My mother was a frigid bitch. My father was an abusive drunk. They had a hateful marriage, which is probably why I am unwilling or unable to form a committed long-term relationship of my own.

Chapter 5

Copyrights get bought and sold all the time, especially in the comic world. Sometimes when that happens, titles change, and characters get altered. But no matter how many times a title changes hands, and how many times that little company logo in the corner of the cover might change, a few basic things will always remain the same. The original team of writers are always there in spirit.

Batman might get darker, and more violent. He might have created the Joker in one continuity, and in another he just met him later on. He might be a ninja in one movie, and a paunchy white guy in another, but a few things will always remain the same. No matter what else they change, no matter what writers may take on the Batman title in the future, he’ll always wear a cowl and fight criminals. And he’ll always be The Bat Man.

That’s sort of what had happened, I realized as I stood at the front door to Brian’s mansion and rung the doorbell. Justin Taylor was the publisher that owned the copyright to the Brian Kinney Operating Manual, but when it came to the origin story, Michael Novotny still held the creative license. No one knew that part of the story better than me.

The door swung open, and Justin stared back at me. His too-blue eyes shifted from my face, to the giant pizza box I was holding, and back to my face again before he sighed and stepped aside to let me in. “He’s in his office,” he said.

I felt like an intruder. I came inside and tried to smile at Justin as if nothing was wrong. “Hey, you want some? There’s plenty here!” I held the pizza box out to him, but he shook his head.

“You should go talk to him. He needs you,” he said. His eyes weren’t cold like they used to be when Brian needed me, but they weren’t happy either. If anything, Justin just looked… disappointed.

“Look, um…” I said, trying to think of some way to make this okay. “He just… doesn’t like you seeing him all…”

“I know,” Justin said.

“I’m just the only one he doesn’t mind seeing him depressed,” I said quickly.

Justin’s eyes narrowed and I realized how that had sounded. Shit. Me and my big mouth. “I mean, not that he doesn’t want to talk to you!” I grinned nervously and shrugged. “I mean, probably he just doesn’t want to bother you, or-“

“Michael,” Justin snapped.

I tensed and shut up. Shit.

“It’s fine. Just… go talk to him.”

Realizing I had absolutely no chance of fixing the situation, I just nodded and went to Brian’s office as quickly as I could. I like Justin. I like Justin a lot. He and Brian are happy. Fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Brian happier. But… I think he gets jealous of me sometimes. Brian’s not very good at opening up to people, obviously, so I doubt he’s told Justin very much about his past. I figured I should talk to him a little about that if I could… but I also knew I might not get a chance today. This wasn’t going to be easy.

I didn’t knock on the door to his office. I just went in, and shut the door behind myself, smiling widely. “Pizza delivery for Mr. Kinney!”

Brian was sitting on the futon sofa that Justin had recently insisted Brian put in his office, so he’d spend less time sitting on the floor, and he was drinking a glass of Beam. I wondered how many other glasses he’d drunk already. “Mikey,” he said. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s pizza. Weren’t you listening?” I plopped down next to him, and opened the box, revealing a huge supreme pizza with every greasy topping you can imagine. The only time Brian will eat truly unhealthy food is when he’s either really depressed, or when he’s too happy to care. Unfortunately, this was for the first reason.

Brian grabbed a slice and took a big bite, and then sighed heavily. “Claire actually expects me to be involved.”

I grabbed a slice too, and chewed on it for a minute before replying. Timing was everything in situations like this. “She probably doesn’t have time to plan a funeral very quickly by herself.”

Brian just nodded and ate the rest of his slice. Fuck. This was bad. There wasn’t even any music playing, and he wasn’t talking.

“Did you know she was sick?” I asked as softly as I could manage. I knew asking him something like that was a risk, and it might just piss him off, but it was important to know.

He shook his head, and I felt relieved. At least he wasn’t biting my head off yet. I watched him eat his slice and I ate mine, and I thought back to the first time I ever met Mrs. Kinney. That was one of the weirdest moments of my life up until then. I’d never seen a parent act like that to their kid. I hadn’t known adults like that existed. I guess I was pretty sheltered.

