Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping?
Title: Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping?
Author:
inabasket
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm not even going to pretend like this could happen.
Pairing: John Nolan/Jesse Lacey; John Nolan/Kevin Devine
Word Count: 4,676
Summary: John goes into bathtubs and talks to the dead, mostly after disrupting the flow of the universe.
Note: So, this ended up way sadder than I'd originally planned, because I think the bathtub-whisperer idea was kind of funny. But it's not that funny. And there's a lot of ants in this story, and usage of the 'f'-bomb that isn't that kid oriented. For
fedradiowires , because basically I whored out this idea to her and she gave me ideas for most of the plot. It's not that good in some parts, but I hope somebody enjoys this. The main idea was taken from that Radiohead New Year's Eve event, so props to anybody who knew that right off the bat! And. Also note: this only attempts to make sense. And not very well.
It is summer and it’s a hot one. There would be better words to describe the nearly intolerable heat if it wasn’t for John Nolan frying in this heat, unable to think of any. He’s on his well-loved couch, khaki shorts and polo on, head on the bolster and spindly legs in every direction. Jesse sits on the floor, t-shirt soaked and sticking to rounded contours of his torso. John has been watching him breathe and inhale popsicles and ice cream bars for three days now, hasn’t left the apartment in five except on the second day when he went to the basement to do their laundry - it was his week - or the few times he’d stick his head out the window and just stay like that, eyes on the cityscape, everything below his third-story window.
“John,” Jesse says, fixated on the television. John hasn’t seen him get up for anything but popsicles these days. Even that seems obsolete because, “John, want to get me a popsicle?”
“I don’t,” John replies, twisting on the couch uncomfortably. He knows they could have bought an air conditioner - neither of them is low on cash or anything - but he feels he’s getting an experience out of the heat. “You should do it yourself.”
He sees Jesse move again, for those popsicles. Jesse twists to face him first, though, knees on the ground. “Those shorts you’re wearing are pretty gay, John.”
“You don’t even have pants on,” John points out, too hot to take being picked on.
“Yeah, well,” Jesse starts indignantly, voice harsh and husky and strained, as he squints at John. He pulls of his moist t-shirt and shrugs his shoulders. “Fuck you.”
The ice cream is important to Jesse, though, because he seems to have forgotten his frustration with John moping on the couch to get up to go to the kitchen. John closes his eyes and can hear Jesse’s bare feet against the wood flooring. He adjusts his head so it’s halfway off the couch, his lip is pressed to the arm cushion, forehead half sticking to the fabric around the cushion, half absorbing the stale air of the apartment and his hair is being moved into sweaty, abstract clumps. He hears the fridge open, and he can just imagine the cool air escaping, Jesse curling his toes without thinking about it, delight, and Jesse remembering that ice cream is kept in the freezer, opening the top door which incites even more delight and happy squirming. He’s memorized Jesse’s movements by now, can practically see how Jesse is half-grin-sneering, hand in the ice box as he reaches for the carton of popsicles, plastic wrappers sticking out, set up so they’re easy to grab and waiting for him.
John knows these things, he has to by now.
**
John likes to bathe when he gets sweaty. When his body gives up to the heat, he doesn’t like to linger in his drenched boxers and cotton t-shirts. He takes action and decides to take a bath, with a temperature cooler than the air of the apartment, and he just sits in it, occasionally submerging himself, eyes closed.
He does this often. A lot of times Jesse will come in, worried, and say something about how he should stop hogging the bathroom, there are two of them sharing the apartment. John will just sink his head into the tub so it’s all gargled and muted, and Jesse will give up, go back to his television and popsicles.
John sits in it that day, Jesse doesn’t come for at least an hour, but even then he only knows because he can hear Jesse’s feet sticking to the floorboards when he stands outside the door, hears when the skin slowly detaches from the wood. But it’s so hot; John doesn’t even want to move. He’s even run out of things to say to Jesse.
John uses these baths, though. They’re serene.
**
What John doesn’t know: Jesse endlessly getting popsicles and him endlessly moping is all part of a delicate loop. Once one of these is unbalanced, everything else will be unraveled. It’s a simple universe, a simple theory.
John also doesn’t know: Jesse calling it quits will completely send him into an alternate universe, because it’s not supposed to happen.
**
Jesse comes back from the kitchen, and instead of holding up his treat triumphantly, he’s scowling and glaring at John. He’s picking up his shirt, shrugging it on quickly, and everything is rough. His voice is thick in his throat when he glares up at John, still crouched to the floor, t-shirt in his hands when he says, “I have to get out of here - there’s no good food left.”
John almost laughs, but he feels betrayed somehow. They were supposed to be stuck in the heat together.
It’s a simple solution though. Jesse goes to the supermarket or the corner store, buys more of his popsicles, comes back in fifteen minutes.
The problem with that is, John is lying on the couch, counting the different joints on his fingers, when he realizes that fifteen minutes passes. Then forty. Then seventy.
Instead of Jesse coming back, he gets a phone call with Jesse saying he’ll pick up his possessions on a Friday, and that he can keep the apartment. John doesn’t want to keep it, so in a week there’s nothing in the space at all.
**
John wakes up on a box.
“This is odd,” he laughs, embarrassed, when his sister shoots him a particularly startled look. “It’s not that bad,” he adds.
Michelle is just doing her job. He’s in his new apartment, he’s been in it for three days, but it’s so hot again and he just ends up finding this long box, long enough to lay on, and sleeping on it. It’s not a big deal to him, but it must be for Michelle, who is standing at the doorway, eyes wide.
John, sheepish, explains, “It’s just really hot. I don’t like moving things. And Shaun, fuck him, he was supposed to come and help me on Monday but he didn’t come. He’s supposed to come later, though.”
He then looks around thoughtfully, as if affirming his good decision to move out. “Plus, I bought an air conditioner online. It’s supposed to have shipped yesterday.” He feels as though he’s made an accomplishment by being a mature adult and buying something to soothe the crippling heat.
