Queer as Folk Fanfiction: We Are Family (Part 1)

[moongirl24]

Title: We Are Family
Fandom: Queer as Folk
Characters/Pairing: Molly, Brian/Justin
Timeline: All seasons, plus post 513
Rating: PG-13ish
Word Count: 11,579 words
Warnings: None
Summary: As Molly Taylor grows up, she starts to rethink who her family really is.
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don’t own these characters.
Beta: The fabulous freakykat, thank you so much! Huge thanks also go to akintay and rromantic, for helping me get things right and for being my cheerleaders :)

Author’s Notes: I always thought Molly’s role on the show was much too small, so this is my way of making her play a bigger part in the things that happened. I used my own timeline because the timeline on the show is too confusing to make much sense of.

Written for the Through The Eyes Of... Challenge at neverenough_bj.

Posted in two parts, because it’s too long to post in one entry.


WE ARE FAMILY, Part 1

I was nine years old the first time I heard the name Brian mentioned in our house.

I grew up as a very protected child. Maybe a little too protected. I had a mother and a father who adored me, and even though I didn’t have any brothers or sisters other than Justin I didn’t mind. I loved my brother more than anyone. We used to tease each other, and drive each other crazy, but I also knew that no matter what, we would always be there for one another.

Our family had arguments and disagreements just like any other family, but our problems were never more serious than that. Or so I thought. It never even occurred to me that it might not always be like that.

Which I guess is only natural. I was still only a child.

It all started one late night when I woke up thirsty, and happened to overhear my parents arguing in the kitchen when I went to get myself some water.

I stopped in the middle of the stairs when I heard the voices, fear creeping over me because I had never heard my parents sounding so angry before. Normally they were both very quiet and calm people, so hearing them fight like that made me feel scared and uneasy. From my spot in the stairs I could hear Mom alternately yelling and crying, and Dad pretty much just yelling.

I couldn’t make out what they were arguing about, but I heard them mention Justin several times, and then that name. Brian.

I didn’t know any Brian. I knew one of my teachers at school had a husband called Brian, because she talked about him in class all the time. She always got such a silly smile on her face whenever she mentioned him. But I had never met him. And Justin didn’t know my teacher, and neither did my parents, so that couldn’t be the Brian they were arguing about.

The loud voices scared me, and I ran back upstairs to my room and hid in my bed under the covers. But even though I closed the door and hid my head under the pillow, I couldn’t block out the voices from downstairs. So after a while I jumped out of bed again, this time heading for the room next to mine, where Justin was sleeping.

Once inside, I closed the door behind me and crawled into his bed, shaking him lightly.

“Justin!” I whispered, pulling at his arm. He shifted a little, and mumbled sleepily, but eventually he opened his eyes and slowly focused on me.

“Molly? What’s wrong?” He looked alarmed, and quickly sat up in bed.

“Mom and Dad are fighting, and I’m scared!”, I whispered, on the verge of tears now.

Now Justin seemed to hear it too, because for a while he sat completely still, listening to our parents’ angry voices.

“What are they fighting about?”, I asked him.

“Me”, he said, his shoulders sinking a little.

“Why? Did you do something wrong?”

He hesitated for a moment. “Mom and Dad seem to think so”, he said, and now he sounded really sad. The room was too dark for me to see his face clearly, but I could hear it in his voice. I turned towards him, and gave him a hug. I didn’t like seeing Justin sad.

He made room for me next to him in the bed, and we settled in next to each other under the covers. He put his arm around me and held me close, and it made me feel safer and a little less scared, at least for the time being.

For a while we were both quiet. But I could still hear Mom and Dad downstairs, and I wanted to block out their voices. I tried covering my ears with my hands. It helped a little, but I could still hear them, so instead I looked up at Justin. “Who is Brian?”

Justin stiffened a little next to me, and didn’t answer right away. But I was getting curious about this guy that everybody seemed to know except me, so I asked him again.

“Brian is... “ He seemed to look for the right words for a moment. “Brian is someone I love very much.”

