Part 4 (BBB 2012)

[pinkichan]

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Sean begins to feel like maybe he and Ryan can put this whole kissing thing behind them and come out okay in the end. He begins to feel safer. It’s why he doesn't object when, after a particularly triumphant day in the studio, Ross invites them out and offers to pay.

He still doesn’t drink a lot; even Ryan seems to be keeping himself in check this time. Logically, Sean knows that the alcohol can’t be the sole blame for his kiss with Ryan, but he doesn’t understand the alternative answer enough to warn for that. If he has to spend the rest of his life being careful of not getting fucked up and losing himself with Ryan, then so be it. It isn’t ideal, but it isn’t going to fuck everything up, either.

“You guys really impressed the fuck out of me today,” Ross says. He’d watched their practice today and Tom had, of course, showed off for him, which made Max laugh at him. Ross raises his glass in a toast and the rest of them crowd around him.

“To good fucking music,” Tom says. Ross laughs and nods.

“To good fucking music.”

The night slides by lighter and easier than the last few have been and Sean enjoys every second of it. If he can feel normal without the ghosts and without feeling shit that's dangerous to feel, then he’ll do it for as long as he can.

He isn’t even worried when he and Ryan go home and Ryan leans against him in the backseat of his car. Max is bitching at them about starting to charge a fee for how many times he’s had to drive them home and, again, he steals Ryan’s car for the night.

Ryan takes off his shoes and jacket by the door and then goes and sits in the center of Sean’s living room floor.

“What are you doing?” Sean asks. He shrugs out of his own layers, stripping down to his t-shirt.

“Sitting.”

“No shit. Why not on the couch?”

“The couch makes me tired. I don’t want to sleep yet.”

“Oh, got some other parties to go to?”

Ryan laughs. It’s finally the kind of rough, barking laughter that he can’t help and that Sean sort of loves. “No. Hey, are you hungry?” Ryan asks. “Because I’m hungry.”

“I could eat,” Sean says with a shrug.

Ryan gets on his knees and puts his hand out. “Help me up! I’m going to make us grilled cheese.”

Sean goes and stands in front of Ryan. “I don’t even think I have cheese, dude.”

“Shit, we don’t shop enough.” Ryan takes Sean’s hand before Sean is ready and tries to pull himself up. It doesn’t work and Sean slips to his knees instead of getting Ryan standing. “We’re too drunk to stand,” Ryan says mournfully, “and we have no cheese.”

Sean rolls his eyes. “I can stand and we have cereal.”

He proves his point by standing up and offering Ryan his hand again. Ryan is still on his knees, head tipped down. He doesn’t take Sean’s hand, but he’s smiling all wide and toothy. Without realizing beforehand, Sean quickly grows aware of their position. He’s standing and Ryan is on his knees, his head the perfect level to Sean’s crotch. It’d be easy to do a lot right now, to ask Ryan to touch him, to let Ryan touch him. The more Sean stares down at him, the more he has the very distinct urge to lick the hard edge of Ryan’s teeth.

Ryan’s head is bowed a little. Sean isn’t sure how he never noticed how long Ryan’s eyelashes are, but it’s all he can pay attention to now - the dark line of lashes as Ryan looks up at him, eyes heated but hazy. Sean licks his lips and, before he can own up to his own actions, his hand is already hovering near Ryan’s shoulder.

Ryan notices - of course he does. He’s drunk, but he’s still aware of Sean around him, maybe more aware than when he’s sober. Neither of them is saying anything. Sean is standing there with his hand inches from Ryan’s body, closer to his face than his shoulder now, and Ryan is looking at him, pink mouth open and eyes heavy.

Sean wants to touch. If he’s being honest, he knows he’s wanted it, wanted Ryan. He’s not sure he’s ever wanted something more in his life than to be able to touch Ryan right now. He wants to be able to sink to his knees and kiss the slack from Ryan’s mouth. He wants to rub his thumbs against Ryan’s cheekbones and scratch his fingertips against Ryan’s stubble. He wants to taste him again and see if it’s the same as last time. He wants to know what it’s like upright, how Ryan will react.

He wants to do this so badly, he fucking wants Ryan so badly. He can’t blame it on the drink because he’s not stumbling, he’s fucking fine. He’s so tired of running from the feelings that burn white-hot in his chest, of telling himself ‘no’ when all he wants is to scream ‘yes’ and take everything he can get, but he can’t bring himself to do it. There’s too much. He’s got too much on his plate already with the fucking ghosts and their shitty, cryptic words and the band - oh, shit, the band. They could never…they’d never hear the end of it from Tom and Max.

“Ryan,” Sean says. His voice betrays him because it comes out as the beginning of something Sean can’t even hope to back up. The words feel strange and foreign hanging in the air between them. Sean almost feels like he’s watching this all happen outside of himself, like it’s a movie and he has no fucking clue what comes next. Ryan tips his head up now to fully look at Sean, head back and eyes dark, though the heavy softness of them is gone.

His face has got this defiant tilt to it, like Sean can already guess that Ryan’s going to pretend he never wanted anything from Sean before Sean can tell him he doesn’t want him. Fuck, even if he said it, it wouldn’t be true. He wants. He wants so fucking badly that the only thing keeping him grounded is the one question that’s running on repeat in his head.

What do you want more? The band or Ryan?

“Stop thinking so fucking much,” Ryan says. He doesn’t sound at all light or happy like he had before. They’re fucking slipping again and Sean doesn’t know how it happened so quickly.