“I just need to get my skateboard. Then we can go to your house,” Brian said, walking quickly to his room.

Michael followed him, glancing around eagerly. “We could hang out here!” Brian’s house was so neat, and tidy, and so much different from his own.

“No,” Brian snapped. “We can’t. Come on.” He shoved Michael into his room and shut the door behind himself, going to his closet to find his skateboard.

Michael stared around the room with wide eyes. It was so… neat. His own room was always a wreck, with comics everywhere, and action figures all over the place, and cookie crumbs in the bed. Brian’s room was neat. Brian’s room was tidy, even. And the bed was even made! Who makes their bed?! Michael didn’t think anyone did.

“Fuck, it’s not here. Fuck,” Brian muttered. He pushed Michael aside and dropped to his knees, looking under the bed.

Michael walked to Brian’s dresser and ran his finger over the top of it. There wasn’t any dust. He frowned and looked back around the room. There were only a couple of posters on the walls, and a few comics (ones that Michael had loaned him) stacked neatly next to the bed. There were no toys lying around.

“Where are all your toys?” Michael asked.

Brian jerked his head back from under the bed, pulling his skateboard out with him. “What?”

“You don’t have any toys. Or stuff.” Michael frowned, glancing around more, as if he’d suddenly notice them in the small room, hiding in some corner he hadn’t examined properly.

“Why the fuck would I have toys?” Brian asked.

“Because…” Michael faltered, then shrugged. “I have toys.”

“We’re in fucking high school. We don’t need toys.” Brian stood and ran a hand through his hair. “We should go.”

Michael felt himself pout. He liked his toys. Just because he was growing up didn’t mean he couldn’t like his toys! They were important to him.

Brian opened the door and led Michael back out into the hall and quickly walked to the front door. Michael trailed after him, looking around more. As he looked around this time, he began to notice that as nice as it was that the house was clean and neat and didn’t have creepy ceramic figures everywhere and all the furniture matched… it was sort of… cold.

“Brian!” a woman’s voice called from the kitchen.

Brian stopped abruptly and Michael ran into his back, grunting. “WHAT?” he shouted back.

“Come here!” it shouted again.

“Is that your mom?” Michael asked eagerly. He loved moms. His own mom was crazy, but she was great, too. And all of the friends he’d ever had had mothers who loved him.

“Yeah,” Brian grunted, and he turned to walk to the kitchen.

When Michael followed him into it, he found a woman leaning against the counter, a glass of wine in her hand. She looked old, older than his own mom, but Michael wasn’t sure if that was because she really was, or if she was jut one of those people who looked that way.

“What the fuck is it?” Brian snapped.

Michael gaped at him. If he’d talked to his own mother that way, he would have gotten slapped across the face and grounded.

Mrs. Kinney just stared at him with an icy-cold look, and then looked at Michael. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, um, hi Mrs. Kinney!” Michael smiled and stuck out his hand for her to shake it. “I’m Michael Novotny. I have class with Brian.”

Mrs. Kinney stared at Michael, and then at his hand, and then shook it with a loose grip, sneering as if he was dirty.

Michael jerked his hand back when she was done. Her hand had been freezing cold.

“You know you’re not supposed to have boys over,” Mrs. Kinney said.

Brian flinched and nodded. “We’re going.”

“Your father will be home soon,” Mrs. Kinney said.

“I know! I said we’re going!” Brian said back.

Mrs. Kinney looked at Michael and her eyes narrowed. Then she looked back at Brian and shook her head slowly. “If your father meets him he’ll be very angry.”

Brian’s entire body seemed to tense up, and he glanced at Michael.

Michael frowned at him, confused. Why would Brian’s dad not like him?

“Why can’t you just make friends with a nice girl?” Brian’s mother asked, sighing and swirling her wine in her glass. “If you did, maybe your father-“

“It’s none of your goddamn business!” Brian shouted at her, his right hand gripping his skateboard so tightly that his knuckles were white.