“Is he your friend?” I asked, not quite understanding what he meant.

“No, he is... he is sort of my boyfriend”, he explained.

I didn’t understand that. Boys couldn’t have boyfriends. Boys had girlfriends, and girls had boyfriends. I didn’t know that anything other than that was possible.

I told Justin that, and he tried to explain it further. “It doesn’t always work like that”, he told me. “Sometimes boys fall in love with boys, and girls fall in love with girls. And there is nothing unusual or wrong about that. No one can help who they love.”

I thought about that for a while. “But why are Mom and Dad so angry?” I asked, still not quite able to make sense of everything.

He shifted a little next to me. “They are angry because they don’t want me to be with Brian.” He sounded upset and sad at the same time, and he pressed me a little tighter to him, like he needed something to hang on to.

The voices had quieted a little downstairs, and I fell silent, trying to understand why it was such a bad thing for Justin to be with this Brian guy. But I was tired. It was late, and lying next to Justin, I felt safe and warm. Within seconds, I was asleep.

That was the first time I ever heard about Brian. But it was not the last.


***


I was ten years old the first time I met Brian.

I had already decided that I was not going to like him. Everything that had happened was his fault. It was his fault that Dad had to leave us and that we had to move out of the house. And it was his fault that Justin could no longer live with us, and had to go live with that red-haired woman who always talked so loud. It was just me and Mom now, and Dad said it all happened because of Brian.

I thought about that a lot. I wondered what exactly it was that Brian had done to make Dad so angry with him. I wondered if he had done something to Justin. But that didn’t make sense. Justin told me that he loved Brian very much, so why would Brian do bad things to him?

It was all very confusing. And no one would tell me anything. But I heard Dad talking to Mom, saying that Brian ruined our lives. So for a while, that’s what I believed.

I missed Justin a lot and hoped that he could come back to live with us soon. I hardly saw him anymore, and when I did it just wasn’t the same as it used to be. He came to see me and Mom sometimes, but he always left after only a few hours. To go back to the house where he lived with that red-haired woman. Or to Brian’s. Justin had told me that Brian owned a big loft, and that he stayed there sometimes.

But late one night, everything changed once again.

I was sleeping when Mom came to my room with red-rimmed eyes, looking pale and upset, and shook me lightly to wake me. She quietly told me that Justin had been hurt and had to be taken to the hospital. She was going to go see him, and she had asked Mrs. Greenberg, who lived next door, to come over and stay with me while she was gone.

The whole time she was talking she kept her voice calm and quiet, but I could tell that she had been crying. And it scared me. I hardly ever saw Mom crying, and it made her face look all different. I was so scared I couldn’t even get a word out. I was going to tell Mom that I wanted to come with her to the hospital, but I couldn’t speak. So I just sat there in my bed as Mom gave me a hug and left the room, and then Mrs. Greenberg came and told me to go back to sleep.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t sleep. I was too afraid to. The only other person I knew who had been hospitalized, was Grandpa, and he never came out of the hospital again. He died there.

I wondered if it was Brian’s fault that Justin was in the hospital. If he had done something. Dad always said that all the bad things that happened was Brian’s fault.

In the morning Mom came home to get me and take me to the hospital. She looked tired and sad as we drove in the car, but she explained to me that Justin was in a coma, which was almost like a really long and heavy sleep. We couldn’t see Justin just yet, because he was in a special room where only doctors could go in, but Mom had talked to the doctor before she left the hospital, and he said that we could see Justin later.

When we arrived at the hospital, I walked next to Mom through endless, white corridors. It felt like we walked forever. But eventually we stopped outside a door just as a doctor came out of it. Mom stopped and talked to him for a while, and I looked around the corridor. There wasn’t much to see. Just a lot of doors, and a couple of plastic chairs by the wall.

But I suddenly noticed a man who was sitting all by himself on one of those chairs. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes empty, and it looked as if he wasn’t aware of anything that was going on around him. He looked lost. Scared. He had a nice suit on, and a white scarf around his neck, but the clothes were covered in blood, and so were his hands. Part of the scarf had turned a dark, brownish red.