“Someone has got to do the thinking.”

“Fuck you,” Ryan says. “You’re just scared.”

Sean wasn’t expecting that; he wasn’t ready for Ryan to strike out. He wasn't ready for the truth.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. It’s fucking stupid. You’ll tangle with ghosts but it’s me you’re afraid of? That’s fucking bullshit, Sean.”

“You’re drunk,” Sean says.

“I’m fine.”

“If you’re fine, then why are you pushing this?”

Ryan moves his hair out his face. Sean’s mind is a traitor because all he can think of is how beautiful Ryan is, how much he likes to be around him, how much he doesn’t want to fight with him. “You’re afraid. You don’t think I can’t see the look in your eyes right now? You think I don’t know when someone wants me as much as I want them?”

“You’re only like this when you’re drunk,” Sean says.

Ryan laughs now and it’d be ridiculous if anyone else were watching them. Ryan is still on his knees and Sean is standing dumbly in his living room, trying to explain away the truth and ruining everything in the process.

“We both remember the kiss, Sean. I know you do, and that shit the other night when you touched me when you took off my shoes? When you’re drunk is the only time you’ll be honest with yourself, when you’ll stop being scared of what you want.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Sean hisses.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want me,” Ryan challenges.

Sean can’t. Right now, Ryan is Medusa and if he looks, he’s dead, he’s gone, and so is their friendship and the band and everything Sean’s been fighting to protect. “You’ve been chasing something I can’t give you.”

“That’s not an answer.” Ryan is standing now. He gets right in front of Sean, right in his space. Sean can smell him, smell the drinks he had and the cologne he’s wearing. “The way you kissed me that night…that’s not something you can fake.”

“I was lonely,” Sean says, “and drunk and you were here.”

“You’re lying.”

Seriously, fuck Ryan and how well he knows Sean. Fuck what he thinks he knows. Doesn’t he care about the band? Doesn’t he want to save them before it’s too late?

“Stop acting like you know what I’m thinking.”

Ryan laughs, desperate and tight. “You can’t even look at me.” Ryan looks down at their feet and then Sean feels hands cupping the back of his hands. He doesn’t pull away. “I do know what you’re thinking, by the way - maybe not everything, but a lot, and you hate it because you can’t hide this from me.” His hands shift as he talks, sliding to take both of Sean’s in his own, his cool, rough fingertips meeting Sean’s.

“I don’t know what to do,” Sean says. His defenses are falling, the walls crumbling, and Ryan is seeping inside of him. He’s tired of fighting it, of not having what he knows he really wants out of some martyr complex, like doing it for the band will make not having Ryan in the way he wants somehow easier to live with. At this rate, Sean doubts it would ever be easy.

One of Ryan’s hands stays clasped with Sean’s and the other slides up his bare arm, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. Sean’s too tall and Ryan’s too short, so his hand curls around the back of Sean’s shoulder, urging him down, down, down.

“Stop hiding, for one thing,” Ryan says softly.

When Sean’s dipped down enough, Ryan lets go of his other hand and winds both arms around Sean’s middle, pressing his face into the crook of Sean’s neck, the tip of his nose cold against Sean’s skin. Sean’s hands are at his side, but he raises them and mimics the pose. He holds Ryan, his hands soaking up the warmth of Ryan’s compact body.

“Sean,” Ryan says into Sean’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” Sean’s mouth is by Ryan’s ear and he can feel Ryan shiver. Every inch of Sean is at attention, reacting to Ryan’s body reacting to him. His fingers dig into the fabric of Ryan’s shirt. He has the insane wish to just sink inside of Ryan, to be absorbed by him and become a part of him and then he wouldn’t have to want or feel afraid because they’d be two halves of the same whole.

Ryan pulls back some, enough that his nose brushes Sean’s cheek. He looks at Sean, really looks at him, and then his eyes slip closed and he leans forward. They’re kissing again. It’s nothing like their first kiss, one of pure want and fury and a lifetime of asking ‘why the fuck haven’t we always been doing this?’ This one is something else. This is Ryan asking Sean to be here with him and not run away; this is Ryan being fearless when he opens his mouth against Sean’s.

Sean moans before he can help himself and Ryan’s hands fly to Sean’s face, kissing him harder. He’s really trying to shut down his brain and be here, give in, let go. Ryan wants to kiss him and Sean wants it, too. That should be enough.

Sean makes good on his earlier urge, running his tongue along the line of Ryan’s teeth. Ryan shivers against him and Sean tugs him closer. There isn’t one inch of space between them. This is as close as Sean can get to fusing them together.

Ryan backs them up. Sean seriously underestimated how take-charge Ryan is. Sean thinks he’s trying to lead them to his bedroom, but they hit the hallway wall instead, Sean landing against it with an ‘oof.’ They break the kiss then and Ryan grins at him with a wet mouth, bitten lips. Holy shit, Sean feels dizzy from it all.

“You’re important to me,” Ryan says. “I want to be with you.”

The words are too much when Sean’s brain is still caught up on kissing Ryan. Sean pulls him forward again so that he can kiss him once more. He tastes almost the same as last time, but slightly different from the drink or, maybe, the different brand of cigarettes he’s been smoking. Sean likes it, though, the heat and the wet and the way Ryan matches him, and digs his teeth into Sean’s lip.

“What about you?” Ryan asks when they pull back to breathe.

