Where Am I?

The guys had just settled themselves down in front of the fake fireplace. It was the place where they could discuss anything at all – sometimes.

"Hey Brian," Justin began the evening's conversation. "What would you do if I wasn't here?"

"Baby," Brian squeezed the kid slightly. "I don't know where that question came from – but I don't think I can answer it. You know I never engage in wishful thinking."

"Darn it, Brian," Justin countered. "All I do is ask a simple, innocent question and you start picking on me already. I thought we could talk about anything. That's what I thought. Guess I was wrong."

"OK, Kiddo," Brian replied, "But you know, that question is not simple and I wonder how innocent it is too. I wonder if you're trying to get somewhere else by asking it."

"That's funny, Bri," Justin snickered. "If I was trying to get somewhere else, I wouldn't be here and then I wonder what you'd do if I wasn't here."

"Cut it out, Twink," Brian demanded. "If this is part of some kind of elaborate plan, just forget it and tell me what you really want."

"Never mind, Mr. Kinney," Justin pouted. "I can't even ask a question without being suspected of something. You don't trust me."

"Baby," Brian responded. "Whatever it is you want you can have it. You ought to know that. Now can we talk about something sensible?"

"I can have anything I want?" Justin echoed. "Isn't that what you just said? OK, what I want is for you to answer my question. What would you do if I wasn't here?"

"OK, Sweetheart," Brian surrendered. "You win. But I have to know more about the question. If you weren't here, I might know where you were and I might not. If I knew where you were, I'd just wish you were here, provided you didn't have any crazy questions, and I'd patiently wait for you to come back. If I didn't know where you were, I might wonder what you were doing – while I patiently waited for you to come back. How's that?"

Justin didn't respond. He seemed to be thinking. So Brian continued.

"Unless I knew you were doing something dumb or dangerous," Brian went on. "Then I'd have to figure a way to keep you from doing it – or if I couldn't do that, I'd try to figure a way to point out to you the error of your ways. Probably without any success but I'd try. Does that answer your question?"

"Well what if I was never here?" Justin asked. "Like if we had never met."

"Maybe this whole thing is beginning to get more interesting, Baby," Brian had to comment. "I guess it wouldn't make much sense for me to wait patiently for you to come back if we had never met. I guess I'd probably just go out and look for you."

"Now that's silly, Brian," Justin objected. "How would you know to go looking for me if we hadn't ever met?"

"OK," Brian laughed. "You ask a really dumb question and then call my answer silly. Yeah, so we have met and I don't think you're planning to go anyplace either. I don't think I'm ever going to have to worry about you not being here – or what I'd do if you weren't. But anyhow, I don't think my answer was so silly at all. Didn't you know I was looking for you when I found you under the lamp-post outside of Babylon? I'd been looking for you a long time and all of a sudden, there you were. So I guess my answer wasn't so silly at all."

Justin didn’t say anything but he snuggled himself up so close to Brian that Brian actually felt that he had won the day. As he actually had. A prolonged period of silence followed. The guys were glad they were both there - together.

It was Brian who eventually resumed the discussion.

"I know I'm going to be sorry I didn't let this stuff drop," he said, "but would you please tell me what was behind that crazy question?"

"Nothing really," Justin informed him. "Just that I was over at Mikey's this afternoon. Emmett, Chuck, and some other guys were there. We were talking and Mikey said he thought you wouldn't know what to do without me – and so I just wondered…."

"I don't think Mikey meant it literally though," Brian conjectured. "You know that's a figure of speech. All it means is that I like having you around.'

"And you do like having me around, don't you, Brian?" came the next question.

"Yeah," Brian admitted. "Most of the time I do like having you around. You know, sometimes it's pretty hard to like having you around – but I do anyhow."

"Bet if I wasn't here, you'd be looking for somebody else?" Justin went on.

"Maybe," Brian posited. "But I don't guess I'd go looking for somebody else while you are around. One of you is plenty."

"You don't guess?" Justin echoed with some surprise. "You don't guess you'd go looking for somebody else. Don't you know you wouldn't go looking for somebody else while I'm around?"

"Yeah, I know I wouldn't go around looking for anybody else, Baby," Brian came back smiling. "I know trouble when I see it and I have all the trouble I need. So I guess I wouldn't be going around looking for more."

"Brian Kinney, sometimes you act like you don't love me at all," Justin pouted, just maybe concealing a smile.

"You know what, Sweetheart," Brian lectured. "Every once in a while you get to feeling insecure. I sure as hell don't know why."

"You think?" Justin replied.

"Yeah, I do," Brian told him. "And I also think that when you get to feeling insecure you dream up some crazy subject to discuss - which doesn't make any sense at all but somehow or other makes you feel more secure."

"It does?" Justin responded.

"Yeah. It does. That's exactly what I think," Brian maintained. "And it's OK with me if you want to do that too, Baby. I don't ever want you to feel insecure."

"I guess you do love me then – at least a little bit," Justin concluded, broadening his smile.

"Yeah, I guess I do," Brian laughed. "And I also guess you know that and I guess you knew that all along."

Justin pulled Brian's arms more snugly around him and placed his head on Brian's shoulder.

"You know what, Bri," he told the big guy, "I don't know what I'd do if you weren't here."

Neither of them looked on that as even a remote possibility.
 

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