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“The Big Bad returns,” Cynthia sing-songed as Brian approached her desk. She was around the desk in an instant and followed Brian into his office, pulling him into a hug once he had shut the door behind them. “We’ve missed you around here.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” Brian chuckled, extracting himself from her hold and backing away to set his briefcase down on his desk. “So what have I missed?”
Cynthia began to rattle off details about various accounts and how someone or other had very nearly fucked them up. How Vance was fuming that he was the one who had been forced to fix up the messes since Brian was temporarily unavailable. Brian found no small amount of amusement in the fact that Vance was finally having to do some work around the office. A part of him was even tempted to put off taking on a full work load for a few more days just to torture Vance a little longer.
The only thing that stopped him was the fact that he had already been out of the swing of things for two weeks. If Justin had had it his way, Brian would have still been at the loft. Brian was still a little jumpy from time to time, true enough, but he was a lot better than he had been a week before when Justin hadn’t even been able to coax him out of bed.
While Cynthia was in the process of going over his schedule for the day, the phone out in her office began to ring. She shot him an apologetic smile before going to answer the phone.
Brian, on the other hand, was grateful for the interruption. It gave him a chance to get his feet under him. He crossed behind his desk and dropped into the plush leather chair with a grateful sigh. He'd missed his chair and spun slowly from side to side, taking in his office as a whole.
“Justin’s on line one,” Cynthia said, poking her head back into the office.
Nodding his head, Brian turned away from her and reached for his phone, snatching it from the cradle in a single, fluid motion. “Hey, Sunshine,” he breathed into the phone, nodding in Cynthia’s direction as she moved to shut the door to his office. “You know, you don’t need to check up on me. I’m fine. Have been for a few days now.”
“I’m not checking up on you,” Justin said so casually that Brian had to believe him. “I’m just giving you a heads up that I’m gonna be going to my studio around eleven. I’ll probably be there all afternoon so I just wanted to know what you wanted me to pick up for dinner on my way home.”
“Surprise me,” Brian grinned, already knowing what the comment meant digesting later that day.
“All right, pizza it is.”
“One day you’re going to have to learn to not be so predictable,” Brian told the blonde who he could hear moving about the loft. “How about we skip the pizza binge and I pick you up at your studio and we go out to that Italian place you like?”
“Don’t you mean the Italian place you like?” Justin teased, his voice the perfect indicator of the smile Brian was sure he was sporting. “Maybe if you ask nice they’ll serve you some ice cream and biscotti cookies for desert.”
Brian shook his head, a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. "Brat. Look, I've got to go, Sunshine. I have a meeting with Vance in about five minutes. Be careful."
"I will," Justin assured him, his voice dropping to a quiet murmur. "You be careful too, all right?"
"Yes, dear," Brian said in a high falsetto.
There was a snort of amusement from Justin's end then his voice sobered. "I mean it, Brian. Be careful."
"Always, Sunshine," Brian said quietly. "Later."
"Later."
Brian kept the phone to his ear until he heard the dial tone on the other end. Only then did he hang up.
~*~*~
It had been over a week since Justin had been to his studio. Over a week since he had seen the paintings he'd done when Brian had been missing. And in that time, with everything else going on, Justin had managed to forget about them. The instant that he stepped into the studio, though, Justin was confronted by the picture he had painted of Brian lying in the dingy bathtub.
Seeing it now, after the fact, Justin felt suddenly sick to his stomach. He hadn't been conscious of what he'd been doing when he'd created it, simply allowing the lines to form as they would. It had worried him then, but now it simply terrified him. Justin didn't know how he'd been able to paint something that he shouldn't have been able to know about. It had just been there in his mind, on some unconscious level.
Shuddering, Justin stalked over to the painting, turning it around so that it faced the wall.
"That's over," Justin told himself, shaking himself a final time before moving over to the easel that was already outfitted with a blank canvas. "Things are good now. Brian's better. He's at work and Ethan can't get to him anymore. It's over."
