A/N: This is my first Queer As Folk fanfic and I am extremely nervous about posting it up. My friend Mel has convinced me otherwise that I should. So this is dedicated to her and her kind words regarding the story. The story itself is a Justin-down-the-well sort of fic. It's his POV about his latest trauma and he's really fucked up from it and he's supposed to be. So the way this is written is the way it's supposed to be. Sort of fragmented -- hence the title. I really hope you give this a try! The chapters will be up every other day or so, maybe sooner. They're short chapters, it's not an extensive series -- though I do have a couple one-shots based in this universe that might eventually be posted -- but there's about 7 of them plus an epilogue. So, I hope you enjoy this!

The first thing you registered was warm blood spraying your face. It wasn't the burning pain of a bullet slicing through your chest, nor the gunshot or muzzle flash from the gun pointed at you from five feet away. It was the way your life essence exploded from your chest, dotting your arms and face as the rest pulled apart in the air and hung like a cloud. The second bullet finally registered the pain. The third knocked oxygen back into your lungs as you gasped and laid you on your ass. Cold cement, blood pooling. Someone else's memories of a night so long ago.

Even as you lay on the ground with the blood pumping from three gunshot wounds, you couldn't do much more than stare at the sky. You couldn't call for help. Couldn't move your arms as the closely aimed bullets quickly drained your blood from two through and through shots. You watched enough random episodes of crime procedurals to know that you're in shit shape.

The world vibrated with bright color, starbursts as the tears spread and dripped across your temples. There was a gasp, someone crying out your name, hands pressing against your wounds, blurry cinnamon skin next to a dancing streetlamp. Help on the way. Hang on. Too much to give up. Hang on damn it!

I jerked awake, the fear trembling through my stomach as I dreamt the vivid memory of the night from nearly eight months ago that left me a victim once more. Fucking prick. It was never gonna leave me. When I was bashed, there was some reprieve. This, I remembered instantaneously. Oh, how I longed for the months of ignorance that I'd had at 18. 9 years after being bashed, and I was right back in that fucking faggot mindset. Scared to go out at night, scared to look strangers in the eye. Pussy.

I rolled on my hip to sit up in bed, my feet pressing against the cold hardwood floors, my hands gripping the edge of the bed as I quelled the nausea. I hated this. Fucking hated it! It was worse this time. I didn't know his fucking name. I didn't know him personally. I hadn't been betrayed 'cause of some schoolboy hand-job. I had been victimized solely because I could be. And the bastard was still roaming the streets. I longed for the days of vigilantism, wearing pink tank tops and camouflage pants with combat boots. Wielding an empty revolver, only to load it and shove it in Chris Hobbs' mouth. The power high for even just those ten minutes was fucking addictive. But making it to the end of the block and throwing up everything I'd ate that day, I could've done without.

New fucking York. Nearly five years in this city and what did I have to show for it? Nothing. I wasn't Justin Taylor, the next Andy Warhol. I was Justin Taylor, victim of random sidewalk shooting. My pieces were dark. Too dark for some. Depressive, oppressive, repressive. Lacked life, had too much hatred. Too much self-loathing. The looks I got from those pretentious fucks when they looked at my art. Pity. The only way I was able to heal and they were telling me it wasn't right for their shows. Well excuse the fuck out of me for getting my head bashed in with a baseball bat at 18 and then shot three times in the chest at 27. Sorry I'm not living up to my nickname of being all sunshine and happy days.

Sunshine. Christ. Been a long time since I've thought about that… since I've had contact with anyone from the Pitts. A couple years after I'd left to become some great artiste, the foreground players dropped off. Brian, Michael, Debbie, Lindsay, Emmett, Ted in a way. Ironically, I kept closer in contact with Mel and Ben. The lovers to the devoted defenders of my ex. You can't make that shit up. Brian, Michael, Lindsay. Justin, Ben, Mel. It's hilarious. Our partners all in love with someone else, Michael and Lindsay in love with Brian, and Brian in love with himself. But after being gunned down, I forgot all about everyone. Ignored calls and emails, aside from answering once in awhile to be aloof and a particularly big prick in order for them to get the message to back off. I haven't even talked to Daphne since I left Pitts. She went to college; I came here to become the best homosexual I could be.

Fail. Fail. Fail. It's a glaring marquee over my head. All the time. It wasn't as prominent until I was raped of my safety, once more.

"Justin," a sleepy voice questioned from behind me. "Another one?"

"I'm fine." I tell Rae, my roommate for the last four years. After the friend Daphne had hooked me up with decided to run off and be a drag queen in Miami, I came across Rachael through a friend of a friend. She needed a roommate and what started as convenience turned into a great friendship.

"Then lay back down and go to sleep or go fucking paint, 'cause your depression is too loud for me." Rae bemoaned, rolling back over on the bed and going to sleep. After I'd been shot, I took to sleeping in with her. Her bed was like one of those corny honeymoon suite circular beds, but it was huge and we both slept on it without kicking the other. Which is saying something, given we're both restless sleepers. But I couldn't be alone. Like after the bashing.

Rae was there that night. We were walking home from work… her work, she was a go-go girl at Sphinx, a club that was New York's Babylon, only it catered to men and women equally; gay, bi, pan, lesbian, straight, whatever. The club made sure to employ both female and male dancers in that case, and Rae was one of the main attractions.

There are times when I'm grateful that she'd ran back around the corner to find an earring she'd dropped and hadn't been there when he'd came up. But then there are times when I look at her and hate her so fucking much for not being there, too. I hate her. I hate myself. I hate this apartment. I hate the galleries. I hate the sounds of the city. I hate the city itself. I hate living in fear. I hate only being able to see a cruel smirk in my mind's eye behind the gun as the memory of my shooter. I hate my art. I hate sidewalks. I hate the night sky. I hate my fucking life here.

"I'm going back." I tell Rae, even though I'm pretty sure she's back to sleep. Even though I'm pretty sure I'm losing my mind right now.

"I know. And I'm going with you." Rae's voice is sleepy, but I know she's lucid enough to understand. Fucking bitch always knew what I was gonna do before I did it.

"I'm moving back, Rae."

"I know. And I'm going with you."

Sometimes I don't hate her. Sometimes I love her, 'cause she's my Daphne and my Brian rolled into one. My best friend, my support, my understanding. Then again, that's partly the reason I hate her too.