Somehow I knew all of a sudden that the blood I saw on the man’s clothes, was Justin’s. That made me scared again. There was so much of it.

And then I knew who the man was, even though I had never seen him before.

“Mom, who is that?” I asked anyway, as I pulled on Mom’s arm and pointed over to where the man was sitting. He hadn’t moved at all since I first noticed him.

Mom turned her attention away from the doctor she was talking to for a moment, and looked at where I was pointing. I didn’t miss the short hesitation in her voice before she answered my question.

“That’s Brian”, she said, and there was something in her voice that made her sound angry. I looked up at her, but she didn’t look angry, she just looked scared and upset, like she had done ever since she told me about Justin being in the hospital the day before. But I knew I hadn’t misinterpreted the tone in her voice when she said Brian’s name.

“Was he the one who hurt Justin?”, I asked, voicing the thing that had been bothering me since the night before. Brian was still staring right ahead of him, and he looked so sad that I couldn’t believe that this could be his fault, no matter what Dad said.

“No, Brian didn’t hurt Justin”, Mom said with a sad little sigh, and this time, there was no anger in her voice. “Brian was the one who helped him. He called for help and went with Justin in the ambulance.” She looked over at Brian, her face softer now. “Brian... I think he really cares about Justin.”

“Because he is Justin’s boyfriend”, I said, remembering what Justin had told me that night several months ago. It was still a little hard for me to get my head around the fact that boys could be with other boys, especially since neither Mom or Dad wanted to talk to me about it, but I was slowly getting more used to the idea.

Mom just looked at me, and didn’t say anything to that. Instead she asked me to sit down and wait while she finished talking to the doctor.

I went over to a chair to do what she asked me too, but just as I was about to sit down, my eyes fell on Brian again.

I watched him for a long time. He was sitting so still. If he didn’t have his eyes open, I would have thought that maybe he was asleep. Now I discovered that he also had tear-tracks on his cheeks. He had been crying.

Another thing I noticed was the he was so old! I always thought that when people were together, they had to be the same age. But Brian was much older than Justin, almost as old as Dad, I figured.

But still, it was the tears that struck me most. I had never seen a grown man cry before. He really had to care a lot about Justin.

Before I could think any further, I went over to where Brian was sitting and sat down on the chair next to him. He still didn’t move. I wasn’t sure he had even noticed my coming over. For a moment I wasn’t sure what to do, but then I decided to go with a simple “Hi”.

I didn’t speak loud, but the little word startled him, and for a second it looked like he didn’t quite know where he was. But then he became aware of my presence, and slowly turned to look at me. He studied me for a while.

“You’re Molly”, he said quietly. It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway, proud that he knew my name. Justin must have mentioned me to him.

“You look like him”, Brian continued, his voice sounding like he hadn’t talked in a while, and his eyes were so sad when he looked at me. All my previous opinions on Brian, a man I hadn’t even met until that moment, were suddenly forgotten.

“Are you sad because Justin is hurt?” I asked him, and he looked at me again and nodded slowly.

I suddenly felt the need to do something for this man I didn’t even know, but whose name was so familiar to me. I wanted to make him feel better, and maybe I needed the comfort for myself as well. I still didn’t quite understand what was going on with Justin, I just knew that it was something bad, and it scared me. So I reached over, and took his big hand in my smaller one. We looked at each other then, and he smiled a little, and somehow his smile reassured me. Told me that everything would be okay.

I don’t think any of us thought about it just then, but a bond was formed between us that night.


***


I was eleven years old when my hopes of us becoming a real family again started to fade.

I didn’t see Justin and Brian much those days. Apparently they were pretty much inseparable in the months after the bashing, but I hardly got to meet them during that time. Justin came to see me and Mom from time to time, but he was always alone because Mom still found it hard to approve of Brian. Dad and Justin were still not speaking. Dad didn’t even come to see Justin at the hospital after he was hurt. He was still blaming Brian for breaking up our family, and after Justin’s prom he only got more to blame him for.

