Around him the celebration rages, but Brian is aware only of Justin’s weight pressing comfortably against his side, Justin’s arm resting casually around his waist, Justin’s hair shimmering under the streetlamps. Justin smiles, a soft smile that grows and grows until Brian is smiling too, both of them clutching onto the other, and Brian lets Justin take the lead, threading their way through the rejoicing crowd with ease. Brian follows in his wake, a willing passenger on a roller coaster ride that has ended, finally, in sweet success. Hip brushes hip… fingers curl, then release… And with every touch, the nerve endings in Brian’s skin ignite and the heat spreads and Brian thinks that nothing could be better than this, because this is all he needs.

The morning after Stockwell’s defeat, Brian wakes in an empty bed, his brain fuzzy and his mouth dry. He stumbles to the bathroom and scrubs a hand over his face, overnight stubble prickling the skin on his palm. He cocks an eyebrow at Justin’s steam-wrought silhouette in the shower. Watches Justin’s hand make sweeping motions across his chest, and imagines the soapy water trickling down his skin, over his stomach, pooling at his feet.

Brian turns back to the mirror and realizes that he doesn’t have to shave today. Not today, or tomorrow, or any day. Because every action has a consequence, even when that action is simply one fucking ethical moment in a lifetime of unprincipled living.

Brian is still one hundred thousand dollars in debt.

He is still unemployed. His loft is still bereft of furniture. His insurance bit the dust the moment he was escorted from the premises of Vangard without so much as a ballpoint pen. His car is on the Great Eastern Seaboard Adventure with Mikey at the wheel.

Brian blinks at his reflection in the mirror. Then he shaves, and moisturizes, and runs a comb through his hair. He bumps hips with Justin in the bedroom as he slides into a pair of well-worn jeans and a muscle shirt that’s seen better days. And the pads of his fingers itch to get started, to fix things, because that’s what he does, in fact that’s what he does best. But Justin sits at the table idly riffling through the paper, and Brian tries to ignore the dour photo of Stockwell on the front page, and the tap of Justin’s finger on the tabletop, and the double-edged sword of pride stabbing at his gut.

“Justin!” he finally barks, after he’s wandered through the barren loft for half an hour, straightening things that don’t need straightening, rearranging the fruit bowl, rolling up the remaining Anti-Stockwell posters that they never got to hang, and trying not to stare at the vacant section on the wall where Ugly Naked Man once reigned.

Justin glances up through his bangs, barely moving. “Huh?”

“You need to go to the store.”

Justin blinks once, slowly, then folds his paper with infinite care. He leans back against the seat, hands folded neatly on the tabletop. “What do we need?” he asks.

Brian pretends not to notice that Justin was looking through the want-ads, and reins in his desire to remind Justin that he won’t find a position for Adman Extraordinaire listed among the listings for fry cooks and typists.

“Mangos,” Brian says off the top of his head. “And… yoghurt.”

Justin raises an eyebrow. “And we need these things at nine thirty a.m. because…”

Brian wants to grab Justin by the arm and shake him, or rip the newspaper into confetti, or any of a hundred other non-productive pointless actions. Instead he rakes his hand through his hair and mutters, “Fuck! Forget it, I‘ll go,” and makes a grab for his jacket before realizing that he’s barefoot and it’s cold out and he’ll freeze and besides, the point was to get Justin out of the loft, not the other way around.

Justin rises fluidly from the chair and slides into his coat in the time that it takes Brian to spin randomly in a circle, searching for his shoes. “I’ll go,” Justin says.

Justin is halfway to the door when Brian remembers that there is supposed to be a point to this little outing, and starts digging for his wallet. “Justin--”

“I can take care of it,” Justin says, waving a hand dismissively in Brian’s direction as he glides out the door, tossing a smile over his shoulder to lessen the blow. “See you in a bit.”

Brian doesn’t believe in God, but he thinks that some hand of fate must have played a part in placing Justin under that certain streetlamp just when he needed him.

Brian has a list of fifteen contacts, kept in a password protected file on his home computer, culled from industry meetings and random encounters in bars and restaurants, cards passed from hand to hand with the encouragement of, “When you get tired of being taken advantage of…” or “The grass really is greener over here, Bri.” Brian had gritted his teeth over the casually issued diminutive, the my-buddy-my-pal squeeze of his shoulder, but he’d kept the cards all the same.

He snags a mug of the coffee that Justin had brewed as soon as he awoke, because although Justin can go hours without caffeine, and even then prefers it in the form of tea, he knows that Brian’s eyes don’t fully open until he’s had his first sip of Peruvian Blend. He pulls up the latest copy of his resume and a few of his most effective and highly lauded ads. He straightens the legal pad on his desk and snatches up a pen, ensuring that it clearly is not a ballpoint. Then he fires up the computer and opens his Just In Case file folder.

Ten of his contacts tell him up front that he’s a liability, a renegade in his industry despite his talent, despite his impressive client roster, despite his awards. Though they respect him, they basically say that there’s a better chance of Elvis rising from the grave to perform a rousing rendition of Blue Suede Shoes than there is of Brian Kinney working for them. Brian’s respect for these eight men and two women increases tenfold. The remaining five contacts hem and haw, and shuffle their feet, and tell him that they must check with Person X or they are already overstaffed. Brian mentally labels them candyass chicken-shits and makes a note to avoid them when his star is again on the rise.

Brian shuts down his computer. Caps his pen. Crumples up the page from his notepad and tosses it in the garbage can. Rinses his mug in the sink.

Ponders the ongoing evolution of Brian Kinney, and wonders what the hell he’s going to do next.

When Justin slides open the loft door forty-five minutes later, Brian is sprawled on the sofa watching The Yellow Submarine. He’s a Beatles fan in the way that everyone is a Beatles fan, but he has no deep abiding love for Lennon/McCartney, and he thinks that the animation in the film is, as he’s said to Justin many times, “a steaming pile of dog shit.” However, The Yellow Submarine is what was in the DVD player when he turned it on, and he doesn’t have the energy to either dig through his own DVD collection, or find his stash of kronic and at least make the experience worthwhile.

“Hey,” Justin says on his way to the kitchen. Brian lifts a hand from the back of the sofa, but keeps his eyes trained on the television and the machinations of the Blue Meanies.

He hears Justin stashing away whatever it was he requested from the store, and then a hand brushes across his arm and Justin is leaning upside down to kiss him.

“You want a mango?” Justin says when their lips part.

“No thanks,” Brian answers, and he tells himself that his voice sounds cracked and raw because it’s been an hour since he talked, or because he talked too much on the phone, or because he drank entirely too much champagne the night before.

Justin nods and rounds the sofa, pushing aside Brian’s long legs to squeeze in against him. Brian reaches out and tugs and Justin follows, warm body and cold cheeks, steady calming heartbeat, and Brian nuzzles his nose into Justin’s neck and breathes. Just breathes.

He’ll put out feelers to out-of-town agencies. Make some more calls. He’ll pull himself up and he’ll fix things, because that’s what he does best.

Brian closes his eyes, and sleeps.