other side of the door, had to have heard Trick scream out his pleasured surprise.

"Can we leave tomorrow?" Justin pressed his face to the side of Brian's neck and asked his question through his grin. The events of the last few minutes had yet to fully sink in but in this moment he was sure that birthday wishes did come true. Even the ones you didn't realize you were making around some stranger's cock in your mouth while the man you'd previously thought was the best gift giver on earth, smiled at his unknown fuck up.

A week alone with Brian...a week with Brian alone...a whole fucking week of them...going away together...alone. Justin was pretty sure that Brian called this payback for his first attempt at a present but this was the kind of payback that Justin would lap up like warm honey...drizzled over some even warmer Brian Kinney.

"No we cannot leave tomorrow." Brian tried for an even unaffected tone but he was already way down the road of overt actions and his own grin was way too wide to pull it off. "I've gotta square everything away with work, finish a few things up, give Cynthia her marching orders for the week..." Brian trailed off and halfheartedly tried to peel Justin off his side as they reached the Jeep. "I've gotta pack, you've gotta finish all your homework, we've gotta find someone to water all the plants..." The man would have continued to rattle off a laundry list of "errands" and "items" just to insure maximum irritation on Justin's part.

"Brian, stop!" Justin pulled the older man even closer to his body and forced him to make eye contact again. He'd slipped both his hands into Brian's and he shook him a little. "You don't have any plants at the loft so stop teasing me. Be serious, when are we going?"

Biting his cheek, Brian smiled. Justin's hands were warm and he squeezed them in his own to feel Justin increase his own pressure. Their plane tickets were for Thursday, two days from then, their reservation at the hotel had been confirmed for Thursday night and the car would be at the loft to pick them up by 2:30 that afternoon. Making Justin suffer hadn't always been part of this plan but right then it seemed the most fun in the world...that was until Justin pushed up against his body again and a week at a place called Sugarbush began to top his current fascination with torture.

"Thursday afternoon. We leave on Thursday and we're back next Thursday night." Brian spoke up and then watched the light reflected in Justin's eyes double then triple in intensity as the plans sunk in. There was something to be said for making someone else happy...it seemed it wasn't always as detrimental to your own personal health and well being as he'd previously thought.

...Not always.

"Shit." Justin's gaze narrowed as he whispered the word almost to himself. He squeezed Brian's fingers a little tighter. He would have kissed him then if not for the fact that he wanted to keep his eyes on the man to make sure this was all as real as it seemed.

"That your way of saying thanks?" Brian pulled Justin against his chest and huffed a laugh. He watched and waited while the light did that same glowing thing it continued to do, this time across Justin's entire face.

"That's my way of saying a lot of things." Justin spoke just as quietly as before and he'd hoped that Brian heard the volumes that were spoken in the one word. He'd swallowed a little and Brian watched him blink back a barely veiled surge of...emotion...that caused a blush to break over his skin. This time he did lean up to find Brian's lips and this was one of the last times that Brian could recall seeing Justin really...happy.

Pushing his full weight into Justin's body in front of him, Brian locked his arms around the other man's waist and exhaled into the kiss. That stranger he'd just made his indecent proposal to back there in the alleyway had definitely missed his chance because for the next week, he belonged only to the man he was holding. A bed and breakfast in Vermont was bound to attract its share of fags along with the heteros, but Brian had no intention of taking the "Brian and Justin: Tricking Together Is Fun" show on the road.

Alone...they'd do this alone...and like Justin, he was actually looking forward to it.

Dropping the used condom over the edge of the bed, Brian opened his eyes. Enter a long series of fuck ups and cue the violin player. As far as Brian saw things, any story involving him, even in a small role, had to be worthy of a Greek tragedy. Some part of him must have known how fleeting and how crippling moments like those would have ended up being.