Sean doesn’t know. What about him? He’s a mess. He’s playing this in all the wrong ways. He should’ve stopped ten minutes ago and never found out what Ryan tasted like for a second time. Ryan’s waiting for an answer, but Sean is out of words, mouth no good for anything but kissing at this point. He doesn’t answer. Instead, he touches Ryan’s elbow and leaps into the fire. He tugs him forward for another kiss, hard and misaligned, and their teeth clack together embarrassingly hard.

Ryan doesn’t seem too sad about not getting an answer. He presses up against Sean and leans up, hands braced against Sean’s chest, fingers digging into the fabric of Sean’s shirt, kissing him until he’s completely breathless. Sean’s mind is shutting down, one faction after another, until he’s fine with the warm push-pull of their mouths against each other and Ryan’s hand against his chest, keeping him pinned to the wall. Every sound Ryan makes, Sean wants to memorize it, keep it forever and feel it vibrating in his bones just like it is right now. It’s when he feels a hand brush the hard outline of his cock through his jeans that the systems come back to life.

He’s looking at Ryan, who’s smirking and then undoing Sean’s jeans. “What?” Sean asks.

“Shh, let me,” Ryan says. “I want to.” His fingers tug down Sean’s zipper. Sean tips his head to smack against the wall. Ryan’s hand disappears into Sean’s pants and then, and then, Ryan is touching him through his boxer briefs. Sean’s world turns into a static-filled rush of blood.

He hasn’t gotten off with another person in a long time, too long of a time, and this isn’t just a person from a bar or an ex. This is fucking Ryan. Sean arches up against the wall, his body chasing Ryan's fleeting touch. Ryan is coaxing Sean’s dick out of his pants, it’s Ryan smiling like a sly fox. Ryan closes his hand around Sean’s dick and Sean gets the image of that same hand, those clever fingers, being used for drumming, for creating music as deftly as they’re now stroking Sean.

Thinking of the band right now is bad, but Sean’s opened the box and now he can’t close it, can’t even find the lid for it. He imagines Tom and Max on the outskirts of the room, watching either with approval or disdain, mostly saying how dumb this is, how this doesn’t affect just him and Ryan but all of them. The panic strikes quick and sharp like a slap to the face. Sean half-gasps because Ryan’s hand feels fucking amazing and he's touching this spot just under the head of Sean's dick, but he let this whole thing get away from him and now he has to reclaim it.

“No,” Sean says. “No, stop, we can’t.”

Ryan listens, drawing his hand back but raising an eyebrow, something knowing and painful flashing through his gaze. Sean wishes he weren’t like glass for Ryan, wishes he hadn’t been looking at Ryan. Why did he even kiss him again?

“You don’t want me to touch you?”

“I…Ryan, no, we can’t. It’s…it’s too much.”

“We can kiss, then. I don’t care,” Ryan says. He tries to lean back in to kiss Sean again, but Sean grabs him up by the shoulders and stops him.

“We can’t do anything.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” Ryan asks. There’s heat to his cheeks, that defiant look back on his face. He looks like he’s prepared to fight tooth and nail and Sean is terrified of that.

“Maybe if we weren’t such good friends or if we weren’t in the band, then we could…I mean - ”

“You’re thinking again, aren’t you? Don’t start thinking again, Sean. You overthink everything. Please don’t do that to this.”

“You just don’t get it, do you?” Sean says. “Empires is the most important thing in my life. You’re a part of that, but if we do this - ” He squeezes Ryan’s shoulders. “If we fuck that up…it’ll ruin everything.”

“What makes you think it’ll ruin anything? Maybe it’ll be good! Maybe we’ll be happy together like normal fucking people regardless of the band.”

“Look at Jon and Ryan,” Sean says. “They dated, they broke up, and it ruined their band. They’re not even friends anymore. Jon left the fucking country to get away from him!”

“We’re not them.” Ryan shrugs out of Sean’s grasp. “We’re not them at all. You’re scared and you’re running again. At least own the fuck up to that, Sean.”

“I’m doing this for us, you realize?”

“You’re making us both miserable to protect us? Oh, thanks so much, Sean.”

Sean doesn’t know what to say now. Ryan is upset and it’s obvious that he’s willing to risk everything for a chance to make it work with Sean, but Sean isn’t Ryan. He isn’t willing to do the same; that’s where they fall apart. Ryan is so clearly hurt and that’s hurting Sean, it really is - he never wanted to make Ryan hurt. He wanted them to be happy, to be the same as they always were, but Sean isn’t doing a good job of it.

Ryan is still clearly waiting for something from Sean, but he’s got nothing. If he talks, he’ll start spewing shit or apologizing - or…he doesn’t know what he’ll do and that’s scarier than anything else. The room is still hot, it smells like the beginnings of sex. Sean's fucking cock is still hanging out of his pants.

He can almost see when Ryan retreats in on himself, when a wall that had never been there before slides firmly into place. He can see the second that Ryan loses his trust in Sean.

Ryan’s looking downward. “I’m going to crash,” he tells the floor.

Sean drops his hands to his pants, tucking himself away. He pretends like his hands were never raised at all, that he never wanted at all, that he isn't hard right now and begging for Ryan to finish what he started. Sean locks the moment down and tries so fucking hard not to let it bubble up into that weird zone where he translates every moment, failure or otherwise, into some vaguely related lyrics. Writing songs about how much he wanted to be able to kiss Ryan isn’t much better than actually kissing him.

