Temper carried Brian straight back to the living room. It would have carried him right over to Kevin if Harold hadn’t leapt up and grabbed his arm. “Son, calm down.” Harold said as he placed himself between Kevin and Brian. “You need to keep your cool.”
For the first time in his adult life, Brian raised his voice to his father. “Keep my cool?” He practically shouted. “Look what he did!”
Harold didn’t even flinch at his son’s tone. He knew Brian well enough to see the anger in those blue eyes and know that it wasn’t directed at him. He was also upset enough to agree with it. “I know. I’m not saying that it’s ok, Brian. But the last thing AJ needs to hear is more raised voices out here. If he hears you shouting then he’s most likely going to try coming back out here. Our concern right now needs to be on him.” Harold’s angry eyes flashed over to his nephew. “That is the only thing that’s stopping me from letting you say your piece, trust me.”
The logic of that was enough to have Brian going still. His dad had it exactly right. If AJ heard shouting, he would try to get up out of bed and come out here to see what was going on. Right now, that was the last thing he needed to do. To calm himself, he took a deep breath and cast his dad a grateful look. “Thank you. I promise I’ll keep my voice under control.”
The minute his dad stepped out of the way, Brian focused all his attention back on Kevin. Everyone in the room was standing, it seemed, and all of their attention had been turned to Kevin before Brian had come into the room. Now they looked back and forth between the two, waiting to see what would happen, knowing that it wasn’t their place to step in.
“I want to make one thing clear to you.” Brian said softly. His voice was all the more powerful for its quietness. “If you ever do that to him again, you will never step foot through our door again. Are we clear on this?”
Still white, Kevin wore a look of remorse. “Bri, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize he was sick…”
“He is sick every single day of his life, Kevin.” Brian snapped. He closed his eyes for a second, regaining his composure. When he was sure he had it again he opened them back up and glared. “Every minute of every day he is sick. Yes, he has a cold right now and that makes him a little shakier than normal. But sick or not, you had absolutely no right to speak to him that way. This is our house. We invited you here, are letting you stay here, and were telling you news that is very exciting for us. Instead of celebrating with us like you should have, you stood there and slammed him.”
“I never intended to yell at him like that.” Kevin said softly, one arm going around his wife, seeking support and comfort. “I…I worry so much about you guys. About you. You’re my family, Brian. I hate seeing you hurt.”
It was because of that reasoning that Brian hadn’t already thrown Kevin out of the house. He knew that, in some way, Kevin was only trying to look out for him. “You need to realize that I’m an adult. I make my own decisions with my life. Even if they aren’t something you approve of, they’re still my decisions to make. Yes, one day I’m going to suffer for all of this. One day I’m going to wake up and he won’t be by my side any longer. But does that mean I should turn from him now, to hide from that pain later?”
His voice cracked, making him pause until he had it under control again. All eyes were watching him. “Do you think that it would hurt me less if he’d turned away from me at the start and spent the rest of his life apart from me? The pain of never having him would be worse than any pain I’ll get from having him and losing him. Every second I have with him is another blessing. I will cherish the time we have left together and count myself blessed for each moment he’s in my life.”
Emotion boiled up inside of Brian. He ran a hand over his face, a gesture of frustration and fatigue. “You called him selfish before, Kev. Do you have any idea what kind of man he is? Not the guy he used to be, but the one he’s become?” Here Brian squared his shoulders, pride straightening his spine. Pride for himself, and pride in his husband. “That ‘selfish’ man in there cried in bed with me the night that Mikayla told us she was pregnant. Not just for the joy of a child, but out of fear that he wouldn’t be here to see your children, or Howie’s, or Nick’s.”
Pacing away, Brian looked out the window at the dark sky. He was too agitated to stay still. “As selfish as he is, he set aside a chunk of money in a bank account. Then he spoke with a lawyer and arranged his will. In that will he put that the bank account he created is for any future children any of you have. It’s a fund that will pay out a specified amount of money directly to the child on their eighteenth birthday. A gift from their Uncle AJ, even after he’s gone.”
His eyes were dry when he spun back around to look at the room full of people. A part of him noticed that all the eyes in the room looked wet. But he wasn’t done. “Let’s keep this going, though. Do you want to know what your ‘selfish’ friend wants to do once we get settled down here? He’s looking into starting the ‘Littrell AIDS foundation’ to raise money not only to fund looking for a cure, but to help people who can’t afford their medication. He wants to make a program that reaches out to kids, teens, adults, families, anyone. People who, without a program like this, would die years sooner because they can’t pay the expenses of medication that has to be taken daily for the rest of their life.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. “That’s the kind of selfish guy he is. So go ahead, Kev, and think what you want. You have no idea of the man underneath everything.”