He pushed up on to his elbows and reached for his cigarettes on the nightstand. Somewhere next to him, Trick sat up as well and unrolled the legs of his jeans. Brian could remember with photo clarity exactly the way that he and Justin had pounced on each other in the elevator on the way up to the loft that night and how they'd fucked on the floor on the semi-private side of a half-open door to the loft. He remembered joking about the trip with the guys the next night and he remembered the perma-sealed smile on Justin's face when he went to bed and while he slept. He could remember Justin and the surrounding events and people with crystal clarity but for some reason or another he couldn't remember himself as clearly then. He could remember doing certain things, saying certain things and he could remember that he'd actually wanted to go...but for some reason, he couldn't remember whether or not he'd actually been as happy as Justin had been.

He couldn't remember whether he'd actually let himself believe that he could give in to being happy with him...again.

"Tell me again why I can't stay the night. It's fucking shitting rain outside." Trick protested to the last man on earth who would hear his plea.

"Ask Troy and he'll tell you that too." Brian lit the cigarette before swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The sheets were soaked with sweat and he actually felt like he'd traded a little of his burden tonight to the now wet sheets. His mind flashed on Troy for a split second and his first thought had been to when it was that he'd stopped fucking him all together. Sometime last year Brian figured...sometime when even casual repeats became outlawed. "Lock the door when you leave and tell Troy that I said thanks." Brian got to his feet and stalked toward the bathroom. He'd opted for a shower and left his guest alone to get dressed...and to eventually let in his third visitor of the evening as well.

His first visitor had told him to shit or get off the pot. No one would believe she could be so brash, but Brian knew things that would surprise even Ally Macbitchiness herself.

He reached the bathroom sink and opened his palm to take a look at the crust that had formed there. Picking it away or rubbing it away, even under the water, would probably make it start bleeding again and Brian dismissed the thought of cleaning it any further. Growing up he'd been used to his own share of waiting for bruises or cuts to heal up, but even at thirty-one, he still had that same impatience for wanting the evidence, and the memory, long gone.

He turned up the shower as soon as he heard the door to the loft close and standing naked behind the glass, he was far from alone. Lindsay's words had him reliving shit all night and after watching the last ten years of his life play out...and then zooming in for a close up of the last two, he was still a firm believer in letting dry bones rest. There was something to be said for not reliving by choice that which you'd had no choice in living before.

He reached for the soap with his good hand and laughed a little to himself when he realized what he was doing. For a weakness that had been with him for only a few hours, his defenses had been activated in full force.

'...shit or get off the pot...'

Fix it or not, it was his choice and tonight, he'd gone to see Justin in order to stop the train...it may have been a long ways past the derailment and the resulting smoking wreck...but they'd finally reached his stop and he was getting off. The secret that he'd told Lindsay tonight could be trusted to someone who'd shown time and time again that she could keep a secret...keep a secret so well that even she sometimes forgot what truths she'd seen. It couldn't be trusted to a man...boy...who saw and didn't see at the same time.

'...shit or get off the pot...'

He'd been exposing things he would never have thought possible and it was high time to close ranks and assess the damage. Assess the damage and wait patiently for the crust to form into a beautiful... strong...impenetrable scab.

Shutting off the water, Brian reached for a towel on the warmer. He ran it over his face first and then his arms. His eyes were closed the entire time and the entire time he thought about the look on Justin's face earlier. Justin hadn't had a clue as to what was going on and for once Brian could credit him with a reason for missing the subtext. Lindsay had asked him for his sake and for Justin's to either take him back or walk away for a while until...how did she put it?

'...Until you think you can recognize yourself again...'

When had it been that he'd changed so much that he couldn't recognize any of the things he was feeling or any of the ways in which he reacted? He had spent so much of the last month dipping Justin's blond locks into the ink well because...what? He thought blond boys were yucky?

'...shit or get off the pot...'

Wiping his crotch, Brian used his left hand to pat at his pubes before tossing the towel over his shoulder. He'd made a royal fool of himself and what Lindsay had said made good sense. It was high time that he stopped. Going to see Justin had been part of that and as much as he'd wanted to say 'sorry' for...everything...that didn't or couldn't pass his throat and so...he'd decided it was time to stop straining and...get off the...

