(no subject)

[nanowrenlet]

Rube was sitting alone in their usual booth. Justin couldn't be sure whether that was because he was so late -- which he was -- or if Rube had sent the other reapers away so he could chew Justin out without an audience. Justin was so wrung out that he didn't much care, and he knew he deserved whatever reaming he got, so he slid into his seat and leaned his elbows on the table and waited. He just hoped that when Rube was done with him, he could give Justin some answers.

Rube was about halfway through his breakfast, and he slid his side order of toast towards Justin. "You hungry?"

"Uhm... yeah, kinda." Rube was already looking back down at his own plate, so Justin figured he might as well eat before the ass chewing and reached for the jelly basket. It was kind of odd, though, Rube didn't look mad at all.

The other reaper casually finished his eggs and was down to his corned beef hash before he spoke. "So, did you lose anything?"

Justin swallowed a mouthful of toast that should -not- have been that dry, and glanced at Rube through his bangs. Rube hadn't looked up. "... yeah."

"And how does that feel?"

Justin dropped his jelly-smeared crust onto the plate and just gaped at him. "Like shit, Rube. It feels like shit, is that what you want to hear?"

Rube met his eyes, then, and the look in them was so calm and so -sad- that Justin swallowed again. "No, kiddo, that's not what I ever wanted to hear." He looked down at his plate once more, leaving Justin shaking slightly and staring at the top of his head. Justin shoved the rest of the toast away and lit a cigarette.

"You're not angry with me?"

"I'd be lying to you if I said I wasn't disappointed, but these cases... well, they have a way of taking care of themselves. I figure, whatever price you paid last night is probably punishment enough, no sense in heaping more on top of that."

Justin took a long drag, swung his legs around into the seat of the booth and leaned back against the wall. "I don't even really know what happened."

"Well, the way it usually runs, you were about to say something he would have recognized, that would have told him who you really are." Rube looked expectant, so Justin nodded. "And when that happens, whatever you were going to say... goes away."

"And that's it? I was afraid that...," He broke off, and shook his head. "I won't keep forgetting things, will I?"

"Not as long as you stay away from him, and the others, no."

Justin sagged against the wall, slumping further down in the booth, and pressed the heel of his hand over his eyes. He wouldn't forget, thank fucking -God-, he wouldn't forget anything else. He thought about telling Rube what he had overheard, that Brian had mistaken him for... well, himself, but decided that if Rube didn't already know that part, he didn't need to. "Why didn't you tell me what would happen, Rube? Why didn't you stop me."

Rube pushed his empty plate away and leaned forward on his elbows. "Because. There are times in any man's life where he has to step up and make his own choices, and no one can take those choices away. Besides," the corner of Rube's mouth quirked with annoyance, "not much stops you when you set your mind on a thing, kiddo, you're like a force of nature or something."

That made Justin laugh, dryly, and at Rube's further-annoyed look he offered, "Brian used to bitch about the same thing, that he couldn't ever seem to stop me."

"Yeah, well. I feel for the man."

Justin sat up to stub out his cigarette, and lit another one. "You still could have told me what it would do to me."

"You wouldn't have believed me until you felt it for yourself."

"... yeah, probably not."

"Look, Justin. You keep pushing this issue, but there's something I don't think you fully understand. There's a line between the living and the dead, between a person's life and his afterlife, and it may look a little blurry sometimes when we're all walking around on the same pavement, but it's still there and it's still important. Your Brian, he's on one side of that line, and you're on the other. You keep trying to step over like this, kiddo, and you'll keep losing things. Is that what you want?"

Justin leaned back, and Rube watched him while he thought about his answer. He'd considered this before, sort of, really late on a couple of nights when he maybe should have gone out rather than staying home and brooding. He had wondered... if maybe he could do it all again. Push and shove and maneuver his way back into Brian's life, into Debbie's and Michael's and everyone else's, until they accepted this new person he had become the same way they had accepted -him-, and that way he wouldn't expose the reapers or any of that, but he could have back everything Chris and his bat had taken away from him. He wasn't certain if he could even pull it off, but something in Rube's constant, ominous warnings had kept him from ever making the attempt, and now he knew what those warnings had all been about. Now he knew what would have eventually happened.

If he had done it then, hell, even if he tried it now... what he'd experienced the night before, the strange popping feeling and the loss that followed, would happen again and again. He hadn't -meant- to say anything special to Brian last night and he wouldn't ever mean to do it again but it would still happen. He would slip up, and then he would -lose- things, bits of his memories falling away from him, out of reach, and maybe he would even lose the reasons he loved Brian in the first place. There might be new ones, by then, new memories and reasons to replace the old ones but they wouldn't be -Justin's- reasons, and finally one day Brian really would be living with some new person named Sean and Justin would just be gone.

God, it was too fucking horrid to think about. "No. No, that's not what I want."

"Then I trust we won't be having this conversation again."

There was just one thing, though: Brian, haloed by Boytoy's cruddy light show, high and lost and too far from his friends. "But he needed me."

Rube's face closed up. "Well, then was it worth it?"

Justin had to weigh that, then, what he'd given up versus what he'd gained: Brian's safety and Justin's pain and Knox's confusion and everything else. "Maybe."

Rube sighed, and nodded like he should have expected that. "So you keep that 'maybe' in mind the next time you and Brian cross paths."

"Yeah, I will." And he would, but part of him knew that if Brian ever needed him again... Justin would be careful, oh-so-fucking careful, but he'd still risk it.

"Can I ask you something, kiddo?"

"Sure."

"Did they really used to call you Sunshine?"

Justin covered his face with his hand. He was way too tired to deal with Rube's brand of humor. "Fuck off, Rube."

Rube chuckled, got up from the booth and patted Justin's shoulder as he passed. "You might consider calling in sick today. You look like hell."

[1255/1255/36787]

Comments

[wrenlet.livejournal.com]

Thank you :) He is a good man, they both are.