Rage 

 

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“Rage.”

 

How appropriate!  A comic book based on him called “Rage”.  If they only knew.

 

Brian could taste the rage boiling just beneath the surface.  He had forced the issue, knowing the outcome, but somehow hoping for a different result.  He had danced, as Justin walked away - with him, the ‘I don’t give a shit’ Brian Kinney veneer, seemingly intact.  But just underneath, rage seethed.

 

Rage against Justin, rage against Ethan, rage against his parents who had created him, rage against his pathetic life, rage against himself - mostly himself.  He had been such a fucking fool to think that he could change, to think that he could be loved, to think that he could be happy.

 

He had changed his life, his beliefs, for him, for Justin, and look what had happened.  Justin had lied to him and had broken all the rules, the very rules that Justin himself had insisted upon.  He had been seeing Ethan, for who knew how long, and fucking him.  When he would come back to the loft and immediately shower, did he think Brian couldn’t smell Ethan on him?  Did he think Brian was too stupid to know he was kissing and fucking someone else?  Did he think Brian wouldn’t care?  Did he think that Brian didn’t feel him gradually slipping away?

 

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Brian woke with a start.  It was 4:15 am.  He had been asleep for barely an hour.  How was he ever going to get through the rest of this interminable night?  How would he get through tomorrow?  Next week?  Next month?  The rest of his fucking life?

 

His head throbbed.  Two days since the “Rage” fiasco at Babylon and he was barely functioning.  If he had managed three hours of sleep since then, that would be all.  After Justin left the club with Ethan, Brian had danced and drank and drugged.  He refused to show weakness.  Michael, Lindsay, all of them, had tried to comfort him, but he was having none of it.  He refused to listen to their sympathy, their pity.  He silenced all criticism of Justin with the patented Brian Kinney look that brooked no further comment.

 

Finally, hardly able to stand, he had allowed Michael to drag him out of Babylon and drive him home.  Michael offered to stay with him, but he sent him away, wanting to lick his wounds in private.

 

The next day had passed in a haze of liquor and pain.  He left his bed only to use the bathroom and grab another bottle of Beam.  He dozed occasionally, but the liquor hadn’t been able to fill the bottomless hole in the pit of his stomach.  He seemed constantly on the verge of either puking up his guts or screaming incoherently.  Yet he did neither.

 

Sunday gradually became Monday, and he mustered enough self-control to call Cynthia and tell her he would not be in.  No explanation, no apology, he just wouldn’t be in.

 

**************************************

 

Now it was almost  Tuesday morning.  He was somewhat sober, more than he wanted to be.  Should he try going to work?  The longer he stayed away, the more questions there would be, and he was not prepared to answer any questions.  He didn’t even have any reasonable answers.

 

He would either have to try to continue his life, or simply give up.  Giving up was awfully tempting.  Fetal position on his platform bed was about all he could manage most of the time.  A gun would have made matters so much simpler.  He smiled a humorless smile and groaned inwardly.

 

People called him a control freak.  He wondered if he had even enough control left to make himself go on.

 

He had really lived up to that control freak title at Babylon when he had orchestrated the “Rage” bash.  He had gone all out to launch the success of the comic book.  The actors, the dramatization, the “Rage” masks for everyone; it had been quite a production.  It was the least he could do for Michael and Justin, his farewell gesture.  Then he had told Lindsay and Mel to find Justin and tell him that Brian wanted to celebrate with him.  He knew Justin would find him in the back room fucking “Rage”.  He even thought Justin might realize the irony of that, but he must have been too hurt.  Once Justin had seen them, Brian told the trick to fuck off and headed out to the dance floor.

 

He had figured Ethan would show up to support Justin.  That was the nature of romantics.  Even if he wasn’t a romantic himself, Brian knew how it worked.  At least 80% of advertising was romanticizing something, and he was a fucking master at that.  But he knew that that was just part of the bullshit of the world - not real, not true.  He had thought that he and Justin were real and true.  More the fool he!

 

Justin had headed straight to Ethan, had hugged him, kissed him, listened to the words he wanted to hear and with one backward glance, he had walked out of Babylon and out of Brian’s life.

 

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Brian rolled over onto his back and swallowed hard.  Rage bubbled up at the thought of what might have been, what almost was.

 

Slowly he threw the covers back.  It was 5:30 am.  If he got up now, he could make himself presentable, hell, fabulous even, and put in an appearance at work.  A shower, a few cups of coffee and he could face anything.  He was a survivor.  He could do this.  He would resurrect the old Brian Kinney, the glib “don’t fuck with me” asshole who had no heart and didn’t give a shit about anything or anyone.  He must still be here somewhere.  

 

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