The few times I saw Brian, was at the diner, if Brian happened to be there when Mom and I stopped by to see Justin, or at the occasional dinner that Mom and I got invited to at Debbie’s.

I missed Justin a lot during those months, and after that time in the hospital I was really curious about Brian. I used to beg Mom to take me to visit them, or to invite them over to our place. But Mom always came up with excuses for why that couldn’t happen, and the discussion usually ended with me running to my room and slamming the door.

When I was with Dad, I didn’t even dare to mention Justin, and definitely not Brian. Dad always got this look on his face whenever he heard Justin’s name – it was like he was sad and angry at the same time. And then he changed the subject.

I could never understand why Dad didn’t want to see Justin anymore. I knew it was because Dad didn’t want him to be with Brian, but I couldn’t see how he could stop loving Justin over that. I mean, Mom wasn’t too happy that Justin was with Brian either, but she still loved Justin the same. Why didn’t Dad?

I couldn’t even see why it was a problem that Justin was with Brian in the first place. My friends’ older brothers all had girlfriends – and I knew now that it was perfectly normal for a guy to have a boyfriend instead. I had seen lots of boys holding hands on the street, usually in the area around the diner when Mom and I went there.

I knew Mom was concerned about the age difference between Justin and Brian, but I couldn’t see why that was such a big deal. Grandpa was sixteen years older than Grandma, and lots of the celebrity couples I read about in magazines had big age differences between them.

Brian was nice. I liked him. He always gave me a small smile and called me ‘little Taylor’ whenever he saw me. And unlike everybody else, and despite the nickname, he never talked to me like I was a little kid. He treated me like a grown-up.

Luckily ‘little Taylor’ turned into just ‘Taylor’ when I got older. I realized eventually that giving nicknames to the people around him was something Brian did a lot. Justin was ‘Sunshine’. Mom was ‘mother Taylor’. Michael was ‘Mikey’. And so on.

I usually stayed at Dad’s place every other weekend. One Friday afternoon, after Dad had picked me up and we were coming out of the store were we had bought our groceries, I suddenly discovered Brian and Justin a little further down the street. I thought it was weird to see them there because Brian’s loft was on the other side of the city and this was the area where Dad lived. But Justin told me later that they had been picking up some art supplies he needed for school, and that those could only be found in a special store that happened to be right next to where Dad bought his groceries.

They were on the other side of the street from us, talking about something that I had no chance of hearing, but whatever it was, it made Justin smile. He took Brian’s hand and held it for a while, and suddenly he went up on his tiptoes, put his arm around Brian and gave him a small kiss, his smile never fading. He quickly pulled away again, and looked around, almost as if he was worried about all the people who could see them. But Brian just grinned and pulled him close again, giving him a longer kiss this time. His hands were cupping Justin’s face and the shopping bag that Justin had been holding in his hand suddenly fell to the ground when Justin put both his arms around Brian to return the kiss.

I stood rooted to the spot, watching them. I’d always thought that kissing was gross, and was determined to not kiss anybody, ever. When Mom and Dad were still living together, Dad used to kiss Mom every day when he came home from work, but that was always very short kisses, their lips barely touching each other, so that was okay. Real kissing, on the other hand, was disgusting. I saw people doing it all the time, but I had yet to understand why anyone would want to do it. The thought of exchanging spit with another person, of touching another person’s tongue with my own, made me want to vomit. I was so not going to do that.

I had even seen guys kissing. At the diner I saw it all the time, so it wasn’t like it was something new.

But I had never seen my brother and Brian kiss before, and especially not like that. They were pretty much eating each other up. So gross. But still, I kept watching them for a while, and in the end I started to think that it actually didn’t look that bad. The way Justin and Brian held each other almost made it look sort of enjoyable. Nice, I guess. They looked so happy.

That still didn’t mean I ever wanted to try it myself though. No way.

I didn’t get to watch them for long. Suddenly Dad noticed what I was looking at, and quickly pulled me away, like I was watching something he was worried might give me nightmares.