Mrs. Kinney straightened up and her eyes narrowed, and suddenly Michael was very, very intimidated. “Do not take the lord’s name in vain.”

“FUCK you, and FUCK the lord!” Brian shouted.

Mrs. Kinney sneered at him. “For that, I suppose I’ll have to tell your father about your little… friend.

Brian’s eyes widened and his face paled, and then he grabbed Michael’s arm so hard Michael winced. “Come on,” he mumbled.

Brian dragged Michael out of the house as fast as he could, and slammed the door behind them. They walked quickly down the street towards the bus stop, and Brian was silent the entire time. Michael wanted to ask him what had just happened, and why his father would be so angry about Michael, but he had a sneaking suspicion that he knew why. He also had a feeling that all of this somehow explained the weird bruises that Brian showed up to school with all the time. Yeah, it explained all too much.

“She wasn’t really my mother,” Brian muttered, grabbing another slice of pizza.

I blinked a few times, jarred out of my memories, and grabbed another slice. “What?”

“Debbie was more of a mother to me than she ever was,” Brian said, staring across the room at nothing.

I felt my eyes sting with new tears and I forced myself to grin. “Yeah..” I missed Ma. I missed her so much that every day I still cried about it. Ben is great and understanding and supportive, of course, but… still. Ma was Ma, my best friend besides Brian, and my entire family all at once. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get used to not having her around.

“I shouldn’t even be upset,” Brian muttered, taking a swig of beam.

“Sure you should,” I said softly, bumping my shoulder against Brian’s gently. “She was your mom.”

Brian shrugged stiffly.

“Even if she was a bitch,” I said, grinning a little.

Brian shook his head, but when he glanced at me, he was grinning. “Remember when she caught us reading Captain Astro in my room?”

I felt myself smile. “Yeah, and she gave us those rosaries and told us to pray for our sins to be forgiven!”

Brian let out a short laugh. “We had to explain that comics weren’t gay porn.”

“And she took one look at them and said ‘In God’s eyes they’re the same,’” I said, pitching his voice up to imitate her.

Brian laughed silently, his shoulders shaking with it. “Fuck. What a bitch.”

“Well, no one can tell me Captain Astro wasn’t gay. Even your mom thought so!” I said happily, beaming at him.

Brian ruffled my hair and grabbed the bottle of beam, pouring himself another shot. “You’re so pathetic.”

I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt sad, of course. It was his MOM that had just died. And he’d never had any kind of resolution with her. Fuck, I don’t even know if they’d talked in years. Brian doesn’t tell me that kind of stuff anymore. Sometimes I miss it, and sometimes I’m just relieved. Justin can have that responsibility now.

Justin. Hm.

“You should talk to him,” I said, bracing myself for a full Brian queen-out.

Instead, he just looked back at his glass of Beam and then drank it down quickly. “What for?”

“Well, so he doesn’t hate me for knowing stuff about you that he doesn’t, for starters.” I grabbed another slice of pizza.

Brian sat his glass down on the floor and got up to get a box out of his desk. He sat back down heavily next to me and opened it, pulling out a baggy of weed and some rolling papers.

I watched him roll a joint while I talked. “He wants to know.”

“He doesn’t need to,” Brian muttered. He wasn’t looking me in the eye, but he wasn’t yelling either.

“Of course he needs to,” I said. I put my hand on Brian’s shoulder, trying to get him to look at me. He didn’t. “How is he ever going to feel really close to you if you hide stuff from him?”

Brian’s lips quirked up in a funny sort of way, and the tips of his ears turned red like they always did when he was excited about something, or embarrassed.

“What is it?” I asked, scooting closer to him, so our legs were pressed together. “What?” He wasn’t telling me something now.

“If he doesn’t feel close to me after last night, he never will,” Brian muttered softly, still not looking up.

I blinked at him a few times. What the fuck was he talking about?

