London Calling

A few hours later

Brian had once again fallen asleep on the sofa; Matt, Jimmy and Johnny had joined Zack to discuss a plan of action. They felt bad about talking about Brian while he was in the room but he was asleep on Zack’s lap and he didn’t want to move him.

“So what do you think we should do?” Johnny asked, munching on Pringles.

“More than anything else we need to let him know that we’re all here for him.” Matt began. “This a tough time for him and any little thing could send him over the edge.”

“Matt you’re talking like he’s crazy. He’s just burnt out, more than anything he needs to rest and get everything that’s been building up out of his system.” Jimmy said, waving a finger at Matt.

“Jim that’s the smartest thing you’ve said in a long while.” Zack started while stroking Brian’s hair. “Maybe we should extend our holiday by a couple more weeks, it’s not like I don’t have things to sort out here. It will give us a chance to talk things out without family or anything getting involved.”

“I suppose you make a good point and I wasn’t trying to make out like he’s crazy.” Matt mumbled fidgeting in his seat. “What I was trying to say is that the past that he had put behind him has come back to bite him on the arse, he’s found out one too many secrets that have obviously been a shock to the system. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if he did go into meltdown. I know I would.”

“He needs to know that the people closest to him are here if he needs to talk or whatever.” Johnny yawned, still sleepy despite probably having the most sleep out of all of them.

“Yeah I suppose you’re right. I think we should get him to bed, my legs are starting to cramp up and I really need to pee.” Zack said shuffling about, doing his best not to wake Brian.
Matt did his best to carry a sleepy and disorientated Brian, even though they would have preferred not to wake him up it seemed like the best thing to do. Moving someone who was half asleep wasn’t nearly as hard as someone who was dead asleep.

Later that day

It was about six in the evening when Brian finally woke up. His body had gotten stiff from sleeping too much and sleeping on the sofa. He found out it odd that instead of waking up on the sofa where he fell asleep he was in fact in his bed. He rolled around trying to make himself comfortable, there was no way he was going back to sleep but he wasn’t ready to face the world. He laid thinking about how things got so shitty so quickly when at first he felt so calm about the situation.

Brian’s thoughts were flying about, looking at all the possibilities that might have avoided the shit storm that he had now gotten himself into. No matter how he looked at it, they would always come back to the situation where he finds out about Alice and Zack. He thought about building a time machine to tell Zack when they were really young that he had feelings for him but he was scared at what might happen. Although it would seem to solve the Alice situation, it still set off a flag in his mind. Even if he had gone back there would be no guarantee that him and Zack would stay together. There would be a possibility that they wouldn't have the same relationship that had built over the years. Before anything else they were best friends and it would kill him to not have that bond with Zack.

With his moment of madness about time machines put behind him, Brian looked to what he had in front of him. He had finally found love with his best friend. His best friend had a child with his ex girlfriend. He went slightly loco, got pissed and almost got himself arrested. There was nothing he could do to make it all go away; he had no option but to face it head on show Zack that he would support him no matter what. Even with his simple plan he knew it was going to be tough. Brian knew that he could not stay mad at Zack forever, he loved him too much push him away again but he now had to learn to live with what happened, no matter how painful it seemed to be. Tommy was a part of Zack’s life and there was no ignoring him.