He scratches the back of his neck. He can’t think of anything else to say, not a ‘stop’ or ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘I don’t mean to be like this.’ All he can think to say is, “Okay.”

Ryan laughs, but it’s bitter and cuts the air in the room. He slips past Sean. He knows that if it wasn’t four in the morning and he hadn’t been drinking and Max didn’t have his car, Ryan wouldn’t even be here right now. He’s gone into the spare room, slamming the door closed before Sean can even consider saying ‘goodnight.’

***
In the morning, Sean wakes up feeling like shit. He doesn’t even want to get out of bed because he’s afraid of what he’ll find. Lying there and staring at the ceiling is no better because every second he’s replaying what happened, what he should have said, what he should have done, what would have happened if he hadn’t stopped it. Sean finally gets up and walks out into the living room. The apartment is silent and the door to the spare bedroom is open - that’s empty, too. There’s no note, but Sean isn’t surprised. He knew Ryan was gone because the air hadn’t felt the same, didn’t feel full or warm or smell like world-famous Luciani pancakes.

Without anyone there, Sean heads back to bed. He can’t even bring himself to write. He just lies there and thinks about what happens next. Last night went the exact opposite of how Sean wanted it to go. He rolls over and presses his face into his pillows. He and Ryan didn’t even part on good terms. They’re scheduled for a practice today, so maybe Ryan just needed some time. Sean isn’t exactly brokenhearted by Ryan not being here right now because he doesn’t know what would’ve happened if he had been. Would they have talked? Fought some more? Time will be good and maybe they can patch shit up after practice.

Sean didn’t sleep much, his mind keeping him restless for the remainder of the night. He falls back to sleep again - the good kind of sleep, where you’re dead to the world for a few hours -and doesn’t have to think about how he fucked up. When he wakes back up and his phone is ringing, the feeling sinks right back into his chest, the heavy dread that he knows won’t go away on its own.

Tom is calling him and Sean fumbles around with sleep in his eyes before he manages to answer it. “Yeah?”

“You’re late,” Tom says. He doesn’t sound annoyed, though, just worried but lacking his usual bitching tone. Sean glances at the clock on the nightstand. Tom is right. Sean should have been at practice twenty minutes ago.

“Shit, I’m sorry. I’ll come right now.”

“It’s cool. See you when you get here.”

Sean doesn’t even shower, just pulls on the same pants from last night and scrubs a hand through his hair before picking up his jacket and wallet and taking off. He’s grown too used to riding around in Ryan’s car, so he’s even later by the time he gets to Max’s place. What’s weird is that Ross’ rental is parked in the driveway next to Max’s mom’s car, but Ryan’s isn’t. Sean tries not to worry about it and slips through the side door, heading downstairs to the basement.

Tom and Ross are sitting side-by-side on the couch and Max is at his computer messing around with what sounds like one of the tracks they recorded last practice. Sean glances at the empty kit in the corner.

“If you needed a ride, you could’ve called,” Tom says.

Sean rolls his eyes and slips off his jacket. “So what are we doing?”

“Not sure. We’ve been going over the stuff we just did; getting geared up, you know?” Tom says as he looks at Max.

“What about Ryan?” Sean asks. “Is he here?”

“Ah, no, he texted me earlier and said he didn’t feel good so he wouldn’t be coming tonight,” Max says.

“Oh.” Sean can’t ignore the pang of worry, the red flag that immediately pops up for him. It could just be that he needs more time before he can face Sean or it could be that he’s not willing to let this go. He tries not to let his worry show up on his face. He tunes his guitar instead, even though he doesn’t know if he’ll even end up using it tonight.

Practice turns out to be not much of a practice at all. Sean doesn’t feel like singing and they can’t record shit without Ryan unless they want to add in his part later, but that defeats the whole organic thing they’re doing with the other songs. They sit together and listen to the songs they’ve already recorded. It’s not a complete waste; something about listening to stuff he’s written before, things he doesn’t remember writing, sparks up a new fuel inside of him. Even though he finds the night too distracting to write during, he might pen some lines down just so that he doesn’t forget this feeling.

They leave practice early, but Tom slides up to Sean before they leave. “Hey, can I talk to you?” he asks. Sean shrugs and then nods as he follows Tom up the stairs and out the side door to the driveway. It’s freezing cold, but Sean is in a hoodie, Tom in less than that.

“Nick texted me today to tell me that Ryan said he’s staying there now,” Tom says. He’s honest to a fault, brutal, even. He pulls no punches, especially with Sean.

He can’t say he’s surprised at all. “Yeah, I figured he would eventually. I mean, we never had an agreement or anything. Ryan’s like a stray cat or something…he wanders.” Sean feels sick just talking about it, how he’s lying because he’s one hundred percent sure that, if they hadn’t gotten into it last night, Ryan would be at practice and on the couch with Sean when he got home.

Tom looks at him for a long moment and Sean thinks he might know everything. If he does, he doesn’t say shit about it. He just shakes loose a cigarette from his pack and slides it between his lips. “Will you go back and tell Ryan that I’m smoking?” Tom asks.

Sean nods and Tom gives him a two-finger salute as he flicks his lighter to life. Sean heads back downstairs. Max is gone, but Ross is still sitting there on the couch, phone in hand. He looks up when he hears Sean and smiles.

“Tom wanted me to tell you he’s outside smoking.”

“Tom is always smoking,” Ross says.

“Where’s Max?”

“Oh, he went upstairs for something.”

