Brian is quiet when we leave Ms. Hershell's office, but he's really wired as well. His whole body is zinging like a finely stretched piece of wire when you run your fingernail along it; you can't actually see or hear the vibration, but somehow it still seems to fill the air around him. When we get to the car he just hands me the keys, gets in the passenger seat and sits looking out the side window.

I could tell he was hardly taking in a word his lawyer said after the bit about how he still has his parental rights. That's okay. I did, and he knows that.

It feels incredible to have him trust me that way; like he totally knows that I've got his back, and he's happy to let me see that. More than anything, it's those things that tell me how things really are with Brian and me.

From the outside it might look like I'm some trophy blond, a hot little twink who's just around to boost Brian's ego or something; and that I'm too dumb to even know it. But that is so not how it is. When he trusts me to be over everything he needs to know about what the lawyer said, or when he stands back and lets me deal with Lindsay, he's telling me that no matter what anyone else might think, he sees me as his partner. His equal.

I'm not as old as him, not as successful; maybe I never will be. But in the ways that count with him he sees me as someone who is worthy of his trust and his respect. I can't help being shorter than he is and blond into the bargain. But I'm no trophy twink and he knows it. Other people, especially ones who've known me since I was a kid, might always under rate me. Brian won't; doesn't; never has, really. That's why he's always demanded I be the best homosexual I can be. Because he knows that the whole young-blond thing will play against me. Unless I refuse to let it, unless I fight for every bit of respect that I'm due.

And in his own Brian-esque way he's prepared to fight for me too. Linds mightn't know that's what he was doing when he stood aside yesterday and let me take her on. But I know.

And it means more than any fucking pathetic "romantic" gesture he could ever make. Because it's real.

Anyway, I drive back to the hotel. I know that he'll want to see Gus. Hell, I do myself. So if I feel like I have to see him to reassure myself that it's all real, I can bet Brian feels that way about a million times over.

Ms. Hershell said that she'd filed some sort of motion to prevent Melanie pulling any shit and trying to claim that bit of paper Brian signed years ago gives her rights to Gus now. And she's let Mel's lawyer and Lindsay's know that. She's also set up some sort of court mediated session on Monday so that we can formally sort out the details of how access is going to work and shit. And she's already petitioned to make sure that the most Melanie could have is limited supervised visits with Gus.

She wanted to know about our living space – whether Gus would have his own room and stuff – so I told her about the new house. She said the court officer might want to see it, or at least the deeds and photos, so after we see Gus I think I'll call Dan and see if he'd mind if we came over.

Maybe we could even take Gus with us. I bet he'll love the house.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Brian

I can hardly fucking sit in the car, there's no way I could drive. I feel as if my skin is splitting into shreds and crawling off me. Like I'm about to shed it or something, and some other creature is going to emerge out of it. Someone new. Someone who has a partner, and a son. A fucking family. A family who loves him.

And maybe this new creature will even deserve it.

Who the fuck knows?

Does a caterpillar get a clean slate when it turns into a moth? Maybe. Maybe it does. Maybe it gets to move on, fly away and leave all its past and its history and its fucking pathetic mistakes and fears behind it.

I wonder if it knows what it's going to become; if the process is as fucking terrifying for the caterpillar as it is for me. I have no idea who I'll be after today. No idea who I want to be.

No. That's fucking bullshit. I know. Of course I fucking know. I'm just fucking scared I won't be able to do it, and I'm such a chicken shit that even now I'm almost ready to jump out of the car and just fucking take off. Fuck it up now once and for all, so I don't have to worry about fucking it up later.

But I don't.

Somehow I don't.

Instead, caught like that damned insect in a metamorphosis over which I have no control, I squirm, fighting to breathe, while little Sunshine drives me ... us ... into this new future.

Fuck! How fucking symbolic is that?

So I sit here and let some small fucking terrified corner of my brain acknowledge what I want, hoping to Hell that just thinking it won't call down some ancestral Kinney curse on my head.