Michelle walks over and begins unpacking one of his boxes, his box of linens, which was already started on because John loves baths. He, admittedly, is yet to take one.
“I’ll put these in your bathroom. God, John,” Michelle giggles and rolls her eyes, already done with being worried. “Have you showered yet? You stink.” She pointedly pinches her nose, disrupting her balance of the towels tucked in her arm.
John gets up and says, “Sure,” and he chuckles to himself, mostly when she’s out of the room, and finally starts unpacking, embarrassed to have only moved out the silverware and shirts.
**
It’s day four, and John really, really wants a bath. The air conditioner is installed and set up - it took John two hours of heroic struggling - and he feels like he’s deserved it. He’d earned the right to bathe again.
The apartment, the new one, is small and old-fashioned. It doesn’t have a shower head installed, or anything, just a huge washtub. John thinks it’s charming and the tub is borderline ornate with its design, with the fact that it has these sterling silver, or something silver and nice looking, claw feet that are planted into the tiles, so he’s excited to watch it fill to the top with water, excited to finally wash.
He lines his shampoo up on the floor next to the tub, by one of the bath’s feet, next to his conditioner and body wash before sinking into the tub.
Ever since he’s gotten to the new apartment, something just felt off. He knew other people might label it as a mental disease, pass it off as missing their best friend of many years they’d just moved out of an apartment with, but he knew it was different. He couldn’t pinpoint what.
He was in a whole alternate universe, but he didn’t know this, and couldn’t pinpoint just what was so different.
Not until, anyways, he’s situated in the tub, and he brings his hands over his face, washing in, before slowly sinking. His ears get filled with water, and his face submerged.
And suddenly, John can hear muffled sounds. It takes him an instant to realize they sound like human voices. Just talking away, about this and that. It’s almost an undistinguishable gush of noise, people talking and telling him about things, about how this apartment was old or their cat used to be named Miles or how they lost their favorite shoes during a storm.
John isn’t comfortable with this particular development, because hearing voices in bathtubs isn’t his idea of fun or comfort, so he pulls out, confused. He wonders if he’s just lost it, but a moment later he puts his ear against the water and he hears, ‘I was born 1886.’
John can hear ghosts in the bathtub.
**
The second time John takes a bath, he’s prepared. He’s still a little incredulous, because he’s not some adorable seven-year-old who sees the ghosts of his dad. He doesn’t know why dead people would even talk to him - he, sure, listens pretty well and is kind of charming, but nothing special.
And it’s only in the bathtub, too. But indefinitely, he’s pressing his ear against the water, a pre-shampoo hair rinse, and he can hear the snippet of a conversation: “Well, I lived next door for awhile from her. I used to watch her brush her hair every morning. I don’t think I loved her but it was fascinating to see. I’d watch her a lot.”
John laughs because it’s creepy and sad, and he’s totally listening to a ghost talk about their past.
Then a voice comes, louder than the regular low murmur of sound that John has to pick apart, a voice that sounds startlingly gentle and a little raspy, going, “Hey.”
It’s very clearly directed at John, for some reason John knows this.
John blinks and pulls his ear away. He frowns and tries to get his hair washed without having to hear that again. He thinks hearing ghosts is okay, but talking to them is, for some reason, a significant amount worse.
**
The tub is so Victorian and spooky looking when John sits in front of it, that he has made up his mind that it’s the tub. The tub is somehow connected with the realm beyond, and really, John doesn’t want to die if he’ll be stuck as a ghost haunting a bathtub. If he was to haunt anything, it’d be a church or something cliché but more impressive than a bathtub.
Either way, John is a practical sort of guy. He could just use his friend’s bathtub to wash.
He calls Vinnie up and can’t find a way to explain why he needs Vinnie’s tub, just says the water is out and he might stop by for a week or so to use the water. Vinnie says okay, and Jesse wasn’t even crashing in his apartment, so he didn’t have to worry about seeing him at all.
John considers Jesse not being there, and he doesn’t mind. The next morning he drives to Vinnie’s, excited, shampoo bottles sliding around in the backseat of the car, and he’s literally dripping joy (sweat and tears) when he sees an ordinary looking tub, with a shower head at the top.
He fills up the tub, after asking Vinnie if there are any ‘tricks to getting the water extra warm or anything’ and he closes the door behind himself, hearing the sounds of a baseball game on the television screen. He’s reminded of Jesse and his television but he doesn’t feel upset, more like it’s a memory, or a scene in a play. John enters bathtub, hears Jesse with television.
He drapes his pasty legs over the side of the tub, calves turning pink because God, Vinnie’s water is hot, hot like summer, and he slowly adjusts himself into the tub, inch by inch. When he’s in, he leans his back against the side of the tub, and grabs his body wash, ready to get to work. He doesn’t want to impose upon Vinnie.
When he tries to go in to wash his ears, it’s the same damn thing.
This time though, he just submits, shaking the sick feeling that it’ll never leave him, that he’s stuck with the burden of hundreds of dead people forever. Instead, though, above the unending chatter of the dead, he can hear the same ghost, still nameless, saying, “It’s okay.”
He’s being soothed, and for a moment, he just shifts in the tub, unsure, before sinking under the water. “It’s okay,” he hears, clearly. “Hi. This isn’t right. This universe, right? This is a universe you’re in. This sounds really, er, peculiar -” John thinks, no shit, I’m listening to a ghost, but doesn’t say anything. “I know, no shit. You’re talking to a dead guy. But this is a parallel universe to the one you were in before, John. It is.”
John stiffens, startled, and says, “Huh?” And he grabs his body wash, begins washing his legs. “I’m… okay.”
“Yes, you’re okay.” The voice sounds like he’s smiling, John can hear it. “You’ll be okay. This universe isn’t unlike the old one, except, think about it. What’s changed recently?”