"Brian." Justin was standing on the other side of the bedroom when Brian lifted his eyes and he almost ignored the presence. Yet another reason to disappear for a while. It seemed his spirits had become so potent that they now had the power to conjure themselves into reality. Justin sniffled a little and waited for some of the vacancy to clear from Brian's eyes. He could smell the pot in the room and he could see the bottle by the bed. He'd expected much of the same in the way of these accessories after running into the underwear model in the stairwell, but he hadn't expected the burnt smell that was bothering his already congested sinuses. "What's burning?"

"Not burning, burnt." A thought floated through Brian's philosopher's mind as he crossed the room and reached for the bottle again. Good hand steadying the flow to his lips, he turned to address Justin as some of the liquid spilled down his chin. "Why are you here?"

"I saw your friend," Justin trailed off, "was that part of the plan, for me to see him?"

"What?"

"You come by and drop this on me," Justin tossed the envelope on the bed. "Say something I don't get, until maybe now," He lifted his nose to the air before continuing. "and then walk away. Part of the time that I was coming over, I almost thought that was what you were going for, getting me to follow you here."

"As much as you seem convinced otherwise, I don't give a fuck about..."

"Don't say it okay. I've heard it and you don't need to say it again." Justin pushed both hands into his pockets. He'd taken two steps before sinking down on the platform of the bed. "So where're you going?" He didn't look up.

"I'm fucking off like you wanted and plus you don't care. Remember?" Brian offered a toast to Justin's profile with the now empty bottle.

"You're a bastard when you're drunk."

"I'm high too but I'm a bastard all the time so what does it matter?"

"It matters when you spend so much fucking time hiding behind it that you forget what you were trying to avoid in the first place." Justin finally turned on some of the speech that he'd planned while he listened from the stairwell as Trick got fucked. The bottle hit the wall somewhere to his left but Justin didn't turn to look at it. He'd felt a shard of something hit his cheek and instead, he reached up to find the place instead.

"I'm fucking tired of the analysis. I'm a shit and you're a saint. We'll make that the official story and that'll be that." The man had missed Justin's reaction to the breaking glass, having turned his attention back toward the shape under the duvet.

'...shit or get off the pot...I'm fucking trying...'

"I'm bleeding." Justin announced in the midst of Brian's thoughts and somewhere inside his own head Brian responded.

'So am I.'

Justin had brushed passed him to get to the bathroom and Brian saw the blood on his face. There wasn't anything else to do but to rewind the last few seconds and try to figure out what had happened. "The bottle Brian, the glass from the fucking bottle." Justin tossed his words over his shoulder as he scrambled to the bathroom sink.

There was something sick about doing this again and Brian walked out into the living room instead of following Justin into the bathroom.

Saint Justin and his holy trials and tribulations. He'd lived through the fire that was Brian Kinney and now he deserved to be safe and for it to be easy from this point on. Brian made him bleed and there was far too much blood spilt between them already.

He heard Justin's footsteps behind him a few minutes later and he held his breath waiting for when Justin would cast the first stone.

"I saw bloodstains on the counter when I went in there. Where are you hurt?"

There he went again. Saint Justin watching and worrying for someone else...a comfort to the lonely and a willing refuge to all who showed a need...he deserved to be strung up for all this kindness. "It's nothing that you can kiss and make better." Brian teased before adding, "Do you have a death wish Justin? Why do you keep on coming back for more?"

"Same reason you can't stay away."

"I am staying away, from now on."

"I really wanted it to work out with Ethan."

"Shit." Brian reached around to find something to hold on to. "You don't have a death wish, you are a death wish."

"I wanted to prove that what I wanted could happen between two queers. I wanted you to see it and realize that I was telling the truth. But..." Justin smiled ruefully, "...you got to watch it crash and burn instead, so now there's no way for you to believe me." He was silent for a good long while before speaking up again. "I know that you told Ethan not to tell me about that time when he came to see you. That somewhere along the way, even you wanted it to have a chance. Maybe you even wanted me to have something you thought you couldn't give me. Maybe you let me go to find something better."

Justin said these last two sentences so sarcastically that Brian felt something roll into the back of his throat and cut off his air supply for a few seconds.

