Where I Belong

Skeletons Out of the Closet

Brian stood alone, huddled under his umbrella, taking a deep drag of the first of many joints he had rolled for himself that day. The snow had just started falling, and though he was bundled up for the cold weather, it was freezing enough to just barely stand being outside. And though his nose, cheeks and ears were red with cold, his eyes glassy, and his nose a little runny, none of it phased Brian.

Not wanting to be around the others, Brian had finally went off by himself to be alone. He couldn't let them see how hard this was on him. Yes. Jack was dead. And even though his father had beat him senseless for years, he still couldn't bring himself to totally hate the man. Brian wondered why it was that he still loved his father, despite his childhood HELL. Dealing with his father's mental, emotional, and physical abuse had taken so much out of him, but he had always held out the hope that one day Jack would finally tell his only son that he was sorry for hurting him, and that he loved him. That never happened. It was now inevitable that he would never ever hear those words.

He almost felt like he should have been out celebrating, instead of there, at the funeral. The fucking bastard who helped to make him the cold, selfish asshole he'd become, was now being lowered into the ground. Brian felt a single tear roll down his cheek, as he slowly exhaled the smoke from his lungs. He wasn't sure whether he was crying or if it was cold weather making his eyes water. He guessed it didn't matter. He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew who was behind him without even looking.

"Are you all right?" Michael asked. Brian didn't answer him, he just nodded and took another hit from his joint, then offered it to his friend.

"No thanks," Michael told him, shaking his head. "Everyone is starting to head back over to the house now. Are you coming?" he asked.

Brian didn't really want to go to the Luncheon. He really just wanted to go home, get drunk, fuck a trick, get more drunk, and then pass out. Still, he heard himself say, "Yeah, I'll meet you at the jeep in a minute." Michael nodded his head and started walking away, giving one last concerned glance at his best friend.

Brian stood in that same spot for a few more minutes, trying to get himself together. He needed to put his hard face back on, and act like he didn't give a shit that his father just died. He put out his joint, which was now a roach, and placed it into his Marlboro box, and took a cigarette out for himself and lit it. He slowly made his way back to his jeep, where he knew Michael would be waiting for him.

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The luncheon had been about as bad as Brian expected it to be. His sister, Claire was a blubbering mess, which annoyed both Brian and his mother to no end. Joan spent the entire event getting drunk on wine. The worst was when Claire suggested that everyone share something nice about Jack, but no one could remember a single nice memory of him. There was only this really long, awkward silence.

Brian's friends had come to support him, but he really wished that they hadn't. The last thing he wanted was for everyone to see firsthand, how his dysfunctional family really was, and feel even more sorry for him. He could imagine them huddled together whispering amongst each other, "Oh, poor Brian... no wonder he is the way he is..."

The only person out of his friends who really knew what it was like for him as a child, was Michael. He was there to see and hear it all. The others really had no idea how it was for him growing up in that house. He breathed a sigh of relief when Lindsay finally came up to him and whispered that she and the others were going to leave.

"If there's anything you need, just call, okay?" Lindsay told Brian, pulling him in a tight hug.

He nodded at her. "Hey, listen, Linds. I, uh..." he started and then paused and gave a little smile. Lindsay nodded and smiled back at him.

"Yeah, I know," Lindsay responded.

Yes, indeed, she did know. Brian had never been good with words. It was okay though; he had always been that way, and she really didn't need the words. She knew that it was Brian's way of saying thank you for being there for him and supporting him. Lindsay kissed his cheek, and left with their other friends.

Pretty soon, the guests had all cleared out, and there was nothing but silence, leftover food, paper plates and cups, everywhere. Claire had volunteered to help clean up, but Joan insisted that she leave, especially if she was going to continue sobbing the rest of the day. Brian had noticed that he hadn't seen Joan shed one tear. Perhaps she was like him, and was saving it for when no one was around. Years of practice of hiding your true emotions is a hard habit to break.

Brian sat alone on the sofa, smoking a cigarette and staring at the bowling ball his mother insisted that he take which belonged to Jack. He saw his mother walking towards him. Her eyes looked red and tired, and Brian briefly wondered if she had finally allowed herself to grieve in private since everyone had left.

"Brian," Joan called out softly to her son. Brian looked up at her with a questioning look.

"I need to discuss something with you," Joan said.

"Look, Mom, I already told you that I would help you with the Mortgage and some of the hospital bills. What else do you want?" Brian asked annoyed.

Joan looked slightly wounded by her son's tone and what he was insinuating, but still kept her nonchalant face on. "This has nothing to do with money, Brian," she said quietly, and then just stared down at her hands. And then nothing.

"Are you going to fucking tell me already?" Brian said, getting impatient.

Joan frowned at Brian's cursing, but then continued. "Your father... Jack and I, had a very long talk about a week before he died," Joan said.

"Yeah, and?" Brian asked, still impatient.

"Well, the thing is, there were a lot of things your father didn't know about me. I had secrets... and well, he surprised me, by telling me he knew two of my biggest secrets," Joan told him.

