Part 3 (BBB 2012)

[pinkichan]

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Sean dreams again. It’s strange. He dreams of a girl standing over him. She looks like a ghost, but he’s never had dreams about ghosts, doesn’t even know if that’s possible. “Wake up,” she tells him. She sounds angry. Sean doesn’t want to get out of bed even in his dream. Why he’s even in bed in his dream in the first place doesn’t fill him with much confidence that this is going anywhere good.

Sean sits up, though, and looks at her. She sits next to him on the bed. The light changes around them and he can see her better now. She looks young, old enough to drive but not old enough to buy a beer, with her hair in long braids and square-framed glasses resting on the tip of her nose. Sean wants to reach out and push them up on her face, but he doesn’t.

“You didn’t listen,” she tells him.

“I didn’t? I got up like you asked.”

“No, not that. You didn’t listen to them the first time. You’re being stubborn and now something bad happened.”

“What? What are you talking about? What happened?”

She bites her lip. Sean isn’t sure if ghosts can cry, but she still looks like she’s going to. “Now someone is dead,” she says, “and it’s your fault.”

“What? I don’t understand. Who died? How?”

“You have to listen to them next time!” she shouts at him. She’s standing up from his bed and the light changes again; the majority of the room goes pitch black, except for where they are. It reminds Sean of a stage during an intense scene of a play, where the spotlights are focused on only the important actors.

“Please tell me who died!” Sean says. This is a dream, but he can’t remember even here if he talked to Tom before he fell asleep.

The ghost girl shakes her head. “If you don’t pay attention, more will die.”

“Pay attention to what?” Sean asks her. He stands up now, too, trying to reason with the dead even though he knows it’s ultimately pointless.

The girl begins to fade, as does all the darkness and the room in Sean’s dream. When he opens his eyes, he’s awake. His room is bright from the sunlight filtering in through the window. He jerks up as he comes to himself, remembering the dream, unsure whether or not to put his faith in it being real. It takes him a moment to realize that his phone is going off, signaling a text message.

He scrambles for it, like whoever it is will provide him some insight on the dream he just had. Part of him is still weighted with the thought of the last time someone had heard from Tom and Ross. Sean sighs with relief when the text is from Tom.

‘I forgot how much Ryan can put away for how damn small he is.’

That’s codeword for ‘Tom is probably hung over and definitely safe,’ so Sean doesn’t text him back yet. He drops his phone and grabs up the notebook on the nightstand next to his bed. He curls his legs in and starts writing out the dream as fast as he can, before the words and pieces leave him. His hand is sloppy from sleep and he hopes to hell that he’ll be able to read his own chicken scratch later if and when he’ll need it again.

After he writes out the dream, he still doesn’t leave the bed or text Tom. He’s never dreamt in his life and suddenly he’s dreaming conversations with ghosts? He’s not sure how to take what she said. Is it real? Can they suddenly slip into Sean’s mind when he’s at rest? Are his own fears creating scenarios that aren’t real but feel remarkably so?

Sean re-reads the words he just wrote. The side of his palm is stained with ink. If he’s quiet, he can hear Ryan puttering around, and he can smell pancakes (because those are one of the only things Ryan can make without fucking it up). It’s comforting. It makes Sean calm down enough that he can let the dream settle and deal with what was actually said.

'Have you talked to Max?' Sean texts to Tom.

He doesn’t expect Max to be dead. Max is smarter than the whole lot of them and, if anyone is going to keep himself safe, it’s Max, but he figures if the ghosts are going to tell him blatantly that a person died, it must be someone Sean knows. He still waits for Tom’s reply with his breath caught up in his throat. When his phone vibrates, he almost drops it.

'Yeah, I’m sleeping off the booze on his couch, but he keeps fucking with me. I should’ve came to your place.'

Okay, so Sean’s band is safe and no one from his circle of friends has called him to tell him of anyone dying. He can relax for a while, at least. He tugs on jeans and then heads out to meet up with Ryan and steal his pancakes.

Sean doesn’t tell Ryan about the dream. Maybe he’d tell Tom or Max, but Ryan…he just doesn’t want him to worry. Ryan starts reading the newspaper while he eats. Sean is already done and cleaning up, but when he picks up his plate, something on the front page of the paper catches his eye.

“Wait,” Sean says. He stops Ryan from turning the paper over. “What’s that picture on the front there?”

Ryan takes a bite of his syrup-heavy pancake and turns the paper so that Sean can read the front page’s headline. The article is about a murder of a girl who was strangled in a park. Underneath the article is a picture of the victim. Sean looks at her for a full minute before the realization kicks in. “Fuck,” Sean says.

“Pretty brutal, right? Makes me kind of scared to go out at night.” When Sean doesn’t say anything, Ryan looks at him. “You alright?”

“This girl,” Sean taps the picture in question. “She came to me last night.”

“What? Like, as a ghost?”

“Yeah,” Sean sits down because his knees feel all wobbly, “She told me that someone had died…she said it was my fault. God, she was trying to tell me she died! She died because of something I did or didn’t do.”

“Are you sure it was her? Maybe it just looks like her.”

“It was her and that’s why she was upset. I guess…I was supposed to save her?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ryan says. “How could you have saved her? You didn’t even know her.”

Sean cradles his head in his hands. He could really go for a drink right about now. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything they say anymore!” Sean slams his hand down against the table out of frustration. Ryan doesn’t say anything. He carefully brings the paper back to him and scans the page again.

“It says she was found early yesterday morning.”

“She must not have wanted to confront me directly,” Sean says. His hand stings and his chest is tight. He doesn’t know how he could’ve known that this girl was going to be murdered, let alone how he could have stopped it, but it happened and she told him it was his fault. “So she came when I was sleeping.”