Sean goes to his guitar and puts it up on the wall. While he’s doing that, the air in the room changes, crackles with something that makes the hair on Sean’s arms stand up on end. It’s a feeling he hasn’t gotten since seeing the girl in the dream and the ghosts outside of his building who watched him from the ground.

The feeling is coming from behind him. Sean is sure that, if he turns around, he’s going to be face to face with that girl or, even worse, someone else who died because of him. He spends far too long fixing his guitars, but the feeling still isn’t going away. He can definitely feel a presence in the room, pressing in on the edges of his mind. Sean shivers and turns around.

To his surprise, there’s no one - well, no ghost, since Ross is still in the room and texting, but he looks up at Sean, knees pulled to his chest and one eyebrow rose up.

“Everything copacetic?” Ross asks.

“Yeah, man, just kinda all over the place tonight, you know?”

Ross nods and unfolds himself, standing up and stretching so that his body is one tiny, thin reed. The presence is gone now, but as Ross heads towards the stairs, Sean notices that the spirit attached to him is glowing brighter than usual.

***
Not much changes the next day. He wakes up and doesn’t talk to Ryan. He writes but hates almost all of it. He has the songs they’ve recorded on his phone and plays them to try and recapture the spark he felt last night. That seems to do the trick; Sean taps into something that has his hand double-timing to catch up with how fast the words are filling his brain. He only stops writing when he’s too hungry to keep going. Without Ryan, he really hasn’t been keeping up with things like personal hygiene and eating.

Three more days pass like that and Sean barely leaves his apartment. He’s writing and drinking, mostly. He does shower and texts Tom to remind him that he’s not dead. He hasn’t heard from Ryan. He misses him. Honestly, he does - he missed him the second he walked away to go to the spare bedroom that night. He hates himself for missing Ryan but not missing him enough to go after him. He’s making himself miserable for what? His friendship with Ryan took a hit and the band isn’t practicing. Isn’t this exactly what he didn’t want to happen?

He’s showered today, though, and has a few songs ready to show to Max and Tom. He actually arrives to practice early. Ross is here again, but their Ryan isn’t. Sean hasn’t personally been texting him, but Tom has, and he told Ryan about every practice they’ve had since that night. Sean collapses in a seat next to Max. “I’ve got some stuff to show you,” he says, opening his laptop before finding the right stuff and then handing it over to Max. At the last minute, Sean took out the song that he likes the most, the one that also feels too intimate, like a clear snapshot of Sean’s heart.

It’s just he and Max in the studio right now because Tom is dicking around upstairs with Ross - fuck, maybe he’s even talking to their Ryan while he’s at it. It’s always hard to read Max, even harder to gauge what he thinks about something while he’s reading it. Sean picks at his nails and rolls the chair back and forth and ignores the abandoned kit in the corner.

“I like it,” Max says finally.

Sean smiles at him. “Which one?”

“Well, they all fit where we’re going,” Max says, turning the laptop back to Sean. “I’m excited to hear what you sound like on these.”

Tom comes back and Sean lets him see the songs, too. Ross reads them once Sean says that he doesn’t mind. These are definitely dark songs, Sean knows it. That’s what Max meant when he said that they fit the grit of the songs already selected for their next album. It feels weird to talk about band shit, about direction, without Ryan there. Sean wants to ask about him, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to know in case it’s something he doesn’t want to hear.

At the end of practice, Max’s mom needs Max and Tom to move some shit for her, so they head out together, squabbling up the stairs like true blood brothers. Ross is in his usual spot on the couch. Sean is shutting down his laptop when he feels it, that same prickling, heavy feeling in the air. It’s stronger this time and Sean knows something is here.

“You’re still resisting,” a voice says. Sean jumps in his seat before he realizes that it’s just Ross. He turns in his chair, kicking his foot out to stop him so that he’s facing Ross. He’s not looking at Sean, but the spot in his chest where the spirit attached itself originally is glowing even brighter than the last time Sean noticed it.

“What?” Sean asks.

Ross lifts his head and, instead of his normal eyes, there’s nothing but black, no white, no nothing but darkness. “I said, you’re still putting up too much resistance. No one can get through to you.”

“Ross?” Sean asks. He stands now, though he isn’t sure what to do. In all his years and all his experiences, he’s never fucking seen this happen.

“No, but I don’t think he’ll mind if I borrow him for a minute,” Ross says - well, his body says, because apparently, Ross has checked out.

“You’re a ghost, then?” Sean asks. Suddenly, the feeling makes sense, why it was only happening when it was just he and Ross in the room. Sean was sensing Ryan’s attached spirit. “You’re the one inhabiting him?” Ross nods. Sean can barely look at him with his pitch-black eyes and expressionless face. “I didn’t think attached spirits were strong enough to do that.”

“It was a challenge, but I had to do it. I’m the only one who can get through to you.”

“Get through to me?”

“The others said that there is a barrier between them and your home.”

“A barrier? The only times I’ve ever been able to keep spirits away from me were when I actively tried and when Ryan was hiding salt in my pockets.”

Ross shrugs. “I don’t know. All I know is that not one spirit can get to you at home.”

“But that girl did…do you know what’s going on with her? She said I killed her by not saving her.”

“She was very angry,” the spirit inside of Ross tells him. “Honestly, she shouldn’t have blamed you. You didn’t know yet.”

“Know what? Damn it, don’t you guys ever just get to the fucking point?”