I want to be a good father. And a good partner to the little twat next to me who at least deserves that I admit that much; and while I'm at it I want to be fabulously successful and hot as Hell and as sexually active as I am now until I'm too old to care. That's what I want.

The heavens don't immediately rain fire down on me and we're pulling up at the hotel now, so I climb out of the car and, taking his hand, I walk with him into my future.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Justin

Lindsay's a complete mess when we get up to the suite. Apparently against all advice and despite all her promises, she's been talking to Melanie.

Given that Brian's just about been crawling out of his skin all the way here I expect him to totally lose it, but instead he goes all calm and cold. If I were Lindsay I'd totally freak, but she's too busy playing for sympathy; which is for once wasted. There's no way she'd get any from me and Brian ... instead of caving like he usually does as soon as she goes all teary eyed, he goes to Gus who is looking really upset, picks him up and carries him into the next room. He spends a few moments talking to Gus quietly, till Gus is giggling, then turns on the TV and leaves him to watch cartoons. Once Brian is sure he's happily settled, he comes out, giving me a look on the way to make sure that I know to stand near the door and keep an eye on him, then he stalks over to Lindsay who has sunk down onto the couch ostentatiously wiping her eyes and heaving these great big sighing sort of wails and totally drills her.

"What part of `let your lawyers do the talking' did you not fucking understand?" he says, his voice as angry as I've ever heard him with Lindsay; but it's a quiet, cold, cutting anger that drills through her self-pitying wails and gets her to at least reduce the volume.

"You don't understand," she snivels. "Mel and I have been together a long time."

"And now she's fucking someone else," he says relentlessly. "So most people would conclude that whatever bullshit relationship you had cobbled together up in the frozen north, it's pretty much over. Caput. Finito."

"We still care about each other," Lindsay falters.

"Oh, yeah, she cares so much she calls and abuses you for daring to let me find out you've been fucking lying to me for the last five years."

"I didn't lie!" Lindsay protests. "We just ..."

"Didn't tell the truth!" he snaps. "You fucking let me think all this time that she'd filed the papers, gone ahead with the adoption."

"We were going to," Lindsay tries to explain. "But it was so expensive and Melanie wouldn't let me ..." She peters off, aware that her next words could only make things worse."

"Wouldn't let you ask me for the money," he finishes for her, his eyes dark, the hurt he refuses to show sounding in his voice.

I can only stare at the woman in front of me. At one time I thought I'd known Lindsay, thought she was basically a good person. But what sort of woman, knowing how reluctant Brian had been to sign over his rights to Gus, knowing that he'd only done it to try to make things better between her and Mel, try to give Gus the family he'd never had, would even think about asking him for the money to make his sacrifice legal and permanent?

Brian also stares at her for a moment, then he nods slowly. When he speaks, his voice is very calm, but absolutely certain. Implacable; that's the word. "Gus is coming with us," he states. "Justin, can you go and get his things together?"

"Brian," Lindsay protests weakly, "I don't think ..."

"No," he says, "you don't. But if you did, and if you thought for one moment that I'd leave him here with you, trust you that he'd still be here on Monday for the hearing, you are seriously fucking kidding yourself."

I'm stunned. Brian never stands up for himself this way, never fights back against all the shit they throw at him. I want to fucking clap and cheer and do a happy dance. Instead, I head into the other room to grab Gus' stuff before he can change his mind.

"Get it all," he says after me, raising his voice a little. "He's staying with us for a while."

Gus starts jumping up and down. He doesn't know what's going on, but he heard that he's going to be staying with his Dad and he's beside himself with excitement. He "helps" me pack, chattering all the time so that I can't hear what's going on in the other room, but when we come out clutching all these bags, Lindsay has at least stopped crying. She looks as if she'd be angry if she dared.

Brian still has that cold look, but it melts when Gus runs to him shouting, "Can we go now, Daddy, can we? Can we?"