“Come on, Molly, we have to hurry”, he said, pulling me towards the car.

“But Dad”, I protested, “I want to say hello to Justin. I haven’t seen him in ages.”

That wasn’t entirely true. I saw Justin two days earlier, but I was getting sick of Dad’s behavior towards Justin. I had asked him about it many times before, but I stopped doing it because he always got so mad. But I wasn’t going to just do what Dad told me to without any protests. What he was doing to Justin just wasn’t fair.

But Dad didn’t care about my protests.

“We don’t have time, just get in the car”, he said, and I could tell that he was stressed. He obviously wanted to get away from there as soon as possible.

“But Dad-“

“No buts, Molly! I told you to get in the car.”

He was yelling now, really angry all of a sudden. It startled me, so I decided it was best to shut up and get in the car. But I didn’t want to go with him anymore. I wanted to go over to Justin and Brian, I wanted to visit them at the loft, I wanted Dad to love Justin again and I wanted my family to get back together.

The little kid in me had always believed that someday, that would happen. That we would all be a family again. But as time went on, and I started to understand more and more of the problems in my family, I started to think that maybe I had been wrong.

I was starting to think that things may never get back to the way they once were.

Just before I went into the car, I threw a last glance back to where Justin and Brian were standing, and discovered that they were both looking right at me, obviously having seen Dad pull me over to the car and yell at me to get inside. Brian looked angry, while Justin, on the other hand, just looked really sad. But when our eyes met he smiled at me, and mimed ‘later’ with his mouth, indicating that we would see each other soon.

I looked at them for a little while, and gave them a little wave, before getting into the car, letting Dad take me back to his apartment. We didn’t say a word to each other on the way there. Or for the rest of the evening, for that matter.

Sometimes I really didn’t like my dad. And I knew that if anyone was responsible for breaking up my family, it definitely wasn’t Brian.


***


I was twelve years old when I started to get to know Brian.

By that time, Justin and Brian had broken up and gotten back together again, and even Mom was starting to think that Brian wasn’t all that bad. One day she even said that she believed Brian was good for Justin. That felt like a small victory. All I wanted was for my family to be close again, and the first step was for Mom to approve of Brian.

Though at this point, my view of who my family was, had started to change. I saw Dad less and less, and seeing that he hardly spoke with Mom, and never with Justin, I realized one day that I no longer saw him as a natural part of our family. Our family consisted of me, Mom and Justin. And as time went on, I started to think of Brian as one of us too.

Mom’s change of heart gave me the opportunity to spend more time with my brother, and in turn, Brian. I think Mom was starting to realize that Brian was in our lives to stay.

So Mom made quite an effort to get to know Brian, which included inviting Brian and Justin over for dinner at least once each month (she invited them even more often, but they didn’t always come or sometimes Justin came alone – Justin always said that Brian didn’t really do family stuff), meeting them for lunch at the diner sometimes, or the latest one of Mom’s brilliant ideas: Asking Justin and Brian to stay with me one weekend when she was going out of town.

Actually she asked Justin, but she knew there was a good chance Brian would turn up at some point during the weekend, and she figured that it would give me a chance to spend more time with him, and with Justin too.

I was happy about that. There was nothing I loved more than spending time with Justin and Brian. But the whole babysitting thing made me feel like a five-year-old, and that was definitely not how I wanted Brian to see me. He was always the one who treated me like an adult. And besides, I was starting to think that he was actually really hot, and the last thing I wanted was for him to see me as a kid. So I tried to get myself out of it.

“Mom, I don’t need Justin to baby-sit me”, I told her. “I’m twelve. Actually, I’ll turn thirteen soon.”

“Yes, in six months. Molly, you are not staying here alone the whole weekend. Would you rather stay over at Mrs. Greenberg’s house? I’m sure she would be happy to have you.”

Mom knew perfectly well that I did not want to stay with Mrs. Greenberg, and therefore would see Justin as the far better option. And she was right. I reluctantly admitted to myself that spending a weekend with Justin was something I had wanted for a long time, and besides, the idea of spending two nights alone in the house sort of scared me.