"Romantic bullshit that got me through..." Justin walked around the counter to dump the wadded up tissue he'd brought with him from the bathroom into the garbage can there. "...but then you started to get mean." He raised his eyes to accuse Brian to his face. "I asked you for time because I had all this shit on my mind and instead you gave me so much of your time and attention that I thought...it wasn't fucking worth it anymore. All the fight to get what I thought I wanted...you, P.I.F.A., Ethan...so much of a struggle and in the end, barely what I thought it would be...it just wasn't worth it."

Justin dropped his eyes again and Brian took a break from the spearing he felt when they were on him.

"Then I talked to Lindsay and she said something to me that stuck. She asked me what things I would change if I could just paint the canvas white again. At first I thought is was just bullshit, that she wanted me to say that I wouldn't change anything...her way of telling me that what doesn't kill me makes me stronger...but, then I started thinking about it. And there were exactly two things that I would change. The first would have been to tell you that when I was in the hospital, those last few days that I was there, someone told me that you'd been to see me...a nurse said you came every night...that last time when you came into my room, I could smell you and if I could do that night again, I would have opened my eyes."

Brian swallowed and forced his gaze down to the floor. Sorry was bullshit and regret was bullshit and it seemed Lindsay had brought them both to this place.

"The second thing..."

"I don't want to hear this." Brian silenced him and walked away.

"The second thing would have been to paint out every time that I had a chance to call you on your bullshit and that I didn't. Every time that I complained to someone else instead of telling you."

"Sorry is bullshit...and I'm not going to say sorry for this. You had a wild ride and I swear to God...I thought you loved every minute of it." Brian spun around to shout his words across the loft. He'd grabbed the door with his right hand before flinging it back on its tracks and tossing Justin's wet backpack out into the hallway. All the while he'd been ignoring the cold damp air on his naked skin and the warm wet in his right palm.

"But I didn't love it." Justin stood his ground. "I just loved you so fucking much that I didn't want to rock the boat...even when you had my head under the water."

"Save the drama for the next dyke who will listen Princess, you are not a victim here." Brian was seething and Justin watched his eyes go dark. The telephone rang somewhere in the burning air around them, but both men stood motionless as the tumbleweeds rolled by.

Brian could feel the goose bumps breaking out over his skin now and he could feel his balls climb into hiding. For all his bite, Justin had no idea how bad his timing was and how literally Brian had already been stripped bare. Brian watched as Justin sniffled again and he made himself not care about the fact that Justin was shaking.

The machine clicked on and Brian heard his own voice fill the air before Debbie took over by screaming from the too loud answering machine. "Brian. Brian. Is Sunshine there with you? We went outside and you'd both taken off and I want to know what the fuck is going on." Brian and Justin could hear Vic losing his battle to get Debbie to hang up as they continued to keep their locked stares on each other's faces. The woman was getting more emotional now and they could hear the oncoming downpour in her voice. "You can't keep torturing him like this."

Somewhere in the background, Vic was a part of the scene for a little while, before his quiet voice was again overlaid with more of Debbie.

"He fucked up, I'll give you that. For all this bullshit, I'll say he brought some of this on himself, but Jesus Mary and Joseph, Brian, you can't keep toying with him like you did this morning and then showing up and taking him away for God knows what...do you hear me?"

"Hang up the phone Deb and let them work it out on their own." Vic's voice punched through Debbie's histrionics and the line finally went dead.

"Go home Justin." Brian called around the semi-permanent lump in his throat.

"Do you want me Brian? Answer me just this once."

Brian handed the ticket agent his credit card and glanced over her shoulder to check the departure time for the flight. He'd called Cynthia from the cab and it took the sleep groggy woman a few minutes to figure out what Brian was telling her. He'd been working maniacally around the clock over the last few weeks and with Vance happily counting the zeros on a new retainer cheque across the pond somewhere, Brian could feel secure in disappearing for a while. His official cover was that he had meetings with Brown Athletics in Chicago, but unofficially Cynthia was given a number where he could be reached in San Francisco.

Signing the slip that the woman had offered him, Brian pushed the pen and the white copy back across the high counter and turned to eye the crowd in the semi-thin line behind him. The airport was still bustling at two in the morning, but the bustle didn't seem as energetic considering the fact that many of these people were asleep on their feet. The urge for flight after a fight had driven him here with a very modest overnight bag and he planned on taking care of anything that he'd forgotten when they got there.

