Justice knew before he opened his eyes that day, that it was all going in the shitter. He woke up in a cold sweat, with the cloying need to vomit scratching at the back of his throat. He rushed to the bathroom, took his meds, and collapsed on the cool tile floor. Lying there, watching the ceiling spin and waiting for his pulse to dip below heart attack level, Justice contemplated the wonder of the human mind and its capacity for crazy, even at the subconscious level.
A large percentage of people with anxiety will tell you that their panic attacks come out of nowhere, with no rational trigger. But Justice had the luck, or the misfortune, depending on how one chose to look at it, to usually know what was the trigger of his panic.
So that was how Justice knew that the root of all his anxiety was wrapped up in that goddamn wedding. Rory’s Wedding, with a capital Fuck You Very Much, Justice Crawford. Not only was it pretty much Justice’s worst nightmare —large crowd, mostly strangers, attention on him, speeches…was there any need to go on? —and he was adding a whole new element of fucked up to the mix.
Now he was expected to walk the metaphorical red carpet with his male lover on his arm, less than seventy-two hours after he’d come out, rather against his will. No wonder he was presently curled in a jittery ball of nerves on the bathroom floor of a rented house in goddamn motherfucking Seattle.
Finally Justice felt the meds kick in. His pulse settled, he stopped sweating, and he felt like he could stand without weaving like a drunk. It didn’t change the underlying anxiety of course…it just turned him back into a semi-functional human being.
Justice hauled himself up, splashed some cold water on his face, and brushed his teeth —once he was sure he wasn’t in immediate danger of puking. He needed caffeine. He needed to walk out some of the jitters. He needed to go home to fucking Charleston.
The thought caused an ache deep in his chest, because he’d gotten pretty attached to this thing —whatever it was he had with Nic. It wasn’t necessarily that he wanted to get away from Seattle, he just needed to be back in his own domain, his comfort zone. And right now, that was back home in Charleston.
Honestly, Justice could see himself living in Seattle. He usually got claustrophobic pretty quickly in big cities, but Seattle had a sort of sprawled out, suburban feel to it. A lot of good mixed in with the bad. He could handle it, especially if he lived in one of the outlying towns, like Ballard or Bellevue. In fact, the thought had crossed his mind more than once since he’d been seeing Nic. He had no real ties to any particular place.
That was all in the future. Right now, Justice longed for normalcy, for home. And at this point, that was still Charleston. But he was just going to have to sac up and get through his last three days in goddamn fucking Seattle, and sort out the rest of his life later.
Sometimes, when he suffered ongoing, debilitating anxiety, Justice had to compartmentalize things just to get through the day without melting down. He had to concentrate on meaningless short term goals to keep from being overwhelmed by the big picture. Read,
Baby Steps.
Thank you, Dr. Marvin.
Because he needed the distraction, and the caffeination, Justice decided his first goal was to make it to the little coffee stand down the block. It was crisp outside, because the Pacific Northwest was dangling on the precipice of autumn, but it wasn’t what most people would call particularly cold.
Justice’s anxiety had chilled him to the bone, and when he was having an attack, he often wore clothes as armor. So he donned a steel gray pea coat over his simple t-shirt and jeans, and popped the collar. Then he wrapped a thin scarf around his neck and stuffed it down in the neck of his coat like a fucking ascot, until it covered most of his chin and mouth.
Once he was suitably armored, Justice ‘baby stepped’ his way to the coffee stand on the corner, resolutely
not
thinking about anything beyond that. He was blissfully enjoying his lightly sweetened, lightly creamed Triple Death when he felt a presence behind him.
“There you are!” said a disembodied voice from over his shoulder.
Actually, it was only disembodied because he’d closed his eyes to savor his coffee, and refused to open them back up to reality. Unfortunately, the nagging little spectre wasn’t going to go away that easily.
“Jesus, Justice, I’m gone for like five fucking minutes while you’re still in bed, and you sneak out on me!”