"What, that your hair is not really blond, and you actually weigh 10 pounds more than what you tell everyone else?" Brian smirked.

"Brian, please. I'm trying to tell you something important," Joan said, getting exasperated with her son. He was always so difficult to talk to. It was no wonder they weren't close.

"Well, will you just get on with it? I have plans tonight," Brian told her. He couldn't wait to make his escape. He could almost feel himself sinking his cock in some twink's tight little ass.

Joan sighed, and then looked at her son. She looked as though she were hesitant to say what she wanted. "Jack informed me that he knew that before you were born, I was having an affair," Joan told Brian. This piece of information surprised her son, but he still didn't know what it had to do with him.

"Wow, I never thought Saint Joan had it in her," he told her.

Joan got a disgusted look on her face at that comment. "I can't believe how much you sound like Jack sometimes," Joan said.

Brian slightly flinched at that thought. "So what does your little fling with some other guy have to do with me?" he asked.

"Jack also told me that he knew that you were not his son," Joan practically whispered.

Brian's eyes shot open widely at his mother. She had his full attention now. Emotions started running through him, and then suddenly he felt as if he had a million questions going through his mind all at once.

"What did you just say?" he asked with a shaky voice.

"Jack Kinney was not your biological father, Brian," Joan said, still avoiding Brian's eyes.

Suddenly Brian was filled with anger. "What the fuck do you mean, Jack is not my father?" he yelled.

"Brian, there is no need to raise your voice --" Joan said before Brian interrupted.

"You just fucking told me that the only man I've ever known as my dad, is not really... Fuck, everything that I have ever believed - my LIFE - it's all a lie!" Brian said, getting more upset the more he thought about it.

"Brian..." Joan tried to say, but her son wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise.

"Does he know? Does my real father know that I exist?" Brian asked. Joan sighed and shook her head.

"No. When I found out I was pregnant with you, I told him I couldn't see him anymore. I told him that I was married. He had no idea..." Joan said.

"You didn't even tell him that you were married?" Brian asked incredulously. Joan looked down at her hands again, guiltily and shook her head no.

"It was against my religion to get divorced. I couldn't leave Jack, and my family would have disowned me if they found out I had a baby with another man," Joan explained.

"Well, wasn't it against your religion to fuck other men while you were married? Isn't that worse than getting a divorce? Holy shit, Mom, I never knew a bigger fucking hypocrite than you," Brian spat.

"Now just a minute, young man. Don't you sit there and judge me. You don't know how it was for me back then. I was miserable in my marriage to Jack. I had no idea that he was the way he was when I married him. I didn't know he was an alcoholic, and a gambler, and a cheater. That's right, I wasn't the only one who cheated in our marriage. He did it for years. He didn't think I knew about it, but I always did. I could still smell them on him when he came home at night." Joan frowned. It hurt to get into all this right now, but she continued.

"Then, I met Daniel. He was so different from Jack. Generous, understanding, considerate. He and I saw each other for 6 months. I was in love with him. I just didn't know how to give him up, so I just lied to both of them," Joan said, as a tear ran down her cheek.

"When I found out I was pregnant, I knew there was no way getting around it. I had to stop seeing him. So I told him that I was married, and I went back to your father. I tried really hard to make things work with Jack."

Brian sat there and stared at his mother, still in disbelief. He couldn't believe everything that she was telling him. It all seemed like a dream.

"So why didn't Jack ever say anything?" Brian asked.

"I asked him that. He said it was because he still had Claire to consider. He felt he needed to stay with me if we had a child together. He said he couldn't just leave us all alone. He knew I had no source of income, and that I had you two to take care of. So he just pretended like he never knew," Joan said.

It was then when it hit Brian like a shot to the brain. He could feel the adrenaline traveling through his veins, and he clenched his teeth and he stared coldly at his mother as this realization came to surface.

"He DIDN'T pretend, Mom. He fucking took it out on ME!" Brian yelled. Everything suddenly made sense to him now. "That was it, wasn't it, Mom? He couldn't stand the fucking sight of me because he knew that you screwed some other guy and I wasn't his son! I wasn't the son he always wanted!" Brian stood up and started throwing anything he could get his hands on, across the room. Joan looked at him with wide eyes, her fear growing by the second.

"No, Brian. It wasn't like that --" Joan cried. Brian got into his mother's face so that he was eye level with her.

"Don't fucking tell me it wasn't like that. Jack used to get this look in his eyes when he would yell at me. I swear, sometimes it looked as if he hated me. Hated the fact that I existed! He beat the shit out of me all those fucking years, and most of the time there was no good reason for it. He just couldn't stand me. And now I know why," Brian said under his breath, and then started pacing the room, trying to calm himself down.

Joan was sobbing now, her black mascara running all over her face. "Brian," she called. "He had something he wanted me to tell you after he died," Joan said. Brian looked back at his mother in curiosity. He stared at her and waited for her to answer.