Justin just really wished he could believe it himself.
~*~*~
For the umpteenth time that day, Brian eyes drifted towards the phone as he fought the urge to call Justin on his cell. He knew that he was being irrational which was why he refused to make the call. What had happened had happened and there was no going back. The only thing he could do was move forward which was what he was trying to do.
"Brian, Ms. Peterson is here to see you. She brought--"
"Dadda! 'Sme! Gus!"
Brian had been all ready to tell Cynthia to get rid of Lindsay until his son's excited voice had interrupted his secretary. There was no way he could send Gus away. Not when he missed his son so desperately.
"Let them in," he said into the intercom that linked their offices.
There was no response from the other end, but Brian knew Cynthia was leading them to his office. That meant he had all of ten seconds to prepare himself to see the woman who had been one of his best friends until a week ago. The mother of his child.
When the door opened, Gus bolted into the room and immediately launched himself into Brian's arms. "Dadda! I missed eww, Dadda!"
Brian held the little boy tight against his chest, his eyes squeezed shut tight. "I missed you too, Sonnyboy."
"Son-boy," Gus echoed as he tightened his small arms around Brian's neck.
It was an effort for Brian to release the boy when he began squirming a few moments later. He would have kept Gus in his arms indefinitely were it up to him, but Gus was far too young and far too active to stay still for long. So, very reluctantly, Brian set his son upon the floor where Lindsay handed him a toy truck to keep himself occupied.
"What are you doing here, Lindsay?" Brian asked once he was sure Gus was no longer paying attention. "I thought I made myself clear last week."
"You can't be serious, Brian," Lindsay tried to bluff him off. "You were still recovering when you said that, but now that you've had a chance to...."
"A chance to what?" Brian snorted, keeping his voice down so as not to disrupt Gus. "Forget that it took the rest of you a week to realize that I was missing? Forget that you just brushed off Justin's concerns? I was stuck in that fucking bathtub for a week, Lindz. A week. I was drugged, I couldn't defend myself and if I hadn't been fucking lucky as hell, and Justin hadn't shown up when that asshole was gone, I'd still be in that fucking bathtub. He was the one looking for me and not any of you. So excuse me if I'd rather not have anything to do with you."
Lindsay was silent for a few minutes while Brian moved over to where Gus was and scooped the little boy up into his arms. Brian burrowed his face into the downy hair, willing away the tremors that were shaking his entire body.
"You know, Sonnyboy, Justin really misses you," Brian told his son once he was sure he could speak without his voice squeaking. "What do you say you ask your Momma if we can go pick Justin up from his studio and go to the park."
Gus squealed with delight, twisting his small body about in Brian's arms so that he could see his mother. "Park, Momma! Park!"
Lindsay looked torn at first and Brian arched an eyebrow in her direction, daring her to say no to Gus. And Brian hated that he had to depend on her to see his son. It made him wish that he'd never signed away his rights to Melanie because then he could see Gus whenever he wanted. All they had to do was say "no" and he would be cut off from his son.
"All right, sweetheart. You can go to the park with your Dadda and Justin," Lindsay relented at last, holding Gus' diaper bag out towards Brian.
Gus began giggling with delight, bouncing about in Brian's arms. For his part, Brian snatched the diaper bag from Lindsay's outstretched hand, but said nothing to her. He was grateful to her for letting him spend time with Gus, but still felt uncomfortable around her. It would be a while before he would be ready to trust any of them again.
~*~*~
It wasn't working. None of them were turning out as he had hoped. Justin had spent hours in his studio and his hand could make no sense of the images his mind was trying to project on paper and canvas. All about him were scrunched up pages from his sketchbooks, none of them with completed drawings.
Justin was very close to packing up and returning to the loft. He was already starting to gather up his sketchbooks when there was a delighted squeal of, "Jus'n!" from the doorway. Seconds later he found himself with an armful of excited nearly two year old.
"Gus. Hey. What are you doing here?" Justin stammered, balancing the little boy against his hip as he stood up.