Lara flitted around him like a hummingbird, her wavy red hair flaming out from underneath a chunky, hand-knitted toque. No matter how hard he tried to imagine her away, she seemed to be pretty well rooted in the here-and-now.
“Calm down, La,” he said, using their old college nickname for her. “I just needed some damn coffee.” His teeth were chattering. Either she didn’t notice, or she chose to ignore it. Either way, bless her.
“Well, since you couldn’t be bothered to worry about your costume, I took the liberty of picking it out for you. It’s back at the house. I even picked up a couple of accessories for Nic, and I called and told him what you’d be wearing.”
At the mention of the impending nuptials, and especially of Nic, the blood drained from Justice’s face and his hands seized around his coffee cup. Damn, she wasn’t going to let that one slide. She knew him too well.
“Jussie, you’re not freaking out about going with Nic, are you?”
Since Justice was well and truly done with lying to his friends, he had to spit it out. “Okay, A, don’t fucking call me Jussie. It’s ridiculous. And B, you know me, I’m freaking out about the whole goddamn thing, and would be, with or without Nic.” More or less.
“I know, baby. But you’ve got to try to keep it together, for Rory’s sake. He’s nervous, ya know? Besides, it’s just one night.”
One never-ending, gut-twisting, all-eyes-on-Justice-even-if-they’re-not night. God, he was so boned. But Lara was right, Rory became infinitely more nervous as the big day approached, and he had to show up for his best friend.
“Why do you people have to live in goddamn fucking Seattle?”
Lara bumped shoulders with him. “What’s wrong with Seattle? You fit in here…”
“It’s just
so
far from home,” Justice said, a bit melodramatically.
“But what if it
was
home?”
“Laaaa,” he said, drawing the syllable out in a warning town.
“Jussieeee,” she mocked.
“Oh, balls.” Yep, he was so boned.
* * * *
At the risk of sounding conceited, Nic thought he looked pretty damn hot. He hadn’t been able to do it for years, mainly because Colin hadn’t liked his dorkier side, but Nic had always loved cosplay. He loved the creativity of trying to convincingly embody a character.
When he did a costume, though, he did it up big. He wore a long black, fitted cutaway frock coat. The lapels were leather, and had several straps and buckles attached to them, that would buckle across his chest. Under the coat, he went with a deep, blood red cravat and waistcoat, over a crisp white shirt. On his legs were tight fitting gunmetal gray breeches and leather gaitors that matched the leather on his coat. The bottom of the gaitors just barely covered the tops of his shiny black motorcycle boots.
Samara had even come over to help him with his ‘do’. She put a little smudge of ‘guy-liner’ around his eyes; he was skeptical at first, but even he had to admit that it made him look totally sexy and mysterious. She’d attacked his messy blond hair with her flatiron and gotten it completely stick straight. It added around two inches to the length, so much that it was brushing his shoulders.
On top of the vampirish straight hair, he put his black top hat, complete with metal rivets around the brim, and some handmade steampunk goggles as a hatband. Lara had dropped off a few steampunk-ish odds and ends she found at an eclectic vintage and handmade costume shop. He was given a pocket watch that was now pinned to his waistcoat and stuffed in his pocket. He had a belt with a buckle that looked like it was made of watch gears that had been soldered together, and some sort of leather and metal contraption that strapped over his arm that made it look like a biomechanical limb. The effect was pretty damn cool.
The cherry on top was the heavy calf-length greatcoat that he put on last, and the metal and wooden cane he’d picked up. It was a damn good costume and had set him back a large chunk, but it would be worth it when he saw Justice’s face.
When Nic stepped out of the bathroom, Sam just stared at him silently for what felt like several minutes. He was beginning to think that maybe she’d swallowed her tongue, when she finally spoke.
“Holy fucking shit, Nico!”
“Good?” He asked, stretching his arms out and doing a slow spin.
“Good? I think Justice is going to demand you go home and get him pregnant immediately!”
