The Lie Wouldn't Let Me Sleep

[nothing_rhymes_with_ianto]

This is set some time during the Ethan Fiasco. Justin's nightmares come back, and Ethan doesnt know how to help. Justin is realizing how much he misses Brian and how comforting Brian had been.

 

The first time it happens, he wakes with a cry, curled in a ball and covered in sweat, face streaked with tears. Ethan is shaking him. When he realizes Justin is awake, he reaches out to pull him into a hug, but Justin shrinks away.

"Justin, are you all right?" Ethan moves again to touch him, Justin jerks away violently.

"Don't!" He swings his legs over the side of the stupid makeshift bed, sitting up, and curls his shoulders inward. "Just…please don't touch me. Go back to sleep."

Ethan frowns a little in the dim light, but nods and rolls back over, shoving his face back into the scratchy pillow. In moments, Justin hears his breathing even out and knows Ethan is asleep. He stands and walks over to the window, scrubbing a hand across his face as he looks out.

He stares out at the bleak light of twilit Pittsburgh. For an instant he wonders if Brian is across town in his own loft, doing the same thing. He suddenly longs for Brian's gentle touch to sooth the nightmare away; he'd always known just what to do. He shakes the thought away. Justin stares out the window, blinking away the fear. He sighs quietly and crawls back in beside Ethan. As he drifts to sleep, he realizes that he has been sleeping on Brian's side of the bed. He doesn't remember that realization in the morning.

When his hand cramps up for the first time, he is drawing Ethan as he practices. Ethan has his eyes closed, lost in the music, and doesn't notice Justin's hand shaking violently, or his small gasp of frustration and pain. He doesn't see the hurting in Justin's eyes as he massages his own hand. The massage helps, but Justin doesn't know his own muscles and palm as well as Brian did, he doesn't know how to make his hand soften and totally relax the way Brian did. He shakes out the muscles as best he can and goes back to drawing. He hides the pain from Ethan and smiles back when the man gives him a soft grin.

The second nightmare, Justin wakes trembling and crying, hands clutching the dirty pillow to his chest. Ethan doesn't wake up, so Justin bolts into the bathroom to breathe. He feels trapped here, claustrophobic. He stares back at his own frightened eyes in the mirror, and tries to get the swinging bat out of his head on his own. He splashes cool water on his face and scrubs at his eyes. He hears Ethan stir in the other room.

"Justin?"

"I'm coming back. Just a second."

"Okay."

He takes a deep, shaking breath, pastes a smile on his face, glances in the mirror to make sure Ethan won't be able to tell he has been crying, and moves out to join his boyfriend.

A few nights in a row, he has nightmares. He wakes up shivering and sobbing, with Ethan either fast asleep or concerned and in his face. It bothers him that he hates both of those reactions, and there is no other option. He's sitting in front of the window, eating an omelet and thinking about Daphne's dinner invitation. Ethan has been pouring over some old history book about some old composer for the last half hour. He has to get dressed and go to his shift at the diner soon. Ethan looks up suddenly and comes gently over to him, as if wary about frightening him.

"Justin?" Justin raises his eyebrows, a silent gesture for him to go on, then he realizes that only Brian would respond to only facial expressions, so he blinks.

"Yeah?"

"Are you all right? Why are you having so many nightmares? What's causing them?"

Justin stops. He's forgotten that Ethan doesn't know about the bashing, he doesn't know everything about the nightmares. It was something that was between him and the rest of his family, and the nightmares were something only between him and Brian, no one else knew about them besides his mother.

"I don't know, really. I guess I should get some Ambien or something." He is not sure why, but he doesn't want Ethan to know about that part of him, that dark part that is locked away in the right side of his head, in the blue lights of the loft, in a dark stain on the floor of a parking garage, in a haunted look on Brian's face.

"You should. It's unhealthy to stay up so late." Justin almost says something about doing just fine staying up even later at the clubs, about Ethan being the public service announcement this time, but he bites his tongue, smiles and nods.

"Yeah, okay." He goes to the drugstore, buys some sleeping pills. But he doesn't ever take them. He hates being drugged, it's another residual thing from the time in the hospital after the bashing. Sedatives make him feel hazy, vulnerable, he doesn't like it. So the nightmares continue. Ethan learns to sleep through them.