John shrugs, hearing the water splash. He wonders if Vinnie can hear him. “I guess I moved to a new apartment. Is it the apartment?”
“Think harder.”
John stays quiet, for a moment, lathering up his arms. He’s not a good multitasker, so after a moment he just sits and thinks. “I… hear voices.”
The voice sounds amused. “Okay,” and John can hear the snippet of another slightly clear ghost, but one that isn’t talking to him directly, not like this one. “That’s closer.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” the voice says, sounding more sure than John has ever felt. “Controlling the universe. How does that feel, man? Seriously.”
John laughs a little. “Pretty pimp,” his ear is against the water again. He doesn’t mind the ghost, likes the damn guy, even, so he doesn’t know why he was so scared before. Sure, the other voices drive him up the wall, but this dead guy is kind of comforting. “Should I be able to do this?” he asks, always a rule-follower.
“Well,” the voice pauses. “No. Not really. You’re not crazy, though. Just in an alternate universe you shouldn’t be in. That shouldn’t be active.”
“What should I do?” John asks.
The voice is quiet for a moment, and John is stuck listening to a woman talk about three cats she fed and a guy talk about surfing. He doesn’t know what to think, the other voices are overwhelming and irritating, but a moment later, the ghost is back, his voice is more frantic. “Just, can you… is it okay? Can you do something for me?”
John doesn’t know. “Can I think about this? If it’s like, telling your wife you loved her or something, of course, but.”
“My name is Kevin,” the voice says, and pauses. “So, I’m dead.”
“Yeah,” John agrees. “You are.” He pulls his head away from the water to grab the conditioner. He can hear Vinnie outside, and suddenly he was aware he wasn’t talking quietly anymore. “Wait, Kevin? Kevin Devine?”
Kevin sounds surprised. “Well, yeah.”
“I think I’ve met you before. But you weren’t a disembodied voice.” John sounds thoughtful, and he wonders how his life got to the point where he can even have conversations like this. “You have red hair.”
“Yeah,” Kevin says. “Wow.”
John shrugs and says good-bye, because Kevin just is stuck in some happy awe. John leaves the tub and gathers his supplies, hands slippery, quickly drying off and changing into the clothes he’d selected.
**
John, coincidentally, when he was a teen, wondered what it would be like to fuck up reality and cause the end of the world. He didn't exactly know what to think about it then, and he definitely still doesn't.
**
John has begun talking to Kevin in his tub every night. He’s a little self-conscious by the second visit though, because he knows the alive Kevin Devine, who works in journalism and lives near his sister, the one who isn’t dead and who doesn’t haunt bathtubs, so he briefly considers putting on swim-bottoms before he bathes.
The idea seems far too strange, even for someone like John, and Kevin doesn’t even say anything about his nudity. Kevin must know about him, though, because once he commented on John’s minty shampoo, about how he would kill for some mint ice cream.
By the fifth visit, Kevin finally says, a bit promptlessly, “You know, you don’t look half bad naked.”
“Thanks,” John responds, utterly useless.
After that shift, though, things are back to normal, just the two talking, and John realizes that Kevin is actually the nicest guy he’s ever met. Some part of him knows though, that reality is just hanging by it’s hinges - some part of him is compelled to just drive over to Jesse’s, apologize, but the idea is more distant and less appealing each night.
There’s some all-knowing force in him, though, that knows he’s supposed to be with Jesse, in that apartment. It’s still on sale, he checked. He’s even been getting ominous messages in nature, for goodness sake. A flock of birds spelling ‘J+J’ or something equally as pointed, as if mother nature was clearing her throat meaningfully, and John thinks he’s nuts, but he really, really could soak in the tub all day, talking to Kevin.
That is when John realizes he loves Kevin.
**
John goes outside and his shoe is covered with ants. He left his shoe outside after spilling some sugary soda on it; he was thinking about Kevin, and he was doing very logically unsound things due to this. It’s sitting outside the apartment, and nobody has even touched it.
John gets a job that day, and when he comes back, the shoe is gone.
He doesn’t know who’s taken it, but he does know the ants are still there.
John is unaware that this is a sign reality is slowly unwinding.
**
Kevin Devine, the journalist, not the ghost, was supposed to die. Either that or he wasn’t supposed to be dead already. There is a simple rule that governs a decent amount of reality, and that is that a person cannot literally be dead and alive at the same time - arguably, they can be figuratively, but also arguable is reality in itself. A few things had to happen for reality to be shifted back into its proper place: Kevin had to either be dead or alive, and John had to be with Jesse.
Kevin, the one who haunts the tub, used to ply John, implore, “John, you really need to try and win him back. John, this isn’t fair to the other people.” He’d even say, “Jesse needs you. I think he’d take you back. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Jesse has been coming up less and less, though, and becoming easier to talk about.
John’s nose will be filled with water, it’ll be disruptive because he’ll have to blow his nose in middle of the bath, and he’ll say to Kevin, “I will, I promise. Just in a bit.” He doesn’t say anything about how he’s okay with where he is now, drifting in between his job and the tub.
**
Jesse is still alive, too. He’s supposed to be. He runs into Kevin who isn’t supposed to be alive, and he’s seen Kevin around, but he’s also seen too many people around. They’re in the liquor section of a grocery store, and Jesse can’t look away from Kevin.
This is very much because Kevin has the air of someone who has something quite important to say but doesn’t know what it is or if they’re supposed to say it to the other person, especially because they haven’t previously acquainted themselves with the other person. Neither man has any idea that the topic hanging overhead is John Nolan, of all things, so instead, Jesse walks up to Kevin, smiling tragically, and greets, “hey.”
Kevin twists his lips into odd formations, trying to let the words he hasn’t quite figured out yet escape. Instead he gives up; appearing defeated, and says, “Hi. I know you, don’t I?”
“I’m Jesse, Jesse Lacey,” Jesse introduces himself, giving Kevin his hand.