"Go to da park wif you and Dadda," Gus announced quite happily, pointing to the doorway where Brian now stood leaning against the door jamb.
"Lindsay stopped by the office," Brian volunteered as he moved deeper into the small studio. "They sent her to try and negotiate peace. You can imagine what her leverage was."
Justin glanced down at the little boy who was now playing with the scraps of paper that littered the ground. Gus was too young to know it, but his mother had used him as a pawn. And as desperate as Justin as to find out about what had gone on, he would have to wait until they had taken Gus home.
"So we're going to the park?" Justin said instead, grinning over at his lover.
Brian nodded his head idly as he wandered about the small room, glancing at the artwork that lined its walls. Paying more attention to Gus than he was to Brian, Justin didn't realize that Brian had turned the painting of himself in the bathtub around until he heard the older man's gasp. In an instant, Justin was at Brian's side, placing a hand to the small of his back when he began to waver.
"Did you... did you paint this...?"
"A few days before I found you," Justin murmured as he stepped closer to Brian, winding an arm around his waist. "I had just been to Ethan's. I'm not sure why, I just ended up there. I almost... fuck, I almost went into the bathroom. He told me Wolfram was in there, so I was going to let him out, but I didn't. My hand was on the fucking doorknob, but I didn't open it.... I let him talk me out of it and then when I left... when I was on the landing I thought I heard your voice, but I just shoved it aside because I'd been hearing your voice everywhere. God, Bri, I could have had you out of there sooner. Instead I came here and painted this."
Whatever Brian would have said was lost when Gus toddled over to them and latched onto Brian's leg in a plea to be picked up.
"You ready to go, Sonnyboy?" Brian asked as he rested his chin against the top of the little boy's head.
Pulling his head from under his father's chin, Gus beamed up at him. "Park?"
"Park," the elder of the Kinney men confirmed.
And, just like that, Brian shoved aside something else he didn't want to deal with. He would eventually have to, though, whether either of them liked it or not.
~*~*~
"So you painted that while I was still...." Brian started as the two of them pushed Gus on one of the kiddie swings at the park near the loft. "How did you know that I was... in that tub?"
"I have no fucking idea," Justin sighed, his hand brushing over the top of Gus' head on the backswing. "It's weird. I just started painting and that's what happened. At first I thought it just looked sexy as hell. You all sprawled out, half naked... but then I looked closer and it just scared the hell out of me. I thought it was just my imagination acting up, but then I went to Ethan's that morning and saw you."
Brian felt a tremor shake through his body as he remembered that morning. What little he could of it anyway. Most of it was pretty foggy, but he remembered the important bit. Justin being there. Everything had been fuzzy, but then Justin's face had been there. Just like he'd needed him all week. Brian didn't want to consider what it meant.
So he focused his attention elsewhere. On Gus in particular who was jabbering away, stringing words together at random. Brian was determined to be a better father for his son than his own had been.
~*~*~
Brian sat behind the wheel of the jeep, watching as Justin brought Gus back to his mothers. He wanted to spend as much time with Gus as possible, but he wasn't ready to spend significant amounts of time around the munchers. Even the time it would take to drop his son off was too much for him at the moment. Lindsay would want him to talk and Mel would just be a nuisance.
Sure enough, when Justin exited muncher central it was in a huff. There was a scowl on the blonde's face and he was stomping noticeably. Before he was even halfway down the walk, Brian had the engine started and was just waiting for his lover so that they could leave.
"Fucking Debbie," Justin growled as he clambered into the jeep. "She was trying to convince me that I was purposefully segregating you from the family and that I should stand aside so that they could help you get better."
Brian could only stare at him in shock. Deb's logic made no sense whatsoever. Justin was literally the only thing that was keeping him together most of the time. Brian had made the decision himself to keep away from the gang with no help whatsoever from Justin. If anything, Justin had tried to keep him from finding out about their non-involvement when he went missing.