“Fine”, I finally muttered, letting Mom know that I wasn’t at all happy with her treating me like a little kid. But I was already looking forward to spending a whole weekend together with my brother. I had seen him far too little over the last couple of years.

Justin came over late Friday afternoon, and Mom kissed us both goodbye at the door, and took off. I asked him about Brian, and Justin rolled his eyes and said that Brian told him he had no interest of spending the weekend looking after ‘little Taylor’, who by the way was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

That made me smile. Justin had such an awesome boyfriend.

We decided to spend the evening watching a DVD, and surprisingly fast we agreed on Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I liked Orlando Bloom and Justin liked Viggo Mortensen, so it was an easy choice. We made popcorn in the microwave and turned off all the lights in the room to create the right kind of atmosphere.

I sighed happily as I made myself comfortable in the sofa, a big bowl of popcorn in my lap. I grinned at Justin as he took the remote and started the movie. Moments like this made me realize all the more how much I missed spending time with him.

We were well into the movie, the hobbits were just about to start fighting with the Ringwraiths on Weathertop, when the doorbell suddenly rang.

The sound startled me and I screamed out, so involved in the movie that I forgot for a moment where I was. Justin laughed, and I shot him a quick glare, before jumping out of the sofa to go open the door.

I wasn’t all that surprised to see Brian standing there. Normally he wasn’t very far away from wherever Justin was, so I was expecting him to appear sooner or later.

I gave him a huge grin and held the door open for him. He stepped inside, and I closed the door behind him, taking in his appearance - the black jeans, white t-shirt and black leather jacket. Brian really was hot. How come I was only just now starting to see that?

“You took your time”, I told him as he kicked off his shoes, crossing my arms in front of me. “We started the movie ages ago. Who do you prefer: Orlando Bloom or Viggo Mortensen?”

Brian looked at me, and opened his mouth to say something, but just then Justin came out from the living room, a big smile appearing on his face when he saw who I was talking to.

“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away”, he said as he wrapped his arms around Brian and gave him a kiss. “I knew you’d miss me too much.”

“Who says I came for you?” Brian said, his hands on Justin’s waist. “I thought Molly could use some company. I couldn’t let the poor girl be stuck alone here with you the whole weekend.”

I giggled, and Justin hit Brian’s chest, but he couldn’t stop smiling. Brian smirked, then he leaned in and kissed Justin again, longer this time. I watched them, sort of fascinated, but also finding it extremely pathetic that they couldn’t stay apart for more than three hours.

They kissed for ages, and I sighed loudly. Didn’t they ever need to come up for air?

I didn’t really find kissing that gross anymore. Lately I’d even been sort of curious about it. I really liked Jason from my class, and sometimes I found myself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. But that didn’t mean I wanted to watch my brother and Brian making out the rest of the evening.

“Excuse me, minor in the room!” I said and rolled my eyes, trying to look annoyed. I wasn’t sure they would hear me as they were so wrapped up in each other, but eventually they pulled apart, somewhat reluctantly. Justin blushed slightly, looking a little dizzy. Brian, on the other hand, just grinned at me and let Justin hold on to his hand as the three of us went back to the living room to finish the movie.

I sat back down on the sofa and grabbed my bowl of popcorn, and Justin made room for Brian next to him. I took the remote and pushed the play button to continue the movie, and noticed that Justin settled in close to Brian, offering Brian some of his popcorn. Brian refused with a small snort, and I had to smile. I wondered why Justin even bothered. Everybody knew about Brian’s no-carbs-after-seven rule.

During the movie I glanced over at Brian and Justin from time to time. By the time the fellowship left Rivendell, Brian’s arm was around Justin, who in turn was snuggled up against Brian, his head on Brian’s shoulder. They actually looked kind of cute. I’d never seen them like this before, so relaxed and comfortable and... happy together.