For some reason, Kevin doesn’t want to take it, but again, he has no idea why. He’s hesitant but not discourteous, and Jesse doesn’t think anything of it. When shaking Jesse’s hand, a frown is on his face, though not a particularly cruel one. He pulls his hand away and digs his sneakers onto the cheap tiled floor of the supermarket, hearing them squeak unattractively as they frantically tried to find traction with the finish of the flooring.
There’s something familiar about Jesse, but again, Kevin, in his life, he will never be able to satisfactorily explain why this is, not until he dies. He has no idea he is having a near-affair with Jesse’s ex-boyfriend who should still be his boyfriend. In fact, he doesn’t even consider this a probability.
“I’m Kevin,” Kevin offers a smile, because Jesse actually seems really wary and tired, and Kevin is all for mending the wary and tired. Jesse’s eyes have bags under him; he looks artistically disheveled, disposition politely unfocused. His lips are chapped, and Kevin offers him chapstick, and says, “You know, this sounds really strange, but I feel like… can we meet up for coffee? Not a date or anything. But I feel as though there’s something urgent.”
Jesse blinks, applying the chapstick carefully, and thinks Kevin as one of the strangest men he’s ever met. “Yeah, sure.” His voice is gravelly and tired-sounding, blending in dramatically but precisely with the rest of his demeanor.
Kevin smiles and says, “So, Jesse. Next Friday?”
**
John’s drinking more and more coffee. He gets up from his cubicle and it’s only coffee, coffee, coffee, until his hands shake and he can’t read the spreadsheets in front of him, and he’s sitting up and standing down. Until his head hurts.
This is because, during the past week, Kevin’s voice is getting dimmer and dimmer. The tub voices are all fading slowly, and John, while he didn’t care much for the other voices, he’d gotten used to them.
“The air quality,” he hears through the radio he has set up in his cubicle, through his headphones that he’d stolen from an airplane pouch on accident, cheap, black shiny plastic with the airline’s brand on it, “is on the rise.”
It’s New York City, where the air quality is definitely not supposed to be ‘on the rise’. John has noticed, though. His allergies aren’t quite as dreadful as they normally are towards the end of the summer.
John’s cubicle has a chair with wheels, as does every chair in every cubicle in his office. His legs, hallowed and frail, are rocking the seat back and forth, and he’s doing everything in his power not to think about how he could be potentially losing Kevin’s voice in his tub, how Kevin will, potentially, of course, soon no longer be dead.
**
John is surprised when Kevin’s voice in his tub is as clear as crystal. “You know how I’m supposed to be dead? I finally died.”
“Wait.” John always fidgets when he doesn’t get something. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Now it does. I’m supposed to be dead. John, don’t you get it? I finally died. Reality is trying to fix itself on its own.”
John cries that night, overcome with a certain feeling that he can’t explain. He doesn’t care that he’ll never be able to touch Kevin, because he’s content just to be able to talk to him. He thinks this might mean he’ll get to talk to Kevin forever.
**
Next Friday comes and Jesse goes to the coffee shop he and Kevin agreed upon. Kevin doesn’t show, but Jesse isn’t disappointed by this. Kevin is a weird guy from the grocery store to him.
**
Kevin’s voice is loud and clear and strong to John every night now. They talk about tennis and Motown and all the strange things that are still happening, how John should be with Jesse and Jesse should be with John. John wants to be with Kevin, but he sees slight difficulties with this. One of them is Kevin definitely no longer has a body.
Kevin always liked the idea of ashes, so of course his body was burned.
John’s caffeine is getting worse so he’s sleeping less, his thighs are still hallowed and frail, but he gets Kevin every night, stays in the tub until he’s swollen. He needs to fix up his tub, actually, because he dropped his razor in it one morning and it inexplicably chipped. This wasn’t supposed to happen, either, because the razor has a very low relative mass and couldn’t possibly chip the old-fashioned, porcelain tub. However, there’s a crack in the tub, gray and menacing, and John finds it very portentous.
**
Jesse finds John on a Monday; it’s been two months since they split apart. In this time Kevin has died, air has gotten better, ants are goddamn everywhere, and John is committed to caffeine. These things are all minor, though, because Jesse finds John, buzzes his apartment.
When he walks in, his eyes are sad and hard and John has never seen him so tired. Jesse, who always looked so young, suddenly looks washed-out and spent, and his blue eyes are squinting at John’s face. “John,” he draws the name out, and he’s not even through the doorway yet. But John opened the door for him, surprised at how badly he wanted to turn the knob, knowing Jesse was behind it.
“We’re…” John grabs his forearm, rougher than he wants to but the feeling is the same, gentle and meek and right. “Jesse, the apartment we moved out of. It’s still there, you know. We could go back.”
Jesse sneezes. “I bought it already. I live there, alone.” Jesse was the first one out of the apartment, now he’s the first one in.
John, misty-eyed, finds these words to be irrevocably right, perfectly situated. “Can we talk about this?”
“Sure,” Jesse says, not sounding entirely confident, not like he used to, but he’s treading towards the couch John has, the same one from their old apartment.
“I mean that,” John says, and he’s stricken with the fact that he knows he’ll never talk to Kevin again. And John cries, bubbling sobs, messy crying and Jesse thinks it’s for him, but it’s not.
**
Jesse has his popsicles and John has his baths. They have their apartment, and John doesn’t hear ghosts anymore. He doesn’t go into the tub expecting it, either. In fact, he hardly remembers it - he remembers it like he remembers a movie, a scene, something surreal and something that was even nonparticipatory.
His legs are every which way on the couch and Jesse is on the floor, sprawled on his back, knees up, blue eyes opening and closing as he watches John like he used to watch television.
Jesse says, “Have you ever felt like it was supposed to be this? With us here?” He’s always been a romantic when the moment was right.
John agrees, bobbing his head so the back of his skull hits the bolster on the way up each time.