And as much as Brian simply wanted to drive away, he couldn't allow Deb to get away with talking to Justin like that. So Brian turned the jeep back off and climbed out, stalking towards the house before Justin even had a chance to react.
"Brian, get back here!" Justin shouted as he threw the passenger door open. "Let's just go home, Brian. It doesn't matter."
"The fuck it doesn't," Brian growled.
Not bothering to knock, Brian walked straight into the house, nearly crashing into Lindsay who was just coming down the stairs. After confirming that Gus was upstairs having a nap, Brian stalked into the living room where Melanie and Deb were talking heatedly back and forth and didn't notice when Brian first walked in.
"Brian! Come here and give me a hug!" Deb enthused when she finally saw him. Her smile wavered slightly when Brian only glared at her.
"Where the fuck do you get off talking to Justin like that?" Brian demanded, holding his ground even though he felt uncomfortable with how close she was getting. "Justin isn't keeping me away from anyone. I'm not having anything to do with any of you because I don't want to. It's my choice, Deb, not Justin's."
"We're your family, Brian. After something so traumatic, you need your family, but we can't get to you because Justin's keeping you locked away in the loft," Deb tried to defend herself, glaring past Brian to where he assumed Justin was now standing.
"Did you think that maybe I don't want your help? You didn't even care that I'd been gone for a week, Deb," Brian reminded her, crossing his arms over his chest in a defensive posture.
"Brian, come on. Let's go home."
Justin's voice was so quiet that Brian could barely hear him, the pounding between his temples drowning out all else. Before he could respond, Justin placed a hand between his shoulder blades. Brian immediately turned around, stalking towards the front door. Justin shouted after him, but Brian didn't stop.
~*~*~
"You happy now?" Justin hissed once Brian had stomped out of the house. "Brian is still trying to get himself sorted out and he doesn't need you to make it worse. So please, just leave him alone until he's ready."
Justin didn't give them a chance to respond before he spun around on his heel and followed Brian back out to the jeep. Once outside he found Brian pacing back and forth in front of the jeep, cigarette dangling from between his fingers. When he brought the hand back to his mouth to take another puff of nicotine, Justin could see that his hand was trembling.
"Hey, you okay?" Justin murmured when he reached Brian's side, sliding a hand up between his shoulder blades.
Brian nodded his head, the motion jerky. "Yeah. Fine. Just let me finish this and we can get going."
"How about I drive?" Justin offered as he slipped his hand into the front pocket of Brian's jeans to retrieve the car keys. "That way you can finish your cigarette and we can make our reservations at Da Luciano."
Brian nodded his head, allowing a huge puff of smoke to escape his lips. "Drive on, Sunshine."
~*~*~
In the weeks that followed, Brian saw very little of the family. He might happen to glance them in passing or if he was in the diner, but conversations were very stilted at best. Brian still felt uncomfortable when he was round them. But he managed to suck it up and be civil when it he encountered them.
And even though he felt uncomfortable around his family, Brian refused to let that keep him from his son. Every weekend, Brian went with Justin to pick up Gus so that they could spend the day with him. Brian's relationship with his son had definitely changed for the better following his week long stay in Ethan Gold's bathtub. So had his one with Justin. Before the Rage party and everything that had followed, Brian had been fully prepared to let Justin go. Above all else he wanted Justin to be happy, even if it was at his extent. Now, though, Brian didn't think that he could bear to part with Justin. There were times when Justin was the only thing that kept him from crawling out of his skin.
"It's the middle of the night, Bri. What are you still doing up?" Justin yawned as he stepped out of the bedroom.
Over at one of the large windows that overlooked the street below, Brian glanced back at Justin momentarily before turning his attention back to the window. "Couldn't sleep."
"Figured as much," the blonde mumbled, smile evident in his voice. "Why didn't you wake me up?"
"And have both of us not be able to sleep?" Brian chuckled mirthlessly.