Brian accepted the travel sleeve the woman pushed across the counter and he took in the look of her red nails as she spewed on and on about the various slips and stubs that she'd stuffed inside the plastic envelope. Boarding passes on the top, the parts of her speech that Brian recorded told him the gate number and an arrival time about two and a half hours after the flight finally left Pittsburgh. Dismissing her pleasant smile, Brian pushed the credit card back into his wallet and turned to sling his bag back over his shoulder. He hadn't managed to shake the draught that he'd caught just standing naked in the loft for so long and he reached down to pull the zipper of his jacket high on his chest.

Having checked in, the first security checkpoint was just ahead and Brian made the walk without bothering to let his mind rest too heavily on anything. He wasn't running away if his mind allowed him to take all his problems along for the ride, but for some reason or another, he couldn't shake the feeling that he wanted to be as far away from the Pitts as any flight leaving at this time of night would take him. He opened the ticket sleeve to the man at the security desk and all must have been in order because the man directed him forward.

Having waited for the woman ahead of him to pass muster, Brian tossed his bag on to the conveyor belt beside him and followed the next direction to remove his jacket. The cold biting into him again, his jacket joined the bag and together the two made their way through the imaging machine guarded by a very portly and very bald man. The cell phone in his pocket was removed and after passing through the body scanner, Brian endured the increased security vigilance and turned the thing on so that they could see that it was a functioning phone.

The person following behind him suffered a similar fate, but in the end the long line of people on their way to Gate Seven, got to quietly sip coffee in the departure lounge while watching the plane being refueled three stories below.

The man sitting next to him had gone to the washroom a few minutes before and Brian let his gaze fall across the backpack that he'd left behind. It seemed a little cliché to note that the ticket agent had warned them so vehemently not to leave their bags unattended or with anyone else...but...it was rare that people listened to all the warnings that they got along the way. He peeled his eyes away from the bag and looked outside the window again.

At the head of the rows upon rows of chairs in the waiting area, Gate Seven was coming to life with two crisply uniformed women turning on computers and get ready to do whatever it was they got paid to do in the dead of night. Brian watched the brunette pick up the microphone and he listened to the crackle of the intercom around him. In another second or two that familiar chime would sound and the little crowd would all line up again to file through yet another checkpoint. Many of those around him having already began to reload bags and parcels on to their shoulders and the eager few already starting to line up.

Brian turned away from the lighted waiting room to watch the technicians below winding down what they'd been doing for the last several minutes. He took note of the fact that he could see stewardesses already inside the plane through the places where the passenger shutters hadn't been closed. Everybody was getting ready for something to happen or to play out whatever role they'd been assigned. His role for the night was to make the great escape and he rubbed a hand over his face as he turned to greet the person who was now approaching him.

The chime sounded and the brunette asked for elderly passengers and those requiring assistance to reach their seats. Brian didn't think he had the energy to move but he didn't think she'd been addressing her words to him. He covertly dropped his eyes to his palm and watched the movement of the crowd out of the corners of his eyes as those more aptly fitting her description made their way forward.

A minute or ten thousand later, the chime sounded again and this time First Class passengers were called. The owner of the backpack stood up next to him and Brian glanced up at the sudden movement. It seemed this person held a First Class ticket and Brian looked around them to take note of the judgment that always crossed the faces of steerage passengers in moments like these. Their faces asked what business this kid had flying First Class and their mildly annoyed glances referenced the fact that they'd made the more reasonable choice by not paying an extra five hundred dollars for five more inches of seat and a little more leg room. Brian smiled a little and looked out the window again. He'd been about to take another look at his palm when Justin broke through his next thought.

"Brian, they're calling us. Are you ready to go?"

Reaching down to grab his bag...with his left hand, Brian slung it on to his shoulder and sidestepped the way too eager line-up. He could feel Justin next to him and he showed the blonde attendant both their boarding passes and flashed the required identification, before taking the walk down the gangplank.

~To be continued~