Author:
inabasket
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I'm not even going to pretend like this could happen.
Pairing: John Nolan/Jesse Lacey; John Nolan/Kevin Devine
Word Count: 4,676
Summary: John goes into bathtubs and talks to the dead, mostly after disrupting the flow of the universe.
Note: So, this ended up way sadder than I'd originally planned, because I think the bathtub-whisperer idea was kind of funny. But it's not that funny. And there's a lot of ants in this story, and usage of the 'f'-bomb that isn't that kid oriented. For
fedradiowires , because basically I whored out this idea to her and she gave me ideas for most of the plot. It's not that good in some parts, but I hope somebody enjoys this. The main idea was taken from that Radiohead New Year's Eve event, so props to anybody who knew that right off the bat! And. Also note: this only attempts to make sense. And not very well.
It is summer and it’s a hot one. There would be better words to describe the nearly intolerable heat if it wasn’t for John Nolan frying in this heat, unable to think of any. He’s on his well-loved couch, khaki shorts and polo on, head on the bolster and spindly legs in every direction. Jesse sits on the floor, t-shirt soaked and sticking to rounded contours of his torso. John has been watching him breathe and inhale popsicles and ice cream bars for three days now, hasn’t left the apartment in five except on the second day when he went to the basement to do their laundry - it was his week - or the few times he’d stick his head out the window and just stay like that, eyes on the cityscape, everything below his third-story window.
“John,” Jesse says, fixated on the television. John hasn’t seen him get up for anything but popsicles these days. Even that seems obsolete because, “John, want to get me a popsicle?”
“I don’t,” John replies, twisting on the couch uncomfortably. He knows they could have bought an air conditioner - neither of them is low on cash or anything - but he feels he’s getting an experience out of the heat. “You should do it yourself.”
He sees Jesse move again, for those popsicles. Jesse twists to face him first, though, knees on the ground. “Those shorts you’re wearing are pretty gay, John.”
“You don’t even have pants on,” John points out, too hot to take being picked on.
“Yeah, well,” Jesse starts indignantly, voice harsh and husky and strained, as he squints at John. He pulls of his moist t-shirt and shrugs his shoulders. “Fuck you.”
The ice cream is important to Jesse, though, because he seems to have forgotten his frustration with John moping on the couch to get up to go to the kitchen. John closes his eyes and can hear Jesse’s bare feet against the wood flooring. He adjusts his head so it’s halfway off the couch, his lip is pressed to the arm cushion, forehead half sticking to the fabric around the cushion, half absorbing the stale air of the apartment and his hair is being moved into sweaty, abstract clumps. He hears the fridge open, and he can just imagine the cool air escaping, Jesse curling his toes without thinking about it, delight, and Jesse remembering that ice cream is kept in the freezer, opening the top door which incites even more delight and happy squirming. He’s memorized Jesse’s movements by now, can practically see how Jesse is half-grin-sneering, hand in the ice box as he reaches for the carton of popsicles, plastic wrappers sticking out, set up so they’re easy to grab and waiting for him.
John knows these things, he has to by now.
**
John likes to bathe when he gets sweaty. When his body gives up to the heat, he doesn’t like to linger in his drenched boxers and cotton t-shirts. He takes action and decides to take a bath, with a temperature cooler than the air of the apartment, and he just sits in it, occasionally submerging himself, eyes closed.
He does this often. A lot of times Jesse will come in, worried, and say something about how he should stop hogging the bathroom, there are two of them sharing the apartment. John will just sink his head into the tub so it’s all gargled and muted, and Jesse will give up, go back to his television and popsicles.
John sits in it that day, Jesse doesn’t come for at least an hour, but even then he only knows because he can hear Jesse’s feet sticking to the floorboards when he stands outside the door, hears when the skin slowly detaches from the wood. But it’s so hot; John doesn’t even want to move. He’s even run out of things to say to Jesse.
John uses these baths, though. They’re serene.
**
What John doesn’t know: Jesse endlessly getting popsicles and him endlessly moping is all part of a delicate loop. Once one of these is unbalanced, everything else will be unraveled. It’s a simple universe, a simple theory.
John also doesn’t know: Jesse calling it quits will completely send him into an alternate universe, because it’s not supposed to happen.
**
Jesse comes back from the kitchen, and instead of holding up his treat triumphantly, he’s scowling and glaring at John. He’s picking up his shirt, shrugging it on quickly, and everything is rough. His voice is thick in his throat when he glares up at John, still crouched to the floor, t-shirt in his hands when he says, “I have to get out of here - there’s no good food left.”
John almost laughs, but he feels betrayed somehow. They were supposed to be stuck in the heat together.
It’s a simple solution though. Jesse goes to the supermarket or the corner store, buys more of his popsicles, comes back in fifteen minutes.
The problem with that is, John is lying on the couch, counting the different joints on his fingers, when he realizes that fifteen minutes passes. Then forty. Then seventy.
Instead of Jesse coming back, he gets a phone call with Jesse saying he’ll pick up his possessions on a Friday, and that he can keep the apartment. John doesn’t want to keep it, so in a week there’s nothing in the space at all.
**
John wakes up on a box.
“This is odd,” he laughs, embarrassed, when his sister shoots him a particularly startled look. “It’s not that bad,” he adds.
Michelle is just doing her job. He’s in his new apartment, he’s been in it for three days, but it’s so hot again and he just ends up finding this long box, long enough to lay on, and sleeping on it. It’s not a big deal to him, but it must be for Michelle, who is standing at the doorway, eyes wide.
John, sheepish, explains, “It’s just really hot. I don’t like moving things. And Shaun, fuck him, he was supposed to come and help me on Monday but he didn’t come. He’s supposed to come later, though.”
He then looks around thoughtfully, as if affirming his good decision to move out. “Plus, I bought an air conditioner online. It’s supposed to have shipped yesterday.” He feels as though he’s made an accomplishment by being a mature adult and buying something to soothe the crippling heat.