A small hand closed over Brian’s, drawing his attention to his side. Mikayla stood there, her back straight, her head lifted with pride. “Some of the things you said make sense.” She said softly. “When you look at it from one view. But some of it was wrong, Kevin. You talked about him dragging me out here like it was something that was against my will. That he selfishly brought me with him. But you’re not looking at all the facts.”
She tilted her head to share a smile with Brian before looking back at the room, addressing all of them. “If this hadn’t happened we would have already told you guys , but I’m not just here to sit around and be pregnant. AJ hired me, legally, to act as his live in nurse. Now that this has progressed to AIDS, he will gradually become sicker and sicker as time goes by. He’ll catch things so much easier than the average person .With my training I’m qualified to be in home care for him. To keep him healthy as best as I can. I made the choice to come, but once he knew I was serious he insisted on doing this so that I wouldn’t lose out on work experiences, or an income. Yeah,” She added at the surprised looks. “Even though I argued it, he pays me. He says it’s only fair.”
Brian looked around at them all, these people who were his friends and his family, and felt his temper drain away. All he felt now was tired. With a sigh, he looked back to Kevin. “Now, you can go upstairs and go to bed, or get out. I don’t care. But I imagine Mom’s got him to eat by now and I’m going to go lie down with my husband and try to help him sleep for the few hours that his medication allows him to.” That said, Brian spun and marched from the room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AJ slept for four hours straight before he woke for the first time. He didn’t get out of bed yet, though. Instead, he rolled over and snuggled up against Brian’s warm body and let himself drift in and out of sleep. For a few more hours he managed to drift in an out, but eventually he realized that he wasn’t going to get any more sleep.
With a soft sigh he carefully extracted himself from the bed. The insomnia side effect could be a pain in the ass sometimes. It had happened often enough that he had a pretty good system for getting out of bed, getting his clothes, and heading to the bathroom. He held off on taking a shower, not wanting to wake anyone, so he simply settled for brushing his teeth and splashing some water on his face.
Once he was dressed and had his glasses on, AJ made his way out of the bathroom. On silent feet he left the bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him. He made his way down the hall toward the kitchen. It was still dark outside and he knew no one else was going to be up at this hour. No one ever was. A glance at the clock told him it was five thirty am.
He set about boiling water for tea, gathering up what he would need as he waited for the water to come to a boil. Thankfully, he felt better than he had the night before. Apparently sleep had been just the thing he needed. It had also given his mind time to cool off. He didn’t hold so much anger at Kevin as he had before. How could he? Everything that Kevin had said, everything he was afraid of, were things that AJ had said to himself a thousand times. He couldn’t rightfully judge Kevin for thinking like that when they were all true.
It plagued him constantly, in the back of his mind, the fear that he would make Brian sick. That somehow he would pass this along to the one he loved. Nothing would devastate him more.
AJ grabbed the teapot, removing the lid and setting it in the sink. With practice movements he grabbed the kettle of boiling water and poured it into the teapot. Once he had that all ready, he set the kettle back on the stove and turned to prepare his first cup of morning tea.
In a lot of ways, the things that Kevin had said were right. AJ knew that his actions over the past few years could easily be taken as selfish. Sleeping with Brian, first and foremost. No matter that Brian had been the one to bring it up, to initiate it. AJ could have said no. No matter how firm Brian had been on it and no matter how much he argued, AJ still could have said no. Some might take that as selfish. In a way, it was.
But there was so much more to it than that. AJ hadn’t just agreed to it solely for himself. He’d also agreed to it because he knew that Brian was an adult who was fully capable of understanding the risks involved. If AJ had said no then, yes, he would have been protecting Brian, but at the same time he would have been hurting the both of them. Himself, by not allowing himself to have the person he loved in his life. Brian, by implying that he wasn’t man enough to make his own decisions. If this was what Brian said he wanted, if he said that he considered the risks worth the cost, then who was AJ to try to take that decision away from him?
Now, their marriage wasn’t something that AJ considered selfish. Whether they lived together as a regular couple or as a married couple, the result would still be the same. They would still be together. But this way, they were infinitely happier. Becoming AJ Littrell had been one of the greatest moments of AJ’s life.