I turned my attention back to the movie, but as the minutes passed by I found my eyes getting heavier and heavier, and I couldn’t stop a few yawns from slipping out of me. Justin asked me if I wanted to go to bed, but I told him I was fine. Eventually though I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew, the end credits were rolling over the screen, indicating that the movie was over.

I blinked, a little confused, and looked around me. My eyes moved from the TV screen over to Justin and Brian next to me on the couch, and I had to smile when I discovered that I wasn’t the only one who had fallen asleep. Justin was snoring lightly away in Brian’s arms, a smile on his face even in his sleep.

It was such a beautiful sight. Just as I looked over at them, Brian bent down and left a gentle kiss on the top of Justin’s head. He slowly brushed his fingers through Justin’s hair, which was getting pretty long at this point. There was small smile on his lips as he watched my brother’s face.

He looked up and our eyes met in the darkness. It was not unusual for Justin to fall asleep while he was watching TV, he did it all the time. And I wasn’t much better. We are both big sleepers.

“Must be in the genes”, Brian whispered to me with a smirk, as if he had read my mind, and pulled his arms a little tighter around Justin as my brother shifted in his sleep.

I smiled. I loved Brian. In a brother-in-law sort of way, of course.

And he was hot. I guess the sleeping wasn’t the only thing Justin and I had in common.

I hoped he and Justin would stay together forever.


***


Continued in Part 2

*

Comments

[schnute23.livejournal.com]

OMG this is a fantastic idea for a fic *off to read chapter 2*

[moongirl24.livejournal.com]

I am SO happy you think that! I hope you like the rest of it as well :)

[herefordroad.livejournal.com]

this is wonderful...i agree with you that molly's role on the show was far too brief. i think you found her voice beautifully and realistically while taking me, as a reader, through some of the events from canon.

you brought tears to my eyes with this, i can picture it perfectly:

"But I suddenly noticed a man who was sitting all by himself on one of those chairs. He was staring straight ahead, his eyes empty, and it looked as if he wasn’t aware of anything that was going on around him. He looked lost. Scared. He had a nice suit on, and a white scarf around his neck, but the clothes were covered in blood, and so were his hands. Part of the scarf had turned a dark, brownish red."

molly's thoughts hear ring true to me:

"I wanted Dad to love Justin again and I wanted my family to get back together.

The little kid in me had always believed that someday, that would happen. That we would all be a family again. But as time went on, and I started to understand more and more of the problems in my family, I started to think that maybe I had been wrong."

brian's attention to molly, including the necessary nickname, is brian at his best. molly's maturing attitudes as she gets older are also a great part of this first chapter. i especially enjoyed molly's watching brian and justin kiss for the first time (and her thought on exchanging spit!) but her comfort while watching the DVD is the best.

"During the movie I glanced over at Brian and Justin from time to time."..."Brian’s arm was around Justin, who in turn was snuggled up against Brian, his head on Brian’s shoulder. They actually looked kind of cute. I’d never seen them like this before, so relaxed and comfortable and... happy together."

fantastic chapter...

jeannie

[moongirl24.livejournal.com]

Yes, Molly has like, three scenes or something on the show, and we never get to see the more grown-up Molly at all. I'm so glad you liked this and that found her realistic because writing Molly was almost like creating a whole new character :)

Lol yes, obviously Brian had to give Molly a nickname ;)

Thank you so much for your wonderful feedback. I'm so glad you liked this first part of the story, and I hope you enjoy the rest of it as well :)

[camjakefan.livejournal.com]

This is great. I could actually see this happening.

[moongirl24.livejournal.com]

I'm very happy to hear that! I'm glad you liked the first part :)

[starlightbj.livejournal.com]

And as time went on, I started to think of Brian as one of us too.
Aww bless.

Loving this - have to read pt 2 later - can't wait!

[moongirl24.livejournal.com]

Aww, thank you, I'm glad you like it so far! Enjoy the second part :)

[spike7451.livejournal.com]

What a great story idea, love Molly's POV on B/J.
Wonderful first chapter off to part 2.

[moongirl24.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like the idea of the story! I wanted to make Molly more involved in the things that we saw on the show :)