A few seconds later, Justin's arms wound around him from behind. He met Justin's gaze in the reflection of the window and leaned back into the embrace. Justin was just tall enough to peek over his shoulder so Brian reached behind him and guided Justin around so that he stood pressed against his side. Brian kept his arm draped across Justin's shoulders as the smaller man snuggled up against him.
"You really should get some sleep," Justin insisted, tilting his head back so that he could peer up at Brian's face.
Brian shook his head, a tremor shaking its way through his body. "I can't.... I can't even close my eyes right now."
There was no need for him to explain why. It was the same reason Justin had been tossing and turning for most of the night while Brian laid beside him, unable to find sleep.
The next day they were scheduled to testify at Ethan's trial.
~*~*~
Having already been questioned, Justin sat in the gallery watching as Brian struggled to make sense of his muddled memories. For the past two weeks Brian had met several times with the prosecuting attorney, going over questions and trying to make sense of barely remembered events. On the stand, though, it was much more difficult.
"Were you bound at any time? Physically restrained?" Deidre Collins, the prosecutor, asked Brian who was fidgeting nervously with the cuff of his jacket.
"Not at first, no. It was after I... after I tried to escape," Brian stammered, fidgeting in the uncomfortable wooden seat. "After that he tied my hands to the drainpipe with shoe laces."
"You were still being heavily drugged at this point, correct?" she pressed, her voice almost soothing so as to keep Brian as calm as possible.
"I was," Brian confirmed.
Deidre furrowed her brows slightly at that in a look of confusion that Justin knew was purely for appearances. "What is it that pushed you to make an escape attempt when you were so heavily sedated with Xanax?"
"I heard Justin," Brian said after a few endless seconds. "I heard him talking to Ethan-- not what they said, just his voice. And I remember thinking that maybe if I could get to the main part of the apartment then Justin would come back and see me. Then we could go home."
It made Justin's stomach clench to think of just how close he had been to Brian that morning. He had been standing not five feet away from Brian and hadn't even known it. All he would have had to do was open the bathroom door and he would have seen Brian and could have got him home so much sooner.
And even though no one else in the courtroom would notice it, Justin could see just how freaked out Brian was. It was in his eyes and the way he fidgeted with the cuff as his jacket and how he gnawed on the inside of his cheek. He was doing a good job at hiding it, though. Unless you knew what you were looking for, Brian seemed completely calm and collected.
~*~*~
"I've been thinking," Brian said suddenly as they drove home from the courthouse. He didn't elaborate at first, wanting to make sure he had Justin's attention. It was something that had been on his mind for a while, but he'd never had the guts to bring it up.
"About...?" the blonde prompted, glancing over at him.
Brian hesitated for a moment then mentally berated himself fro it. "I want to move. Get another place."
"You want to move," Justin echoed, turning in his seat so that he was facing Brian fully. "But you love the loft. It's your home."
"Exactly. My home. The loft is my home, not ours. With you living there and now Gus spending a lot of time over... we need a bigger place," Brian explained, forgetting most of the reasons he'd had for the move.
The truth was, Brian wanted no more reminders of what had happened during that whole debacle with Ethan Gold now that the violinist had been found guilty on all charges. And in the loft he couldn't escape it.
He could be on the computer working on a presentation when suddenly he'd hear strains of violin music filling all the open spaces in the loft, music from the CD Justin had tossed out long ago. Or he'd be lying in bed and his mind would flash to that night before everything had happened. When he'd held Justin in his arms, both of them knowing that what they had wasn't going to last. So many other, smaller, incidents that stuck out in Brian's mind and would catch him off guard were reasons that he wanted to move away from the loft.
And it wasn't as though he still needed it to impress tricks. In the nearly three months since the Rage party, Brian couldn't recall a single time he'd tricked. He still frequented the backrooms and baths of Liberty Avenue, but it was always with Justin because unless he was consciously thinking of it, it didn't even cross Brian's mind to partake in the act. And even then he never felt the urge to go through with it.