Nic barked out a laugh at the absurdity of the statement, while secretly hoping her prediction was pretty spot on —without the impregnation part. He liked the idea of Justice as a mindless puddle of lust over him. He liked it a lot.
Nic grinned at Sam. “You’re right, I’m a sexy beast.”
She nodded and threw a pillow at him. “You ready to go impress the pants off of your man?”
Nic didn’t even bother to correct the ‘your man’ part of the statement. He wasn’t lying to himself any longer. Justice was his, whether he liked it or not. “Yes, ma’am, I certainly am.”
“Call me ma’am again and I’ll have your balls, no matter how many layers you’ve hidden them under,” she said fondly.
“Not as many as you’d think,” he answered with a lewd wink, causing her to erupt into giggles. “What time is it?” he asked for, like, the fiftieth time in the last hour.
“Check your pocket watch, Sherlock.” She tossed him her car keys, and he caught them left-handed. “Almost time to go get your man. Be good to my baby.”
Sam had agreed to lend Nic her car, so he could pick Justice up and take him to the wedding like a real date should. Justice deserved that after all he’d been through lately.
Rory’s official wedding was to take place in a small Catholic church on the outskirts of the city. It was a nod to Rory’s Irish-Catholic upbringing, with just their families and the wedding party. Right after, they were having a huge reception at a place called The Canal. That was the part that guests were invited to.
Nic shot off a quick text to Justice to let him know he was about to leave, and that he couldn’t wait to see him. He was getting his things together to leave when his phone chirped a return message.
Dealing w best man issues. Gonna have 2 meet u @ reception. J
Nic frowned at his phone. That seemed a little odd. Why hadn’t Justice called him? He could have called. Nic would have come anyway, and waited for him to finish whatever he was doing.
A prickle of unease skittered up the back of Nic’s neck, but he tried to ignore it. He could only imagine how much Justice was battling with his anxiety, just being a part of the wedding. That man was stronger than he gave himself credit for.
Nic said a quick goodbye to Samara, grabbed his cane and headed out. It was time to pick up his date, whatever state Nic may find him in.
Chapter Nineteen
Nic pulled up to the reception site a little early. He parked in a public parking lot and walked to the rather innocuous looking building hidden by a copse of trees. It wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but he knew from the website that the inside was enormous, and apparently the view of the canal was not to be missed.
As he approached the entrance, Nic saw a silhouette of a man huddled in the shadows. It was Justice. Nic couldn’t see his face, but he knew that body anywhere, even in the dark. As he got closer, two things stood out to him. First was the fact that the silhouette was smoking. He’d never heard Justice say anything about being a smoker. The second was the posture; Nic could tell from the stiff set of his hunched shoulders that something was very wrong.
He’d come up from behind, so Nic took a moment to just look at Justice, and feel what he was feeling. Justice’s costume was simple, but stunning. He had on a jet black tailcoat with intentionally mismatched buttons, over a black brocade waistcoat. His stovepipe trousers where dark gray with subtle pinstripes, and he wore knee-high bondage boots over them.
The short sides of his hair had been almost completely shaved, and some extensions woven in with the curls on top, giving him an unkempt sort of pseudo-mohawk that flopped forward over eyes that were heavily lined. Under his chin was a leather studded dust mask that had been pulled down to allow him to bring the clove cigarette to his lips. Nic was most mesmerized by the metalwork he wore. On each hand was a gauntlet, with a set of mechanical metal claws, that covered the hand down to the wrist. They were incredible.
Though Justice shivered in the night air, an untouched leather duster lay on the ledge beside him, along with a top hat and a Venetian mask. Nic would have loved to see the whole ensemble together, but he had a feeling he wasn’t going to get to.
Justice was very, very pale. At first, Nic had thought it was a costume effect, but it was just Justice. His eyes were as dark as Nic had ever seen them and even in profile, he could see the bluish smudges that extended below the eye makeup. There were tracks along his checks from the eyeliner and mascara, where it looked like he’d been crying.