Carpe Noctem

Chapter 2

Daphne and Ethan made their way over to the group who were in the middle of discussing what could have brought on such exhaustion. Justin had seemed fine to all of them. When they reached the makeshift family Daphne greeted the group, Ethan, on the other hand, stood next to her uncomfortably. He had been treated nicely by all of them, well, except for Michael, but that wasn't unusual as Michael seemed to have issues with newcomers to the 'family', but he still felt strange about being in their midst without Justin there as his buffer. Although lately Justin had been fairly distant, but he had figured it was because of the headaches.

"Oh Ethan, you made it!" Jenn exclaimed. She had taken an immediate shine to Justin's new boyfriend, mostly because he wasn't Brian, but he also showed Justin the affection she felt that her son deserved. "Come here and sit next to me." He complied and was grateful to have at least one Taylor there by his side in this den of lions.

"Here Deb, Mrs. Taylor," Daphne said giving each woman a cup of coffee from the tray, "I thought you two could use some caffeinated sustenance." Both women gratefully took the coffee, but before they could thank Daphne she had turned and was already on her way across the room again. The rest of the group was confused by her behaviour, not sitting and waiting with them. They watched as she approached a man with a somewhat dishevelled appearance standing on the opposite side of the room looking out the window into the night.

"Coffee? I put in lots of sugar, that's the way you like it, right?" She said gently to him. Only when he turned slightly to accept the coffee from Daphne did they realise who it actually was.

A chorus of gasps and surprised 'Brian!'s' rang through the gang.

"Oh, yeah," Debbie began, "he's been standing at that damned window since I got here, probably before that, actually. I tried talking to him, but I couldn't get a thing out of him." She looked up to see Daphne talking to him, and although she couldn't hear the few words that were being said, Brian's posture seemed to relax slightly. "She's the only one that he seems to want to talk to right now."

Before she had even uttered the last words Michael was already up and halfway across the room. Before he reached his best friend and Justin's, however, a doctor came out to the waiting room.

"I'm looking for Justin Taylor's family." he stated looking at the rag-tag group before him.

Michael stopped mid-step and everyone turned to face the doctor - except for Brian, he kept his eyes out on the dark world outside.

"That's us! What's wrong with Sunshine?" Deb's loud voice nearly silenced the entire waiting room.

The doctor considered her for a moment. "Are you his mother? I need to speak to the young man's immediate family." He said although he had a feeling that this wouldn't dissuade the redheaded woman. Luckily for the doctor, Jennifer stood up, country-club manners taking over.

"Hello Dr….? she said holding out her hand.

"Dr. Shaw" he informed her taking the offered handshake.

"Dr. Shaw, I'm Jennifer Taylor, Justin's mother, but all of these people are also a part of Justin's family. Now can you please tell me what is wrong with my son?" her voice broke at the end of her sentence.

"Mrs. Taylor, we believe that your son collapsed due an extreme migraine brought on by exhaustion and stress. His file told us that he sustained a head injury almost two years ago so we also gave him a CAT scan to make sure that there was no damage to his brain. That scan revealed that there is swelling causing extreme pressure on his brain, and it looks like it's been building for a while, probably since the incident two years ago. It's hard to believe that something like this has never happened before…"

"It has." A voice interrupted the doctor. All eyes turned to Ethan, who was still sitting in his chair, eyes looking at the waiting room floor. If he hadn't felt uncomfortable before, now he most certainly did. Now that every member of Justin's family had their eyes focussed on him he figured he'd better continue. "It happened a few weeks ago, when Justin had just come home from an exam at school. He walked in the door rubbing his temples, when I asked him what was wrong; he looked at me shocked and then fell to the floor." He explained voice shaking. He could still remember the fear that had coursed through his body when Justin had collapsed. "I raced to his side, and he came to within seconds. I wanted to call an ambulance, but he said that he would be fine, that it had been happening for a while. He told me he'd seen a doctor and that it was just another repercussion of the bashing."

"Why didn't you tell someone?" a strangely soft, yet forceful voice came from across the room. All the heads listening to Ethan turned in shock to face Brian. He had turned, his back to the window and now that they could see his face they finally saw how affected he had been by this. He looked exhausted, his eyes had dark circles under them and his appearance was rumpled, which they all knew had no place in Brian's highly put-together look. Despite his tiredness he was now looking fiercely across the room at Ethan. Even Michael was unsure how to react to Brian's unusual appearance. He just stood there stunned looking at his best friend, who barely looked like the man had known for all those years; he couldn't recognise the change that had come over his best friend.

Across the room Ethan looked up and met Brian's hard gaze. Luckily Ethan was saved from having to give an answer, as the doctor reminded them of his presence.

"Hm-hmm." Dr. Shaw cleared his throat. Attention was returned to him. "Now while Justin is still unconscious, his condition is stable, we can allow you to go see him fami…" he was about to say that it was family only, but after what he had witnessed he was sure there was no way the rest of the assembled people would just leave without seeing his patient, "…in groups of two at most."

As he led the first two, Jennifer and Daphne, to Justin's room, the doctor thought how lucky this young man was to have so many people who cared for him.

Back in the waiting room, a strange kind of standoff had begun between Brian and Ethan. To the rest of the people in the room it seemed that the two were sizing each other up, wondering what their chances were against the other.

Now that all the discussions had died down Michael finally had the chance to go over to his best friend. "Hey Bri, are you alright?" he asked concerned for Brian, he didn't seem to be himself tonight.

Brian, however only gave him a non-committal, non-emotional "Fine." in response.

Michael didn't know what to say, true he was still kind of angry with Justin for hurting Brian, but since they had been working on Rage together, he'd actually started to like the young man. Justin was always eager to work on the comic and interested to hear what Michael had to say on the subject. For a rare moment he was actually at a loss of words. But not for too long, "Do you want me to go in with you?"

This time Brian turned to look at Michael. He could see the concern in his eyes, but he really wasn't up to being coddled by Mikey tonight. "No, Mikey, I'm a big boy I think I'll be able to handle it. You go on home with the professor."

Michael looked over to where Ben was standing with Deb and Vic watching the exchange. "Are you sure?" he asked again, he wanted to be there for his best friend, even though he wasn't really sure how he felt about the situation or even what exactly the situation was.

"I'm sure, now run along." Brian gave him a slight peck on the cheek and pushed him off in Ben's direction.

Not long after Jenn and Daphne returned to the waiting room. Jenn looked over the people assembled in the waiting room, there for her son. She cleared her throat. "I want to thank you all for coming tonight. I know you mean a great deal to my son and I'm glad that there are so many people here who care about him." Jenn announced in true WASP style, despite the fact that inside she was barely holding it together. Daphne put a hand on her shoulder, grounding her in the same way she'd always done for Justin.

"Come on Mrs. Taylor; let me take you home for a few hours. I'm sure Molly will want to know how her brother is, after you get a little rest at home you can come back fully prepared to help Justin get better." Jennifer allowed herself to be lead out by Daphne. As she helped the older woman towards the exit she glanced over at where Brian was now standing, in the middle of the room facing Ethan. Brian looked up and met her eyes. She smiled, "Don't forget your jacket." She said, nodding in the direction of the chair where she had folded it next to his guard post at the window. Brian gave her a small smile.

"Thank you." He replied, although he thought that maybe he would have to do something a little more for her. As he watched Daphne lead Jennifer Taylor out of the hospital, Brian had never been more glad that Justin had her in his life.

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