"Jack said that he thought that after he passed on, that I should tell you the truth, which is why he told me he knew about my secrets. He wanted me to tell you that even though he knew he was awful to you when you were growing up, that he was sorry. He said that he loved you like his own son, but that his drinking and the jealousy of me being with another man always took over him, and that is why he was the way he was with you," Joan said.

Brian shook his head. Was this just another mindfuck from Jack? Did he want Joan to tell him all of this so that he could figure out for himself why Jack hated him so much, and to make him hate his mother as well, and think bad of her? He so wanted to believe that Jack really did love him. He had always wanted the confirmation of that. He just never expected to hear it this way.

"I don't know what to believe anymore, Mom," Brian said shaking his head at her. "You've been lying to me my whole life. Why shouldn't I think you just made up this apology of Jack's so that I wouldn't feel so declined to forgive him for beating the shit out of me for being someone else's son? He's dead, Mom, and even now you're going to sit here and make excuses for his actions. Well, fuck you," Brian spat, his voice quivering, and tears now fell from his own eyes. He stood up and walked straight to the door, purposely leaving Jack's bowling ball behind. He didn't want it.

"Brian, please don't leave like this," Joan pleaded. Brian turned around to face his mother. His face had turned from angry to devastated.

"Mother, do you realize that because you lied all of those years, you prevented me from maybe having a life that was full of love instead of hate? You said that this guy you were with - Daniel - that he was a good man. I might have had a good life with him. It might have changed the way that I am, today," Brian said sadly, more tears falling. He hadn't cried in front of anyone in so long, but he couldn't stop it now.

"Don't you realize what you've done? You ruined my life, Mom... I don't know if I can ever forgive you for that," Brian told her, and then turned around and left, leaving Joan to sit alone in a puddle and cry.

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Brian didn't fuck a twink that night. He didn't want to see or talk to anyone. He did, however get drunk and stoned out of his mind and then passed out. All night the phone had been ringing off the hook. Michael, calling to ask if Brian was okay, and then again if he wanted to go out to Babylon or Woody's, and one more time to ask if he really was okay. Lindsay called once, as did Debbie. He couldn't believe the nerve, but even Joan had called. When he heard her voice, it took every fiber of his being not to yank the machine out of the wall and smash it into a hundred pieces. "She couldn't even give me a fucking 24-hour grace period? Bitch," Brian said out loud to himself.

A couple of weeks had gone by, and Brian had kept all of what Joan had told him a secret. It wasn't as if he was purposely trying to be secretive, it was just that he was still processing it, and he really didn't want to discuss it with anyone yet. He had thought it to death already, he didn't want to relive everything through his friends' outraged reactions. He wasn't ready for that.

He had spent a lot of time thinking the situation over, and had come to a decision. He was going to ask Joan for his biological father's full name, and anything else she knew about him. He was going to find him. This man, Daniel, deserved to know that Brian was his son, and Brian felt he deserved to meet the man. This had already been a secret for 29 years, it was time the cat was let out of the bag.

Joan was cooperative when Brian called her, as he knew she would. She didn't want Brian to be upset with her anymore. She had so much guilt in her. She almost wanted to curse her dead husband for talking her into telling Brian the truth. She had a feeling that Jack knew how her son would react. Still, there also a sense of relief. The truth was out in the open now, and she no longer had to hide it or lie about it. It was only for that reason that she felt a weight lifted off of her shoulders.

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"Cynthia, I need you to do something really important for me," Brian said, shortly after walking into his office at Vanguard. His beautiful blond secretary looked at her boss and smiled.

"Sure boss, what do you need?" she asked.

Brian handed her a piece of paper. "I want you to find out everything you can about this man, Daniel Jenson. I don't have much to go on, right now. Only his date of birth and name. I want an address and phone numbers, if you can find them. I want to know where he works, if he works. Just try to get any information on this man that you can, okay?" Brian asked.

"I'll do my best. Is this a potential client?" Cynthia asked.

Brian stared at her a moment before answering, trying to decide what he should reveal, if anything at all. "No. This is more of a personal matter, actually. It's extremely important, though. I need to know this information ASAP. That is all I'm going to say for now, got it?" Brian said.

"Got it," Cynthia said, knowing her boss well enough not to push him. She knew that Brian was a private person. He was pretty vague when it came to any topics of conversation outside of the office.

Brian smiled and nodded his thanks to Cynthia, and went into his office and closed the door. As he sat in his office chair, he smiled, thinking of the information he might have before the day was over with. He had spent so much time thinking of Daniel, and he was starting to go crazy with curiosity. He wondered if they looked alike; was he smart - wait, of course he must be smart. Brian certainly didn't get it from Joan or Jack. He wondered if he had any half brothers and sisters. He wondered how they would all react when they found out about him. He wondered if he would be sent away. He needed to decide how he was going to play this. This was a very fragile situation, and he knew he had to be very careful how he went about the whole thing. He hoped that everything would fall into place. It was going to be difficult to concentrate on work that day.