This child that they had created with Mikayla, that was selfish. AJ moved over to look out the window as he thought about it. No one could deny that having a child was one of the most selfish things that AJ had ever done. But again, there was so much more to it than people were stopping to think about.
It wasn’t just AJ who wanted a child. He wouldn’t deny that he wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything but Brian. But Brian wanted it too. Not just to make them a family. Even though Brian didn’t talk about it, AJ knew that the biggest motivator for Brian had been that he wanted a part of AJ to live on after AJ was gone. He wanted something, someone, to look at years and years down the road and to see his love in. To have someone to care about when he felt utterly alone in life.
That seemed like so much to put on the shoulders of a life barely formed. Yet when this child was born there would be no one anywhere who would be more loved. Maybe this was all starting out as a need for them, a need for Brian to have someone to love him totally and utterly later on, but AJ could already see that changing for Brian. As the child became more real to them, they were already falling in love with it. They would love it for the person it would be, no matter what.
Having Mikayla carry the baby was something that everyone would see as a risk. AJ had known that from the minute they’d first talked about it in his living room. Her moving in with them, moving to a whole new state far away from her family, was something else that others might see as selfish. Despite the fact that AJ knew Mikayla had made the decision on this, she’d even been the one to suggest quite a bit of it, he still accepted that it was another act of his that was selfish. But it wasn’t just selfishness on his part.
If people were going to cast blame, then Brian and Mikayla would be equally as selfish. Brian, because he had agreed to Mikayla carrying their child so that he could have the kid he wanted. Because he had agreed to her moving with them, away from all she knew, so that he could be with her during her pregnancy and so that he had someone with him to help care for AJ and to help shoulder the load when it all became too much.
Mikayla could be considered selfish because she’d done this so that she might be able to squeeze out every last minute possible with AJ. Because she wanted to be around him and was willing to do anything just do have that.
But AJ didn’t consider them selfish people. All three of their actions may have looked that way when you broke them apart, but not when you looked at the whole. He’d had so much more time to think about all of this, to look at the individual pieces and see them both separate and as a whole. That gave him more knowledge and insight into it. Could he blame Kevin because he hadn’t yet had the chance to look at it from all angles? Could he be mad at him for being the only person who had the balls to stand up and say what he felt instead of being afraid to say it simply because AJ was sick?
In a sense, AJ actually appreciated Kevin yelling at him. It was the first time in years that one of his friends had. Always they seemed to hold back, as if yelling at a sick person was the worst kind of sin. As if he would actually fall over and die if they yelled at him.
That image made AJ snort out a laugh, breaking up the last bit of tension inside of him. He would talk to Kevin later and let him know that he wasn’t mad, that it was ok. His friend didn’t need to be made to feel bad for expressing his opinion.
Now that that was squared away, AJ found himself more able to smile at the morning. When his watch beeped, letting him know it was time for his meds, he hummed lightly to himself as he took them.
He had energy now that he’d cleared out the thoughts in his head. Using that, AJ decided to make up a veggie loaf to cook for lunch that afternoon. The thought of Nick’s face when that was set before him was enough to have AJ grinning. He downed the last of his first cup of tea and set about gathering the ingredients he would need.
Within twenty minutes he was standing at the counter, his hands buried in a big mixing bowl, squishing everything together. The miniature loaf pans sat next to him, waiting to be filled. As he worked he sang lightly to himself, toying with the tune for a song he’d recently written, though he hadn’t showed it to anyone yet.
He hit a certain note and stopped, shaking his head at himself. “No, no. Not right. Not that high.” He mumbled, stretching to reach for the pile of shredded cheese. A small pile, because that was about all he’d be able to handle without it upsetting his stomach. The plate was further away than he thought and made him stretch just a little to get to it. Absently he started to sing again, trying to rework the tune the way he wanted.
As he straightened back up to add the cheese in, his shorts slid up a little. Since no one was around to see it, AJ shook his hips a little, trying to adjust them back to normal. If anything, it made it worse. With his hands covered in food there was no way he could reach back and fix it. He tried wiggling again.
AJ had to grin at himself for a minute. Wouldn’t it look just great if someone came downstairs right then and could see him dancing in the kitchen, trying to stop his shorts from riding up his ass? God, they’d laugh at him for hours! Hell, he’d laugh at him if he was them.