His headaches come back, since he didn't take his medicine with him when he left Brian, so he has to go back to the loft to get it. Brian answers the door shirtless, wearing his worn jeans that ride low on his hips. Justin keeps his head down and his voice low, gets his stuff and gets out as quickly as possible, ignoring the concerned, knowing look on Brian's face, the haunted feeling behind the dark hazel eyes, the way Brian unconsciously reaches toward him when his voice comes out hoarse and tired.

One night Ethan wants to drag him to some pretentious party full of people he doesn't know, but Justin is tired and has a school project to work on, so he tells Ethan to go by himself. Ethan kisses him quickly and tells him "I love you." Justin says "You too," but doesn't return the sentiment. He leaves, and Justin works on the stupid intricately detailed art project until his hands starts to cramp and shake, then he shoves it away and gets in bed, closing his eyes and falling asleep.

Again, he wakes with a start, but he is alone. Ethan is god knows where, so he curls up into a ball on the hard mattress, and tries to will the fear away. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine Brian's strong hands stroking his shoulders, his muscled arms pulling him close, his voice murmuring gentle in his ear, soft words of comfort to calm him down and let him know he's protected. It hurts, deep down in his gut, to know that Brian is the only one that can comfort him, and it just sort of pisses him off that Ethan doesn't even really try.

He sits up again and digs around in his backpack for his cell phone. He looks at the time, 4 AM. He wants to call Brian, wants to hear his voice lull him to sleep again. His finger hovers over speed dial two (why does he still have Brian on speed dial, he thinks) but he decides against it and shoves the phone under his pillow and flops on his back to stare at the ceiling. He's still awake when Ethan comes back from wherever he's been, but he pretends to be asleep and the musician doesn't notice.

When Ethan returns from his competition in Philadelphia and subsequent first place, they celebrate with champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries and a gentle, but well-paced fuck. Ethan rolls over and drops off to sleep moments after they're done, but Justin lays awake. He's trying to stay away from dreams, because he knows they'll be worse tonight since he worked on his art project until his hand cramped up so bad it curled into a claw and he couldn't move it. It's still cramped up now. So he rubs it absently and stares at the peeling paint. He thinks about Brian and darkness and how many nights he's lain awake after nightmares, listening to Ethan breath and wishing it was Brian. He realizes suddenly that he's never really been happy, not truly happy, not once, since his affair with Ethan had started. And really, this is almost worse than Brian. At least Brian gave him a vague idea where he was going late at night, or attempted to regale him with stories of the latest trick. At least Brian was home by three.

Quietly, he gets up and crosses the room to his black duffle bag that has been his home for quite a while now. He rummages through it, determined to find something. Finally, he pulls it out and holds it up in silent triumph, though his eyes hold more exhaustion and regret than joy. He clumsily yanks off his shirt with his left hand, and tosses it in a bunched pile on the floor. Then he gently pulls on Brian's white v-neck shirt that had managed to end up in his duffle. It smells only faintly of Brian's cigarettes and cologne and sweat, but it is enough. Justin curls up on the ratty couch and clutches the neck of the shirt to his nose, breathing in the comforting scent.

He hears Ethan begin to stir a little across the room, and so gets up and slides lightly into bed. He turns his back to Ethan and scoots as close to the edge of the bed as he can. Brian's smell feels like blasphemy here, feels like coming to a party overdressed, feels like a wedding cake used at a funeral instead, or laughter during a silent prayer. But really, it doesn't matter to him. He doesn't care, he was already going to hell. But the scent of the shirt, wearing it, feeling the softness and the essence of Brian, it's the first time Justin's gone to bed smiling in weeks. He can almost see the blue lights behind his eyelids. He curls his right hand towards his chest, slips his left under the pillow to clutch his phone, and closes his eyes.



Comments

[bidyke73.livejournal.com]

Awww. Poor little Justin. I am such a sucker for Brian comforting him after the bashing, especially if he massages his hand.

[balrogtweety.livejournal.com]

I always loved that Brian could take the pain away for a while and comfort Justin. Great job.

[minanda.livejournal.com]

I don't want this to end there! I want to know that Justin can't take this and leaves! I want Brian to be able to comfort him! Obviously, you showed Justin's pain too well!

[bksbracelet.livejournal.com]

I saw this fic recc'd and found it wonderful thanks so much, I would like to see a sequel

[qafkinnetic.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I've had multiple requests for a sequel to this fic. I'll think about what I can do and then I'll probably end up writing it in the middle of sociology and my professor will bitch at me. Oh well, the things we do for QAF fanfiction...