Michelle walks over and begins unpacking one of his boxes, his box of linens, which was already started on because John loves baths. He, admittedly, is yet to take one.
“I’ll put these in your bathroom. God, John,” Michelle giggles and rolls her eyes, already done with being worried. “Have you showered yet? You stink.” She pointedly pinches her nose, disrupting her balance of the towels tucked in her arm.
John gets up and says, “Sure,” and he chuckles to himself, mostly when she’s out of the room, and finally starts unpacking, embarrassed to have only moved out the silverware and shirts.
**
It’s day four, and John really, really wants a bath. The air conditioner is installed and set up - it took John two hours of heroic struggling - and he feels like he’s deserved it. He’d earned the right to bathe again.
The apartment, the new one, is small and old-fashioned. It doesn’t have a shower head installed, or anything, just a huge washtub. John thinks it’s charming and the tub is borderline ornate with its design, with the fact that it has these sterling silver, or something silver and nice looking, claw feet that are planted into the tiles, so he’s excited to watch it fill to the top with water, excited to finally wash.
He lines his shampoo up on the floor next to the tub, by one of the bath’s feet, next to his conditioner and body wash before sinking into the tub.
Ever since he’s gotten to the new apartment, something just felt off. He knew other people might label it as a mental disease, pass it off as missing their best friend of many years they’d just moved out of an apartment with, but he knew it was different. He couldn’t pinpoint what.
He was in a whole alternate universe, but he didn’t know this, and couldn’t pinpoint just what was so different.
Not until, anyways, he’s situated in the tub, and he brings his hands over his face, washing in, before slowly sinking. His ears get filled with water, and his face submerged.
And suddenly, John can hear muffled sounds. It takes him an instant to realize they sound like human voices. Just talking away, about this and that. It’s almost an undistinguishable gush of noise, people talking and telling him about things, about how this apartment was old or their cat used to be named Miles or how they lost their favorite shoes during a storm.
John isn’t comfortable with this particular development, because hearing voices in bathtubs isn’t his idea of fun or comfort, so he pulls out, confused. He wonders if he’s just lost it, but a moment later he puts his ear against the water and he hears, ‘I was born 1886.’
John can hear ghosts in the bathtub.
**
The second time John takes a bath, he’s prepared. He’s still a little incredulous, because he’s not some adorable seven-year-old who sees the ghosts of his dad. He doesn’t know why dead people would even talk to him - he, sure, listens pretty well and is kind of charming, but nothing special.
And it’s only in the bathtub, too. But indefinitely, he’s pressing his ear against the water, a pre-shampoo hair rinse, and he can hear the snippet of a conversation: “Well, I lived next door for awhile from her. I used to watch her brush her hair every morning. I don’t think I loved her but it was fascinating to see. I’d watch her a lot.”
John laughs because it’s creepy and sad, and he’s totally listening to a ghost talk about their past.
Then a voice comes, louder than the regular low murmur of sound that John has to pick apart, a voice that sounds startlingly gentle and a little raspy, going, “Hey.”
It’s very clearly directed at John, for some reason John knows this.
John blinks and pulls his ear away. He frowns and tries to get his hair washed without having to hear that again. He thinks hearing ghosts is okay, but talking to them is, for some reason, a significant amount worse.
**
The tub is so Victorian and spooky looking when John sits in front of it, that he has made up his mind that it’s the tub. The tub is somehow connected with the realm beyond, and really, John doesn’t want to die if he’ll be stuck as a ghost haunting a bathtub. If he was to haunt anything, it’d be a church or something cliché but more impressive than a bathtub.
Either way, John is a practical sort of guy. He could just use his friend’s bathtub to wash.
He calls Vinnie up and can’t find a way to explain why he needs Vinnie’s tub, just says the water is out and he might stop by for a week or so to use the water. Vinnie says okay, and Jesse wasn’t even crashing in his apartment, so he didn’t have to worry about seeing him at all.
John considers Jesse not being there, and he doesn’t mind. The next morning he drives to Vinnie’s, excited, shampoo bottles sliding around in the backseat of the car, and he’s literally dripping joy (sweat and tears) when he sees an ordinary looking tub, with a shower head at the top.
He fills up the tub, after asking Vinnie if there are any ‘tricks to getting the water extra warm or anything’ and he closes the door behind himself, hearing the sounds of a baseball game on the television screen. He’s reminded of Jesse and his television but he doesn’t feel upset, more like it’s a memory, or a scene in a play. John enters bathtub, hears Jesse with television.
He drapes his pasty legs over the side of the tub, calves turning pink because God, Vinnie’s water is hot, hot like summer, and he slowly adjusts himself into the tub, inch by inch. When he’s in, he leans his back against the side of the tub, and grabs his body wash, ready to get to work. He doesn’t want to impose upon Vinnie.
When he tries to go in to wash his ears, it’s the same damn thing.
This time though, he just submits, shaking the sick feeling that it’ll never leave him, that he’s stuck with the burden of hundreds of dead people forever. Instead, though, above the unending chatter of the dead, he can hear the same ghost, still nameless, saying, “It’s okay.”
He’s being soothed, and for a moment, he just shifts in the tub, unsure, before sinking under the water. “It’s okay,” he hears, clearly. “Hi. This isn’t right. This universe, right? This is a universe you’re in. This sounds really, er, peculiar -” John thinks, no shit, I’m listening to a ghost, but doesn’t say anything. “I know, no shit. You’re talking to a dead guy. But this is a parallel universe to the one you were in before, John. It is.”
John stiffens, startled, and says, “Huh?” And he grabs his body wash, begins washing his legs. “I’m… okay.”
“Yes, you’re okay.” The voice sounds like he’s smiling, John can hear it. “You’ll be okay. This universe isn’t unlike the old one, except, think about it. What’s changed recently?”