"Don't think that I've completely lost my mind," Brian said when he noticed the look of disbelief on Justin's face when he glanced over at a stop light. "We're not getting a house. Gus has the whole yard thing going on at the munchers. His dads will be the ones with the cool loft downtown."
"I assume that this means the new loft will have actual walls on the bedroom so that certain little eyes don't see things they're not supposed to," Justin chuckled, jerking his head to the right slightly to let Brian know the light had turned green.
Brian merely grinned and turned away from Tremont.
~*~*~
"It's the loft from 'Ghost'!" Justin marveled as the super let them into the unit. He didn't care that he was bouncing up and down and grinning like an idiot to boot, he was standing in the loft from 'Ghost'-- or rather one that looked a lot like it --that Brian was saying would be theirs as soon as he gave him the okay. "The ceiling and the windows and the stairs.... Why the fuck didn't you tell me they had places like this in Pittsburgh?"
Not bothering to wait for Brian's response, Justin moved deeper into the unfurnished space, his eyes darting about faster than he could. In his mind he was already mentally installing several of his larger paintings on the white walls while at the same time plotting out different colour choices for those same walls.
"So I take it you approve," Brian murmured as he came up behind Justin, winding his arms around the teen's waist. "I can have your mom draw up the papers."
Justin whirled around, nearly smacking his head against Brian's chin with the quick motion. "My mom knew about this? Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because I told her not to," Brian smirked, looking more than a little pleased with himself. "I wanted to surprise you."
"If I didn't love you so much, I would seriously consider hurting you right now," Justin laughed, framing Brian's face in his hands as he leaned up for a kiss. "This place is fantastic."
Brian held him for a longer moment before giving him a proper tour of their soon-to-be new loft. Most of it was open space just like their current loft. The only real difference was the room built into one wall that had an attached bathroom which would serve as a room for Gus on his weekend visits. What allowed for the biggest increase of floor space, despite the fact that the loft was actually larger than their present home, was that the master bedroom was raised on a second floor that had a winding staircase leading up to it. At the moment there were a series of folding screens that prevented anyone from down below from seeing through the fourth, open wall of the second floor, but Justin knew that Brian would probably replace them with something akin to the glass partitions at the loft on Tremont.
"If this place is gonna be ours, I wanna help with the bills," Justin informed his lover as he stood in the empty place where the bed would eventually be. "Otherwise it'll still be just your home. So promise me that you'll let me pay some of the bills."
"How about I just make you pay for your education?" Brian countered, arching an eyebrow.
"Let's not get carried away," Justin smirked as he linked his fingers through Brian's, pulling the taller man towards him.
~*~*~
Brian was tempted to not tell anyone about his and Justin's upcoming move. None of the gang had been to the loft since the Rage party and the only ones Brian had any contact with were Lindsay and Mel and that was only in relation to Gus. It was easier that way because Brian still felt uneasy around them. He just couldn't get past the thought that he had been missing for a week before any of them had really seemed to notice.
In the end he didn't end up having to make the decision. On the day the movers came to transport their things from one loft to the other Lindsay showed up unexpectedly with Gus in tow.
"Brian, what are you...? What's going on?" Lindsay stammered, letting the squirming toddler down so that he could make a beeline for his father.
"Hey there, Sonnyboy," Brian cheered as he hoisted Gus up into his arms. "What are you and Momma doing here?"
"See eww," the little boy informed him. He cheered then when he saw Justin emerging from the bedroom. "Jus'n! Wha' 'appening?"
Justin glanced over at Brian, silently asking him whether or not he should be the one to share the information. Instead Brian decided to answer both their questions himself.
"Justin and I are moving into a new loft downtown."
Lindsay's mouth opened and closed silently for a few moments, unable to come up with words. Ignoring her, Brian turned to his son, scooping him out of Justin's arms and began telling him about his room in the new loft. The movers returned then for the last of the boxes so Brian handed Gus over to Justin so that he could give them last minute instructions about the delivery.
"Were you going to tell anyone that you were moving?" Lindsay demanded once the movers had left, apparently having found her voice.