Footsteps sounded behind him, moving lightly down the hall. Since he hadn’t heard the stairs that meant it had to be Brian. Oh, thank God. Who cared if he embarrassed himself in front of Brian? This wasn’t the worst thing Brian would have ever seen! It would probably make Brian laugh, and that was something AJ loved to listen to.
Without turning around, he called out “Thank God, Bri. You’ve got perfect timing. Get over here and help me get my fucking shorts out of my ass, would you? I’ve got this shit all over my hands.”
The footsteps stopped and silence filled the kitchen. Wrinkling his forehead, AJ turned to look at his husband, wondering why he was being quite. With his head turned, AJ froze. Fuck. He swore that he could feel the blush slide up over his neck and into his cheeks. Oh, fuck, that wasn’t Brian. “Uh, morning Kev.”
Kevin stood at the edge of the kitchen and the hallway, staring at AJ with one eyebrow quirked. A corner of his mouth curved as he obviously fought against a smile. A second later he gave up and let it spread over his face. “Morning, Age. Problems?” he asked innocently.
Well, hell. In for a penny in for a pound, AJ thought. Fighting off his embarrassment, he threw a cheeky grin at Kevin. “You could say that. Mind giving a fella a hand here?”
Laughing, Kevin strode further into the kitchen. “You want me to pull your shorts outta your ass?” He taunted him. “What would your husband say?”
Another voice joined the kitchen just then. “I imagine he’d probably laugh like crazy at you two lunatics.”
That voice registered with AJ even before he turned his head all the way. So when he looked over, he was already grinning widely. “Brian! Thank God, you’re here!” he called out to his husband while putting the last of the veggie loaf mix into the last loaf pan. He moved over to wash his hands while watching Brian. Still slightly rumpled from sleep, AJ thought that Brian had never looked better. He wore only sweats and a tank top, his feet bare and his hair tousled. His eyes were still heavy from sleep, but were bright with laughter, and his gorgeous mouth was curved up with a smile.
“Uh huh, sure. You act happy now, only cause I caught you. I see how it is. Trying to make time with my cousin in our kitchen. For shame, husband. For shame.” Brian teased him. He walked forward, winking at Kevin as he went past, and stepped right up behind AJ. He slid his hands underneath AJ’s sweats and his boxers, pulling them away from his skin, pausing to squeeze the ass he so loved.
AJ jumped a little and chuckled. “What can I say, Bri? I’ve got a thing for these southern gentlemen.” But he tipped his head back to steal a good morning kiss.
About then another person joined them. Kristen’s voice added to the mix. “You in here hitting on my husband, AJ?” she teased as she walked over to where Kevin was at the coffee pot.
Breaking away from the sink and his husband, AJ grabbed up a towel to dry his now clean hands. “Would I do that, Kristen? You know you’re the only girl for me!” He grabbed up her hand, kissing it lavishly. She laughed at him and made a shooing gesture at him. “Yeah, yeah, sweet talker.”
The good mood in the kitchen was filling AJ. He took Kristen’s hands in his, spinning her in a quick whirl before dipping her back and kissing her nose. “Kristen my darling, when are you going to leave that big hulking beast over there and run away with me. We’ll move to Spain, change our names to Sergi and Ana Maria.” He spun her back up, making her laugh as he did. “We’ll start a vineyard and spend our days in the warm Spanish sun.”
“Alexander Littrell, put that girl down.” Jackie said teasingly as she joined the crowd in the kitchen.
AJ immediately let Kristen go, winking at her as he said “Yes, Ma’am.” In his most innocent voice.
Looking over, he saw that Brian had slid his loaves into the oven for him and smile thankfully at him. When Jackie got close enough, AJ bent and kissed her cheek. “Morning, Mom.”
“Morning, Alex.” Automatically her hands came up, feeling at his cheeks and his forehead, checking his temperature in the age old gesture of mothers everywhere. “Good to see you’re feeling better.” She said with a smile when she was done. “You’re not warm anymore.”
“Feeling fit as a fiddle.” He declared. Winking at Brian, he pulled back from the group. “But now that you’re all up and I don’t have to be quiet, I’m taking myself down to take a shower.”
“Bout time.” Kevin teased him.
Exchanging a look with his friend, AJ gave him a smile that he hoped Kevin understood. The smile he got in return said that he did. They’d talk later, but for now, they both knew that they were ok with one another.
With one last grin for the room, AJ headed off down the hallway. Today was shaping up to be a pretty good day.