John shrugs, hearing the water splash. He wonders if Vinnie can hear him. “I guess I moved to a new apartment. Is it the apartment?”
“Think harder.”
John stays quiet, for a moment, lathering up his arms. He’s not a good multitasker, so after a moment he just sits and thinks. “I… hear voices.”
The voice sounds amused. “Okay,” and John can hear the snippet of another slightly clear ghost, but one that isn’t talking to him directly, not like this one. “That’s closer.”
“Is it?”
“Yes,” the voice says, sounding more sure than John has ever felt. “Controlling the universe. How does that feel, man? Seriously.”
John laughs a little. “Pretty pimp,” his ear is against the water again. He doesn’t mind the ghost, likes the damn guy, even, so he doesn’t know why he was so scared before. Sure, the other voices drive him up the wall, but this dead guy is kind of comforting. “Should I be able to do this?” he asks, always a rule-follower.
“Well,” the voice pauses. “No. Not really. You’re not crazy, though. Just in an alternate universe you shouldn’t be in. That shouldn’t be active.”
“What should I do?” John asks.
The voice is quiet for a moment, and John is stuck listening to a woman talk about three cats she fed and a guy talk about surfing. He doesn’t know what to think, the other voices are overwhelming and irritating, but a moment later, the ghost is back, his voice is more frantic. “Just, can you… is it okay? Can you do something for me?”
John doesn’t know. “Can I think about this? If it’s like, telling your wife you loved her or something, of course, but.”
“My name is Kevin,” the voice says, and pauses. “So, I’m dead.”
“Yeah,” John agrees. “You are.” He pulls his head away from the water to grab the conditioner. He can hear Vinnie outside, and suddenly he was aware he wasn’t talking quietly anymore. “Wait, Kevin? Kevin Devine?”
Kevin sounds surprised. “Well, yeah.”
“I think I’ve met you before. But you weren’t a disembodied voice.” John sounds thoughtful, and he wonders how his life got to the point where he can even have conversations like this. “You have red hair.”
“Yeah,” Kevin says. “Wow.”
John shrugs and says good-bye, because Kevin just is stuck in some happy awe. John leaves the tub and gathers his supplies, hands slippery, quickly drying off and changing into the clothes he’d selected.
**
John, coincidentally, when he was a teen, wondered what it would be like to fuck up reality and cause the end of the world. He didn't exactly know what to think about it then, and he definitely still doesn't.
**
John has begun talking to Kevin in his tub every night. He’s a little self-conscious by the second visit though, because he knows the alive Kevin Devine, who works in journalism and lives near his sister, the one who isn’t dead and who doesn’t haunt bathtubs, so he briefly considers putting on swim-bottoms before he bathes.
The idea seems far too strange, even for someone like John, and Kevin doesn’t even say anything about his nudity. Kevin must know about him, though, because once he commented on John’s minty shampoo, about how he would kill for some mint ice cream.
By the fifth visit, Kevin finally says, a bit promptlessly, “You know, you don’t look half bad naked.”
“Thanks,” John responds, utterly useless.
After that shift, though, things are back to normal, just the two talking, and John realizes that Kevin is actually the nicest guy he’s ever met. Some part of him knows though, that reality is just hanging by it’s hinges - some part of him is compelled to just drive over to Jesse’s, apologize, but the idea is more distant and less appealing each night.
There’s some all-knowing force in him, though, that knows he’s supposed to be with Jesse, in that apartment. It’s still on sale, he checked. He’s even been getting ominous messages in nature, for goodness sake. A flock of birds spelling ‘J+J’ or something equally as pointed, as if mother nature was clearing her throat meaningfully, and John thinks he’s nuts, but he really, really could soak in the tub all day, talking to Kevin.
That is when John realizes he loves Kevin.
**
John goes outside and his shoe is covered with ants. He left his shoe outside after spilling some sugary soda on it; he was thinking about Kevin, and he was doing very logically unsound things due to this. It’s sitting outside the apartment, and nobody has even touched it.
John gets a job that day, and when he comes back, the shoe is gone.
He doesn’t know who’s taken it, but he does know the ants are still there.
John is unaware that this is a sign reality is slowly unwinding.
**
Kevin Devine, the journalist, not the ghost, was supposed to die. Either that or he wasn’t supposed to be dead already. There is a simple rule that governs a decent amount of reality, and that is that a person cannot literally be dead and alive at the same time - arguably, they can be figuratively, but also arguable is reality in itself. A few things had to happen for reality to be shifted back into its proper place: Kevin had to either be dead or alive, and John had to be with Jesse.
Kevin, the one who haunts the tub, used to ply John, implore, “John, you really need to try and win him back. John, this isn’t fair to the other people.” He’d even say, “Jesse needs you. I think he’d take you back. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”
Jesse has been coming up less and less, though, and becoming easier to talk about.
John’s nose will be filled with water, it’ll be disruptive because he’ll have to blow his nose in middle of the bath, and he’ll say to Kevin, “I will, I promise. Just in a bit.” He doesn’t say anything about how he’s okay with where he is now, drifting in between his job and the tub.
**
Jesse is still alive, too. He’s supposed to be. He runs into Kevin who isn’t supposed to be alive, and he’s seen Kevin around, but he’s also seen too many people around. They’re in the liquor section of a grocery store, and Jesse can’t look away from Kevin.
This is very much because Kevin has the air of someone who has something quite important to say but doesn’t know what it is or if they’re supposed to say it to the other person, especially because they haven’t previously acquainted themselves with the other person. Neither man has any idea that the topic hanging overhead is John Nolan, of all things, so instead, Jesse walks up to Kevin, smiling tragically, and greets, “hey.”
Kevin twists his lips into odd formations, trying to let the words he hasn’t quite figured out yet escape. Instead he gives up; appearing defeated, and says, “Hi. I know you, don’t I?”
“I’m Jesse, Jesse Lacey,” Jesse introduces himself, giving Kevin his hand.