"I don't know," Brian said honestly, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Justin and I hadn't decided yet. We were going to move into the new place, let Gus get used to it and then decide. You would have found out if Gus had started spending the night, but at the moment it didn't seem important. Now, if you'll excuse us, Justin and I need to get over to the new place to let the movers in."
~*~*~
At first Justin shrugged off the motion, never fully waking. When it was followed by a panicked whimper, however, Justin roused himself immediately turning to gather Brian up in his arms. The older man didn't waken, but relaxed into Justin's arms with a sigh. Justin let him sleep, stroking his fingers through Brian's hair, his hand sliding down to cup his cheek.
While Brian had had his share of nightmares since what had happened after the Rage party, they had dwindled off some. The next day was Ethan's sentencing. The musician had been found guilty on all counts a month back and now it was time for the judge to decide just how long he was going to jail. Justin wanted Ethan to spend the rest of his life in jail for what he'd done to Brian, but that wasn't an option.
A part of Justin wanted to talk Brian out of going to the sentencing hearing. He wouldn't, though, not only because the prosecutor had asked him to be there, but because Brian needed to for himself as well. It would give him closure. After tomorrow everything with Ethan would be over. They could move on with their lives.
"Dadda, Jus'n, I up!" Gus called over the intercom.
Quickly rolling away from Brian, Justin turned off the intercom before it woke his lover up. He could handle the little boy who had likely decided once again that he wanted to sleep with them than in the crib in his own room. It was only the second time Gus had spent the night and he wasn't used to not sleeping between the two men. He had fallen asleep on the couch, though, so Brian had thought he'd try putting Gus in his crib to see how he'd do.
Carefully extracting himself from Brian's arms, Justin made his way through the dimly lit loft, deftly avoiding the part of the stairs that creaked. He'd discovered that one particular step within days of their moving in and it had foiled several of his attempts to sneak up on Brian. As he made another mental note to get the step fixed, Justin scurried across the open area of the loft and opened the door to Gus' room.
"Jus'n!" Gus cooed when he saw the blonde, a huge smile lighting his face.
"Hey there, Gus. What are you doing awake?" Justin asked as he walked over to Gus' crib, hoisting the little boy up into his arms. "You should be asleep right now."
"Sowwy," Gus sighed, snuggling into Justin's arms and burrowing his head under the artist's chin. "Bed wif you and Dadda now."
Justin knew that he should insist that Gus stay in his bed, but he and Brian got to spend so little time with the toddler that he willingly brought him back to the master bedroom with him. "You've gotta stay quiet, Gus. Dadda's sleeping right now," Justin informed the little boy as they neared the top of the staircase. "Quiet as a mouse."
Giggling into Justin's shoulder, the tot nodded his head.
"No need, I'm already awake," Brian murmured from the bedroom.
When he got to the top of the stairs, Justin saw that Brian had himself raised up on one elbow. He smiled fondly at the younger man, reaching a hand towards him. His hands were full at the moment so he couldn't accept the hand, but he did pass Gus off to his father before crawling into the bed himself.
"Like yer bed better," Gus informed Brian with all seriousness as he settled down between the two men, already half asleep.
The two men remained silent for a few minutes, waiting for Gus to fall back asleep.
"You were supposed to stay asleep," Justin whispered as he lightly pushed a few errant strands of hair from Brian's eyes.
"It's hard to stay asleep with you bouncing around so much," Brian yawned, snuggling himself down along side his son.
Justin simply rolled his eyes as he laid down as well, swallowing a yawn of his own. He had just rolled onto his stomach when Brian stretched a hand over Gus' body to rest on the small of his back. Justin relaxed into the touch, grinning over at Brian who was staring at him from his own pillow. A smile ghosted over Brian's lips as his eyes drifted shut. His hands crossed under the pillow, Justin stretched his right hand closer to Brian and wasn't surprised when he found the brunette's fingers searching out his own. They laced their fingers together, the grip light so that it didn't lessen as the two drifted off to sleep.