Brian snatches him up and says, "You bet, Sonnyboy. We'll see you on Monday," he tells Lindsay and just walks out.

"Justin," she says, trying that sweetly reasonable voice on me, "You have to persuade him that this might not be a good thing."

"Why not, Linds?" I ask. "Gus was always going to be spending a few days with us on this trip. Wasn't he?"

She sighs. "Justin, I have to think about how Mel will see this. I have my own status with Jenny to consider."

"Yeah?" I respond, "Well, we don't have to worry about Jenny. We only have to worry about Gus. And unless you are going to accuse Brian of kidnapping him or something ..."

She makes a weak sound of protest.

"... then I can't think of any reason why he can't stay with us. Can you?"

She sighs, but shakes her head and comes with me to the door to say goodbye to her son, who's still jumping up and down in excitement, totally unfazed at the separation that seems to be reducing his mother once more to tears.

Five minutes later we're in the car, and while Brian drives, I call Dan.

He sounds a little surprised, but also kind of pleased that we want to come over no matter what the reason. I can't really explain to him on the phone, so I just say we need some photos. He must think that they're for decorating or something.

Will he be surprised when he meets Gus! I mean, we'd told him Brian has a son, but I bet in his wildest dreams Dan has never pictured Brian as a completely doting Dad.

I can't wait to see the look on Dan's face when he sees Brian and Gus together.

I don't know why it's important to me, but somehow Dan seems like part of my family. Our family. Mine and Brian's. And he's leaving soon and I guess we'll probably never see him again, so I just want us all to spend a little time together in what is going to be our new home. I want Dan to be able to picture us there, so he'll know that the place is in good hands and that it will be filled with love, just like it was for him and his Billy.

I know that will mean something to him.

Maybe it will mean something to Billy, too, wherever he is.

Who knows?

And it will mean something to us, to me and Brian, to know that we're the future in that house, but that the future we'll be building has its roots, not just in our individual pasts, with all their miseries and experiences of homophobia and hatred and lack of love – as well as their triumphs – but in a past that we share with others like ourselves; with other men who've fought the same problems and who have won over them to live out the love they have for each other with courage and joy.

That's the foundation we'll be building on in this new home; and it's the heritage we will share with Gus - a heritage of love and acceptance and support. Whatever challenges we might face in the future, I know that Gus is never going to experience the pain that our fathers caused Brian and me; he is never going to doubt that he is loved, and he is never going to suddenly have his father reject him because of who he loves. Neither of his fathers, because that's how I see myself as well; I'm his "Dus" and no one is going to take that away from me - or from him.

So while Gus munches on a cookie and chatters to Dan about how he's going to be staying with his Daddy and Dus, I slip my hand into Brian's and when he turns his head to me, I smile at him. He does his best not to smile back, but I am so onto him and I squeeze his fingers. Then I see that he's finished his coffee, so I get up to pour some more for him and for Dan, and fetch some more milk for Gus. I realize suddenly that I'm acting like I'm the host here, but when I look at Dan, he's just sitting smiling a quiet little smile, kind of like Brian does when he's really happy, but doesn't want anyone to know it.

I sit back down at the table and Gus slides off his chair and climbs up onto my knee. I hold him and he leans against me, rubbing his foot along his father's thigh. I think he's just testing to see what his father will do. Brian gives him a look, and Gus stops for a moment and then does it again. This time Brian grabs his foot, twists off his shoe and starts tickling. Gus squeals and says, "No, Daddy, no!" but he's laughing and obviously loves having his father's attention.

I catch Dan's eye across the table and he is really smiling now. I grin back at him and think that I should get out my cell and take a photo. But it doesn't matter. When we get back to the loft I'll make a drawing, and maybe one day I'll paint this scene - or how it makes me feel. Meanwhile, I just sit here listening to Gus' laughter and Brian's quiet chuckles, sharing Dan's enjoyment and realizing how much I already feel at home here.