For some reason, Kevin doesn’t want to take it, but again, he has no idea why. He’s hesitant but not discourteous, and Jesse doesn’t think anything of it. When shaking Jesse’s hand, a frown is on his face, though not a particularly cruel one. He pulls his hand away and digs his sneakers onto the cheap tiled floor of the supermarket, hearing them squeak unattractively as they frantically tried to find traction with the finish of the flooring.
There’s something familiar about Jesse, but again, Kevin, in his life, he will never be able to satisfactorily explain why this is, not until he dies. He has no idea he is having a near-affair with Jesse’s ex-boyfriend who should still be his boyfriend. In fact, he doesn’t even consider this a probability.
“I’m Kevin,” Kevin offers a smile, because Jesse actually seems really wary and tired, and Kevin is all for mending the wary and tired. Jesse’s eyes have bags under him; he looks artistically disheveled, disposition politely unfocused. His lips are chapped, and Kevin offers him chapstick, and says, “You know, this sounds really strange, but I feel like… can we meet up for coffee? Not a date or anything. But I feel as though there’s something urgent.”
Jesse blinks, applying the chapstick carefully, and thinks Kevin as one of the strangest men he’s ever met. “Yeah, sure.” His voice is gravelly and tired-sounding, blending in dramatically but precisely with the rest of his demeanor.
Kevin smiles and says, “So, Jesse. Next Friday?”
**
John’s drinking more and more coffee. He gets up from his cubicle and it’s only coffee, coffee, coffee, until his hands shake and he can’t read the spreadsheets in front of him, and he’s sitting up and standing down. Until his head hurts.
This is because, during the past week, Kevin’s voice is getting dimmer and dimmer. The tub voices are all fading slowly, and John, while he didn’t care much for the other voices, he’d gotten used to them.
“The air quality,” he hears through the radio he has set up in his cubicle, through his headphones that he’d stolen from an airplane pouch on accident, cheap, black shiny plastic with the airline’s brand on it, “is on the rise.”
It’s New York City, where the air quality is definitely not supposed to be ‘on the rise’. John has noticed, though. His allergies aren’t quite as dreadful as they normally are towards the end of the summer.
John’s cubicle has a chair with wheels, as does every chair in every cubicle in his office. His legs, hallowed and frail, are rocking the seat back and forth, and he’s doing everything in his power not to think about how he could be potentially losing Kevin’s voice in his tub, how Kevin will, potentially, of course, soon no longer be dead.
**
John is surprised when Kevin’s voice in his tub is as clear as crystal. “You know how I’m supposed to be dead? I finally died.”
“Wait.” John always fidgets when he doesn’t get something. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Now it does. I’m supposed to be dead. John, don’t you get it? I finally died. Reality is trying to fix itself on its own.”
John cries that night, overcome with a certain feeling that he can’t explain. He doesn’t care that he’ll never be able to touch Kevin, because he’s content just to be able to talk to him. He thinks this might mean he’ll get to talk to Kevin forever.
**
Next Friday comes and Jesse goes to the coffee shop he and Kevin agreed upon. Kevin doesn’t show, but Jesse isn’t disappointed by this. Kevin is a weird guy from the grocery store to him.
**
Kevin’s voice is loud and clear and strong to John every night now. They talk about tennis and Motown and all the strange things that are still happening, how John should be with Jesse and Jesse should be with John. John wants to be with Kevin, but he sees slight difficulties with this. One of them is Kevin definitely no longer has a body.
Kevin always liked the idea of ashes, so of course his body was burned.
John’s caffeine is getting worse so he’s sleeping less, his thighs are still hallowed and frail, but he gets Kevin every night, stays in the tub until he’s swollen. He needs to fix up his tub, actually, because he dropped his razor in it one morning and it inexplicably chipped. This wasn’t supposed to happen, either, because the razor has a very low relative mass and couldn’t possibly chip the old-fashioned, porcelain tub. However, there’s a crack in the tub, gray and menacing, and John finds it very portentous.
**
Jesse finds John on a Monday; it’s been two months since they split apart. In this time Kevin has died, air has gotten better, ants are goddamn everywhere, and John is committed to caffeine. These things are all minor, though, because Jesse finds John, buzzes his apartment.
When he walks in, his eyes are sad and hard and John has never seen him so tired. Jesse, who always looked so young, suddenly looks washed-out and spent, and his blue eyes are squinting at John’s face. “John,” he draws the name out, and he’s not even through the doorway yet. But John opened the door for him, surprised at how badly he wanted to turn the knob, knowing Jesse was behind it.
“We’re…” John grabs his forearm, rougher than he wants to but the feeling is the same, gentle and meek and right. “Jesse, the apartment we moved out of. It’s still there, you know. We could go back.”
Jesse sneezes. “I bought it already. I live there, alone.” Jesse was the first one out of the apartment, now he’s the first one in.
John, misty-eyed, finds these words to be irrevocably right, perfectly situated. “Can we talk about this?”
“Sure,” Jesse says, not sounding entirely confident, not like he used to, but he’s treading towards the couch John has, the same one from their old apartment.
“I mean that,” John says, and he’s stricken with the fact that he knows he’ll never talk to Kevin again. And John cries, bubbling sobs, messy crying and Jesse thinks it’s for him, but it’s not.
**
Jesse has his popsicles and John has his baths. They have their apartment, and John doesn’t hear ghosts anymore. He doesn’t go into the tub expecting it, either. In fact, he hardly remembers it - he remembers it like he remembers a movie, a scene, something surreal and something that was even nonparticipatory.
His legs are every which way on the couch and Jesse is on the floor, sprawled on his back, knees up, blue eyes opening and closing as he watches John like he used to watch television.
Jesse says, “Have you ever felt like it was supposed to be this? With us here?” He’s always been a romantic when the moment was right.
John agrees, bobbing his head so the back of his skull hits the bolster on the way up each time.