Brian finally lifted his gaze to meet mine, pulling a lighter out of his pocket.

And then I knew. Fuck. “Oh,” I heard myself say.

He winced slightly, the kind of wince that only I – and maybe Justin – would have noticed. “Mikey-“ he started to say.

“No, that’s great,” I said quickly. And it was. It was great. It was totally fucking great.

A look of guilt was in Brian’s eyes as he handed me the joint and lighter. He hadn’t meant to tell me. Why not? Why shouldn’t he? It was great. It was beyond great. It was wonderful. I was happy for him. Why wouldn’t I be?

I lit the joint and inhaled deeply, shutting my eyes.

So why did I feel so fucking jealous? Because Ben and I could never…

I handed the joint to Brian, and exhaled, coughing loudly a few times. Brian patted me on the back.

“Careful, Mikey, don’t kill yourself on it.”

I took a deep breath and sighed, clearing my lungs out as Brian smoked, and with the smoke that came out of my lungs, I tried to let out the jealousy, too. Ben and I could never… do it that way. And that was fine. We didn’t need to do that to be close. It wouldn’t make us any closer even if we did. It would feel good, probably, but… we didn’t need it. I had a feeling it meant a hell of a lot more to Brian and Justin than it would have to me.

“I’m happy for you,” I said, looking Brian in the eyes. And I meant it.

He grinned a small, almost bashful grin, and then it faded and the light in his eyes faded, too. He exhaled and handed me the joint back. “But then Claire called.”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Great timing, of course.” I didn’t smoke more. I didn’t need to drive stoned, and I wasn’t going to stay all day. So I just handed it back.

Brian smoked quietly for a long moment, inhaling from the joint, and exhaling little clouds of smoke. He was so beautiful. Sometimes I couldn’t decide if he was more beautiful when he was happy, or when he was like this. Still, I preferred him happy.

“You have to talk to him.”

Brian shut his eyes and sighed, exhaling another small cloud of smoke. “I do?”

“Yeah. You do.” I said, eating more pizza.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

I grinned a little and rested my head on Brian’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around me, handing the joint back. What the hell. I took another hit before handing it back. It made the pizza taste better, and the memories hurt less, and there couldn’t be anything wrong with that. “Remember when she met Lindsay?”

Brian laughed a little and tightened his arm around me, resting his head against mine. “She thought we were dating. She was so fucking relieved.”

I smiled widely, remembering how smug Brian had been. Lindsay had been amused, too, but it had worked for both of them. They hadn’t been ready to come out to their parents yet, so it was an arrangement that worked. I’d been jealous, of course, but I’m always jealous about something. Lucky for me, Brian seems to think it’s more cute than annoying. Jerk.

“Then she met Justin,” Brian said softly.

I blinked a few times in surprise. “She did?”

“She came over once,” Brian said, his voice thick from smoking the joint. “We’d been fucking. Justin came down from the bedroom and introduced himself… he was all pink and sweaty.” He laughed and nuzzled his face into my hair a little. “It would have been fucking funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic. He actually tried to introduce himself and shit.”

I shut my eyes and laughed softly. “Poor Justin.”

“Let’s just say it didn’t go over well.”

“Fire and brimstone?” I asked.

“She never did accept him… or Gus,” he said, and now his voice was turning harder.

“Gus has plenty of grandparents,” I said. “He didn’t need her.”

Brian nodded against me and sighed. “Fucking bitch.”

“She was,” I said.

Brian’s grip on me tightened, almost painfully, and I could feel the anger welling up inside him. It was just like Brian to be upset, and depressed, and then all of a sudden be so furious that it was almost dangerous to be around him.

“That fucking bitch,” he said louder.

I sighed and shifted against him, feeling my eyes droop. Weed always made me hungry, and then it made me sleepy.

Brian shifted so that my head fell into his lap, and he leaned back on the futon, getting comfortable.

Soon after that, we fell asleep, Brian’s arm resting on me, the room filled with smoke and memories.