“There’s a person here who is stealing people,” Ross says.

“Stealing people? You mean…like all those missing people on the news?”

Ross nods, but it’s just barely. The spirit must not be strong enough to control his body beyond using him as a mouthpiece. “He likes to collect them. He didn’t mean to kill the girl, but in doing so, he helped us.”

“Where do I come in?” Sean asks. He doesn’t see a connection. He’s not a police officer or Batman. What can he do that any other person in Chicago couldn’t?

“He’s good about covering his tracks,” the spirit says. “The only ones who know where he’s keeping his collection are the ones who were once there and are no longer.”

“Are you talking about more people he killed?” Sean feels sick. What if every person on the news in the last few weeks is dead?

“He didn’t exactly kill them,” Ross offers, “but there are only a few. They shared their stories and they got passed around until someone thought of you.”

“Why me?” Sean asks.

“You’re the only one who can hear us in the entire city.”

“Shit.” Sean thinks he might puke. He really is their last resort…there is no one else. It all falls to him like he knew it always would. “I can’t. This is too much. What are you telling me? That I’m the only one who can save these people?”

“Well, we certainly can’t, can we?”

Sean presses his hands to his eyes. He doesn’t want this, not on top of trying to record and all this shit with Ryan. He’s just a person, just a man, and not meant for more than making music, definitely not handling people’s lives.

“Then I’ll tell the police…”

“How will you explain how you know where this man is?”

“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

Ross doesn’t say anything, but his eyes are still pitch-dark. Finally, a rumbling breath moves through him. Sean doesn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. Ross tilts his head a little, like the spirit is testing how much of Ross it can move. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this,” he says, “but the man has someone close to you.”

“What?” Sean asks. “What the fuck did you say?”

“He doesn’t know you or the one he took; he just wanted to add to his collection.”

Without really thinking about it, Sean launches himself forward and grabs Ross up by the collar of his shirt. “Who is it? Who is in danger?” Sean can’t breathe, not until he gets his answer. He’s fisting both hands in Ross’ shirt. Slowly, he notices that Ross’ eyes are draining of the black. The whites of his eyes are coming back, the solid brown color of his iris returning to him. The spirit is fading or, at least, has lost its energy for the night.

“No, wait, please tell me who it is!” Sean shouts, louder than he should. But the spirit is gone from possessing Ross and, slowly, he watches Ross come back to himself. Sean moves his hands from fisting Ross’ shirt to holding on to his shoulders because he remembers being possessed himself and how, right after, you can’t really move.

Ross blinks a few times in confusion. He looks at Sean’s hands on him and then back at Sean’s face. “What’s going on?”

“Are you eating enough? You kinda blacked out.” Yeah, it’s a lie, but it’s easier than the truth and Sean figures that, after what he’s just been told, he can afford to lie to someone who wouldn’t understand it.

“I do feel kind of woozy,” Ross says.

“Here, you sit down and I’ll go and get Tom,” Sean says. He lowers Ross to the couch and then darts upstairs to get Tom. He stops at the landing between the basement and the small set of stairs that open up to the kitchen through a door. He’s shaking, feeling like he’s going to throw up. He can’t even process half the shit he was just told. The most stark, frightening thing is that someone he knows has been kidnapped. What’s even more terrifying is that it might be Ryan.

Sean slips through the upstairs door once he’s composed himself and, luckily, Max’s parents aren’t hanging around. He finds Tom and Max coming out of Danielle’s old bedroom, Tom bitching about his back and being too old to move furniture. They both stop short when they see Sean.

“Sean,” Max says, “you don’t look so good.”

“Yeah,” Tom says, “it looks like you’ve seen a…oh, shit. Did you see a ghost?”

“Never mind that! When’s the last time either of you spoke to Ryan?”

“Why?”

“Just tell me!” Sean hisses, trying to keep his voice low for Max’s parents’ sake.

“I haven’t talked to him since yesterday,” Max says.

“This morning for me,” Tom says. “I texted him before practice to ask if he’d bless us with his presence, but he never replied.”

“No,” Sean says. “Fuck, no.”

“Sean, seriously, is everything okay?”

“No, I don’t think it is.”

Sean takes Max and Tom into the kitchen and tries to explain to them what’s been happening since they got off tour, how the ghosts told Sean that there was something important on the horizon, the dead girl from the paper visiting him, and, now, the spirit inside of Ross that passed on the information that someone they know is in danger.

Afterward, it’s hard to say that he feels better after telling them, but he does. It used to be just he and Ryan who knew. Of course, he should have told Max and Tom forever ago; they could’ve helped, could’ve…protected each other.

Sean gets out his phone and opens up his contacts, preparing to call everyone whose number he has, but Max stops him. “It’s three in the morning, dude,” Max says, “way too late to call and ask if anyone’s been kidnapped.”

“So what? We’re supposed to wait until morning to find out who’s close to being someone that only I can see?”

“I know you need to calm down. I’m sure Ryan is okay. Tom talked to him this morning. We need…well, we should tell the cops. You can’t do this on your own, Sean.”

“I can’t tell them anything. The spirit lost its control before it could tell me the guy’s name or where he lives and, even if I could tell the police, how would I explain it? They’d lock me away or I’d end up on a reality show.”

“We’ll call around in the morning,” Max says. “We all will.”

