To My Eye

[nothing_rhymes_with_ianto]

Photography was Brian's first love, before advertising, before the need to prove something with money and Power. Justin finds an old box.

 

One day, while looking for a pair of grubby old paint shoes that have "mysteriously" disappeared, Justin finds an old cardboard box in the back of Brian's cabinets by the TV. Brian knows what's in it, and he winces slightly as he watches Justin pull it into his lap and slide off the lid. He's not entirely sure he wants Justin to see, to know what's inside the box, but it's already open so what the hell. Justin slowly picks up the box and sets it on the coffee table in front of Brian. He looks at him expectantly, and Brian stares back, until he sighs and pulls the box toward him, taking out the first bulky binder.

He opens it and stares down at the first photos in the album. Photography was Brian's first love, before advertising, before the need to prove something with money and power. He bought his first camera, an old Minolta, with his own money, after mowing dozens of lawns and doing other work for people. He had been fifteen. He hadn't stopped taking photos, and he had loved capturing moments that would never be seen again. It made him feel powerful. He looks down at the box again. This holds nearly every photograph he's ever taken since that first time. He pulls his lips into his mouth as Justin takes the binder from his hands and begins to flip through, running his fingers lightly across the pages. He looks up after a moment.

"Brian?"

Brian shrugs. "I bought a camera when I was fifteen. I never really stopped taking photos."

"Brian, these are…"

"A piece of shit? I was a kid."

"No, Brian, these are amazing." He caresses a photograph gently. It's a candid portrait in black and white film of a young woman in dreadlocks, standing on a turnpike, her thumb stuck out. She has a sort of lost, yet calm expression in her eyes, the beginnings of a smile on her lips. There's one right after, a candid, of a young cop, obviously exhausted, listening to someone speak, his chin in his hand.

"The first time I tried to run away from home. Didn't get too far before the cops grabbed me up. She got away, though."

Justin flips through some more. The next photo that makes him pause is in color. It's Debbie, years younger, at the diner. Only, for once she's off her feet, sitting in a booth with Michael beside her. They're sharing an ice cream Sunday, and Debbie has a smile on her face like Michael's just won the lottery. The angle is strange, as if taken from behind the counter.

"Michael got the highest grade in his history class."

"I thought you did."

"This was freshman year. We had different teachers."

"Oh."

He turns the page and stops, his hand hovering in the air. Brian give a little jerk and looks away. Instead of two or three, there's a single photograph on this page. The photo's in color, and makes Justin sick. It's a stark image of an already-scabbed fist flying towards the camera, the abrasive knuckles in sharp focus, the background unfocused, a wild, inebriated eye and part of a snarling, alcohol-flushed cheek that Justin assumes is Jack Kinney. Justin's hand stays in the air, he doesn't even want to touch it.

When Brian speaks, it's haltingly, and his voice is strangled. He'd forgotten about that photograph. He doesn't want to remember, but he cant seem to tear his eyes away from the image.

"He broke my camera. I don't know what the fuck I was doing with it out in the first place. I managed to get the film before he tossed it. Lindsay bought me a new camera a few weeks later." Memories of Jack's fists and feral, drunken eyes flood his brain and he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Fuck."

Justin's hand slides around to rub the back of his neck, tangling his fingers in the short hairs at the base of his skull. He quickly flips away from the picture, and keep going until another photograph makes him pause for longer than a couple of seconds.

It's another black and white, of a pair of bodies, tangled together, all light and shadow. They seem to be clutching desperately at one another, somewhere between comfort and pain. One man's face is partially lighted, a mask of grief.

"He found out that his son was killed. Hate crime." Brian looks away. He hates thinking about it, about how that could have been something like him "Some homo cop came in and told him while he was in the back room."

"Christ. Did you know him?"

"The son? No. I knew the guy, though. I think his name was Andrew."

"Shit."

The next picture to make him stop is a happy one. It's Melanie's face, just one half of it, a close up. She's grinning brilliantly. A hand, probably Lindsay's is about to caress her face, fingertips brushing only lightly over the skin.

"She got a chainsaw for her birthday."

Justin rolls his eyes at him. "Come on."

Brian shrugs again. "I don't remember. It was just a moment that had to be captured, I guess."

He flips through more photos of Brian's life. He stops at a photo of a young boy, looking at something past the camera, pouting slightly, an annoyed yet resigned expression on his face.

"One of Claire's spawn. It was bedtime." He glances at Justin, sees the question in his eyes. "She needed help picking out a divorce lawyer. And good old Joanie was too drunk to help out. So I had to be a good little boy scout."

Justin nods silently, turns more pages. He pauses at a photograph of Gus, sitting on the floor of the loft in his diaper, with Justin kneeling in front of him, hands out, as if to get him to stand, though his not quite old enough to be walking. Both are grinning.

Justin gives a little sigh and smiles. "I remember that day."

"You two look good together." Justin smiles and gives his arm a little shove.

"That's because you're both Kinney's."

"Or because you're both infants."

"Shut up, Brian. I'm more mature than you."

He looks through more photos of Gus, of Lindsay, of Michael, grinning. The next page, they are struck with another single photograph on a page. It's a simple, grainy photo in color, a sort of frightening, depressing greenish grey from the lighting. A parking garage, obviously during the night, lit only by the brash fluorescents. On the far end, a small, dark, clunky Honda is visible, but it's not in focus. The foreground is in focus instead, though there is nothing there that anyone would really notice. But Brian closes his eyes and turns away quickly, and Justin sees it immediately. A stain, barely darker than the cement, but there all the same, a reddish tinge that would never leave the concrete, or their minds.

"Brian, when…"

Brian's throat works, catches twice before he can answer. "Before you got out of the hospital. I had to take it. I…had to. I just…" He's not sure what he's trying to say. "I needed proof. I needed to remember. I tried so hard to just ignore it and fucking forget, but I couldn't, so I needed this. I needed to know it wasn't just some shit I made up, or something like that. Because, well…" he hates talking about his feelings, even if Justin wants him to. "I was…numb, I guess. I didn't know what to think. So I had to make sure I knew it wasn't fake. I had to make sure I wasn't numb. I had to know that you were alive."

"Because of you. I'm alive because of you, Brian."

Brian nods absently, let's Justin run his fingers through his hair and kiss his jaw, his neck, gently. He knows this. He knows that he saved Justin, sort of. He knows that things could have been worse had he not been there. But sometimes it still nags him, the feeling of guilt. When Justin's hand cramps up, or he jerks awake from a nightmare, or he flinches away from a touch, Brian thinks again of that photograph, and wants so bad to fix it, that he'll do anything.

Sometimes he wishes he'd brought a camera to that night. He wishes Justin could have seen them dance. He knows he has the images in his own head. He realizes now that he has to be content with the fact that that is a photograph that no one else will see. He can describe it all he wants, but no one, not Justin, nor anyone else, will have that smile, that joy, that moment burned into their minds the way he does.