What lovely angst. I can see this gapfiller actually happening. I like the background details you filled in about the Brian/Michael friendship. There are some POV violations in the part where Brian sleeps over:

Only when he breathed. Brian forced his voice to pass beyond the sudden lump in his throat. "Nah."

Brian, awake behind his closed eyes, made no move to stop him.

Can I post a link to this at the LibertyDiner (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=libertydiner) lj community?