Sean doesn’t like the idea of waiting. Morning might as well be an eternity away, as far as he’s concerned. He’s scared. He can’t stop seeing Ryan trapped somewhere, alone, just as scared as Sean is right now. He pushes his hands through his hair. His phone feels like a weighted stone in his pocket.

“I’m going to take you home, Sean,” Tom says. “Let me go get Ryan.”

“He’s probably dizzy,” Sean says. “The spirit drained him.”

Tom bites his lip and something passes through his eyes that remind Sean of the first time he talked to Ryan after the ghost that took his body deceived him. Tom nods, though, and slips through the back room and down the stairs. Sean stands in the hallway with Max, his back pressed against the wall. In front of him are pictures of Max and Danielle as kids.

“If something happened to him, it’ll be my fault,” Sean says.

“Nothing happened to him,” Max says. He doesn’t try to figure out why, just wants Sean to believe that everything is fine. It doesn’t work because Sean doesn’t believe in much anymore. Tom returns and Ross is at his side, Tom’s hands looped around his thin waist. He looks okay and he should be fine. Sean wishes he could care more about how Ross is doing, but he can’t think of anything except for the answer he so desperately wants.

Tom drives Ross’ rental to Sean’s apartment. “I think I want to stay here tonight,” Tom says, killing the ignition before glancing over at Sean. A streetlight is hitting the car in a funny way, making everything inside a hazy orange. Sean can barely see Tom’s eyes.

“You’re worried I’m going to do something stupid,” Sean says.

“I’m tired and I’m scared and I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”

“Your air mattress is still here,” Sean says.

They go upstairs. Tom deposits Ross in the spare bedroom, though it doesn’t even really feel like a spare anymore. It isn’t to Sean. It’s Ryan’s room and now Tom and his Ryan are going to be there when it should be his Ryan.

Tom stands in the living room and plays with the hem of his sweater. “I’m going to go and check on him,” he says, jerking his thumb towards the room where Ross is sleeping. Sean nods and Tom gives him a good, hard look before he walks to the room, his old room. He stops at the doorway and turns around to face Sean. “Hey, I trust you,” Tom says, “but don’t do anything stupid, okay?”

“I won’t.” He doesn’t know what to do at all. He doesn’t know how to keep going when he knows that, somewhere in the city he calls home, the place he loves and trusts and creates in, there are people scared and suffering…maybe one of them being one of his people.

Tom taps his hand against the frame of the door and nods. “It’ll make sense come morning.” He waits for Sean to tell him he’s going to go to bed, too, before he goes into the room. Sean goes to his room, but he doesn’t think he’ll sleep. His soul feels heavy, his brain a rock sinking in the sea. It’s the part of his whole ‘gift’ that he hates dealing with: the fact that there aren’t many like him, that maybe there’s no one else like him. Everything falls on his shoulders and every decision has a consequence. If he had just fucking told Ryan how he really felt instead of chicken-shitting out and pushing him away, Ryan would’ve been here where Sean could see him and know he was fine.

Sean backs up against his closet door, sliding down it onto the floor and sitting there in the semi-darkness. His door is closed and the two rooms of the small apartment are probably far enough apart that Sean could talk on the phone without Tom hearing him. His phone is burning a hole in his pocket, so Sean lifts it out, rubbing his thumb against the back like it’s a makeshift worry-stone. Instead of calling Ryan, the sensible thing is to text him. So Sean does that.

'I need to know that you’re okay. Text me back, please.'

One minute passes and then two and Sean compulsively checks to make sure the message sent even though he knows it did. Ryan doesn’t answer and the panic that strikes Sean is so intense that he can’t stop himself from calling Ryan. The phone rings endlessly. Sean leans his head back against the closet door and counts the rings. When it breaks, his heart jumps because he thinks Ryan answered, but it’s his voicemail clicking on, a much happier, safer Ryan telling Sean (or whoever else happens to call him) to leave a message and he’ll call back.

Sean squeezes his eyes closed. “Ryan, listen, if you’re listening to this, please call me back or…Tom and Max. I don’t care who, just call. Some shit is going down. I need to know you’re okay, Ryan…I’m sorry.”

He hangs up. The fear hasn’t subsided. If anything, it’s grown into a tangible beast that’s clawing at Sean’s chest, trying to force its way out. He stretches his leg out, his foot sliding underneath his bed. His heel rolls over something hard and gritty and Sean jerks his foot back. Sean sets his phone down and crawls across the floor to his bed. He’s got the lamp in his room on and he can see a thick line of what looks like sand on his floor. He reaches out without hesitation and touches at the line. It isn’t sand, too rough for that. He scoops some up and rubs it between his fingers, smells it.

It’s salt. Sean wipes his hand off on his pants and then follows the salt trail. It continues in both directions, meeting at the head and foot of his bed, forming a circle. Sean didn’t do this, but he’s willing to bet that he knows who did. It fits with what Ross’ attached spirit told him about how the ghosts had encountered a barrier and weren’t able to speak to him. The last ghost who visited him was the dead girl from the newspaper and, since then, not a thing has happened to him, not even a dream.

His head is too heavy and the answers he wants are too far away. He crawls up into his bed with his clothes still on and his phone next to his head on the pillow in case Ryan calls him back. Sean sleeps well, all things considered. By the time he wakes up, it’s well into morning. He snatches up his phone a few seconds after his eyes open. There’s no text from Ryan…no missed calls, either.

He gets out of bed and steps on the little crystals of salt that had stuck to him last night. The living room is quiet and the door to the spare bedroom is cracked enough that Sean can see Tom and Ross still sleeping inside. Both of them are on the mattress, not twined in a particularly intimate way. Tom’s on his side and Ross is settled behind him, head on Tom’s back, but Sean still feels like he shouldn’t be looking. Instead, he goes out into the hall to call Ryan again.

Again, there’s no answer and again, Sean leaves a pleading voicemail on his machine saying that if he’s safe and listening to just call back. He tucks his phone in his pocket and goes to make coffee, the kind Tom likes to drink because he’s too jittery to drink it himself. He doesn’t leave his phone alone for long. He’s scared it might be Ryan the ghosts were talking about, but if it isn’t, he needs to check on some other people.

He calls his parents, extended family that lives in the city. He goes through all the names in his phone of people who are in or around Chicago. Almost all of them answer when he calls or they text him back, ask him why he sounds funny. It’s because he still hasn’t heard from Ryan.

He texts Max and asks him who he’s talked to and if Ryan contacted him. He’s waiting for a text back when there’s a knock on the door. Sean drops his phone on the counter and rushes to the door. Outwardly, he probably looks insane - he feels it a little, too - but he just needs to know. He opens the door and there, right in front of him, is Ryan.

“Fuck, fuck, you’re okay,” Sean says. He forgets himself because he’s just so goddamn relieved. He tugs Ryan into the apartment and pulls him in for a hug. He completely forgot how they’re not really on speaking terms.

“What are you doing, Sean?” Ryan says. Sean lets him go and Ryan backs up. He won’t meet his gaze.

“You’ve been ignoring my calls and texts,” Sean says. That’s - well, Christ, if Ryan is alright, then he’s been getting all of Sean’s calls and texts and ignoring them.

“Because I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“It was fucking important, Ryan! Fuck, I thought something bad happened to you. It wasn’t even about - ” Sean waves a hand around. “Us.”

The air is tight between them. Sean leans back against the closet door. He feels stupid for worrying so much. He was making himself sick with it when Ryan was fine and wouldn’t even let Sean know that he was.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan says a few moments later. “I thought you wanted to talk about…” He trails off, but Sean still knows what he means. “I didn’t think it was ghost-related or something.”

“So, what, Max told you what was going on and you came over here to apologize?”

“No, I haven’t talked to him, either. Look, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Sean looks at Ryan now. “I don’t really understand.”

To Sean’s surprise, Ryan meets his gaze. “I think something happened to Nick.”

Sean’s stomach drops. “What?”

“He didn’t come home the other night, so I thought he was just staying at his girl’s place, you know? But she calls me today to ask me if I’ve talked to him. She tells me she hasn’t seen him in three days.”

“And when’s the last time you saw him?”

“Same as her, three days ago.”

“Fuck.” He hadn’t even thought of Nick. He’d called him but Scimeca was always busy with work or schmoozing and Sean had been so sure that it was Ryan.

“I came over to ask if you guys thought I should file a missing person’s report,” Ryan says.

“Listen,” Sean says, turning back around to face Ryan. “I think I know what happened to Nick.”

“You’re being weird.”

“You know that dead girl who came to me?” Sean asks. Ryan nods. “And you know all those missing person cases on the news? It’s all being done by one guy. This spirit came to me and told me that I’m the only one who can help them in the city. It also told me that he took someone close to me.”

He watches Ryan’s face carefully for the moment it sinks in. He pales a little and his eyes desperately search Sean’s. “You’re saying he took…Nick?”

“I thought it was you,” Sean says, rubbing at his eyes, “I didn’t even think - ”

“You said the ghosts told you who was doing this shit? Does that mean you know where he is? We can go and get the cops! We need to go and save Nick!”

“I don’t know where he is. The spirit faded before it could tell me.”

Ryan runs his hands in his hair, pacing Sean’s living room. Suddenly, their problems with each other seem small in comparison to one of their friends being held captive by a murderer.

“Jesus,” Ryan says, “this is…I can’t fucking believe this.”

“We can find him,” Sean says. “I know we can. I just have to get them to tell me where he is.”

Ryan stops and stares at Sean, his eyes burning. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of having to depend on the dead, why they play such a big part in my life. I’m sick of watching you kill yourself over them and what they say to you. I can’t. I can’t deal with this shit anymore. I’m done with it, Sean.”

Sean doesn’t know what to say. Ryan is yelling at him. He’s upset - of course he is. Sean’s upset, too. He’s scared. But this all is coming on the heels of their last fight and they’re already strained in addition to the relief that Ryan isn't the one who was taken. It really is just one thing after another. All this shit Ryan is spewing sounds like he’s been bottling it up for a long fucking time.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Sean says. “The ghosts are the only way we have of finding Nick.”

Ryan sets his jaw tight. “Good luck with that, then,” he says, turning away from Sean. He stalks to the front door and slams it shut behind him on his way out. The echoing sound of Ryan’s words and his departure rings loudly in Sean’s ears.

After Ryan leaves, Sean doesn’t feel anything. He’s already full of too much shit, he can’t carry anymore. He can’t solve kidnapping cases and appease Ryan and fix whatever the fuck is wrong with them - he just can’t. He’s become too full, swinging out past that point and becoming numb to it all instead. When he turns around to head back to his room, he sees Tom standing just outside the spare room, looking at him. Tom has done the intra-band fighting thing before, and though he has more claims in this band than his last, he still doesn’t say anything.

“You want to help me clean up some salt?” Sean asks.

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