“They can do that?”

“She can. The rest probably can, too.”

Ryan sets the newspaper aside and then bites his lip. “Hey, don’t dwell on this. There’s no way you could’ve known…you’re not a superhero, Sean.”

What Ryan is saying is essentially true. Sean couldn’t have known where this girl was until it was too late, until she had a way to communicate with him. It doesn’t make Sean feel any better. He slips away from the table. Ryan’s eyes are on him the entire time. He goes to the fridge and digs through the drawer at the bottom; it’s where the vegetables should be kept, but Sean hasn’t had time to buy any time-sensitive food, so instead, he keeps a bottle of cheap whiskey in there. Ryan is still watching him when he takes it to his room. He closes his door but not all the way; he doesn’t call it an invitation, exactly, but if Ryan wants to come and sit with him in his bedroom, then Sean won’t say ‘no.’

He leafs through the notebook where he’d written the dream he just had. A few pages back is an equally-as-messy note about his first night off tour, getting drunk and having the ghosts visit him then. That spirit also told him they needed him for something but left before telling him what. What’s happening now…if people are dying and Sean is somehow involved, it changes the passive sort of way he’s always thought about the ghosts. Now it feels like a monumental thing that goes far beyond visiting distant family members and carrying a ghost inside of you.

He spends all day avoiding his phone, and drinking his bottle, and writing in his notebook. Ryan never comes inside to check on him, but Sean thinks at certain points that he can feel his presence just outside the barely-opened door. In these moments, Sean keeps his head down and his hand still, but he’s finding as the night drags on that he wants Ryan to come inside. In his head, he’s saying ‘please, please, please,’ but as long as he doesn’t say it out loud, it never becomes real and the presence will disappear and Sean will keep drinking and writing.

***
Ryan is there the next morning, though. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed. Sean peers at him from under the thick cocoon of his comforter. He’s so out of himself that he almost tugs at Ryan’s wrist and pulls him under because, even though he’s in his cocoon, he’s cold without the feel of someone’s knees tucking into the space where Sean’s legs bend.

Ryan bends and then lifts the empty bottle into the air. “Long night?”

“Sorry,” Sean says. He folds the blanket down and sits himself up. He doesn’t exactly feel hung over, but he doesn’t feel great, either.

Ryan bends again and then he has Sean’s notebook in his hands. “You wrote a lot.”

“It’s probably all shit,” Sean says, but he takes the book when Ryan offers it.

Ryan looks like he has something to say, but if he does, he doesn't voice it. Sean scratches a hand through his hair and abandons his notebook. “I’m going to take a shower,” Sean says. Ryan nods and stands, slipping out to the living room, the concern never leaving his eyes.

After his shower, Sean feels a fuck of a lot better. When he comes out of the bathroom, Ryan isn’t in the apartment. Sean might think he’d scared him away with his miniature breakdown last night if not for the movement he catches out on the balcony. Through the glass door, Sean can see Ryan leaning over the railing, silver smoke curling up around his head. Sean tosses the towel hanging over his head into the hamper and grabs a hoodie that’s hanging limp off the arm of the couch before sliding out the door to join him.

Ryan looks back when Sean comes out to the balcony. “Hey,” Ryan says, “you shouldn’t be out here if you just got out of the shower. It’s too fucking cold.”

Yeah, it’s cold, but Sean is mostly dry. He isn’t worried about it. “I’ll live.”

Another drag off his cigarette and Ryan raises an eyebrow at Sean. “Are you okay?”

Sean nods. “I think so. I’m confused as all fuck, but I’m alright.”

Ryan doesn’t say anything, but he hums and flicks the thick ashes off the end of his cigarette. The sun is hanging low and the sky is a mix of gold and grey. Winter is coming at them fast; Sean really wouldn’t be surprised if it started snowing right now.

“You ever feel like you’re on the outside of life?” Sean asks, mimicking Ryan’s position, elbows braced against the metal railing. He glances over at Ryan. “Like…even though I’m here and I’m surrounded by people and I’m connecting, I don’t really feel a part of it.” Sean laughs and rubs the butt of his palms against his eyes. He’s slept a lot, but he still feels tired.

Ryan is watching him now. His eyes are boring into Sean’s form. Sean doesn’t want to move an inch, doesn’t even want to blink or breathe because he’s afraid that, if he does, Ryan will stop looking at him. “Am I even making sense?” Sean asks. Ryan still hasn’t said anything. Sean acknowledges that he’s capable of getting so caught up in his head and with the conversations no one else can hear that, when he’s talking to someone who’s alive and here, he just…unravels.

“No, I understand what you mean. I’ve really been boning up on my Sean-to-English dictionary lately.”

It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither of them laughs. Sean reaches out and picks up Ryan’s pack of smokes, steals one. He shouldn’t - it’s awful for his voice, especially if they plan on recording soon - but wants it, just something to take his mind off the conversation.

“Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with the dead. I’m not relating to the living anymore.” It’s something he had worried about from the beginning, how to tread the line between both worlds. Ignoring either world was never really an option because the ghosts never leave and this is Sean’s life -- and if he’s learned one thing from the spirits he converses with, it’s not to waste it. “I’m not really a normal person,” Sean says, “and I’m not really anything else.”

“You’re an artist,” Ryan tells him, but there’s a hint of teasing to his voice. He’s really no good at serious conversation. It makes him uncomfortable. If Sean has learned anything about Ryan, it’s that he’ll try to inject some humor to bear part of the weight. “You’re just like us.”

Sean took the cigarette but he isn’t even smoking it. It’s mostly burning down in his fingertips. “But no one else can do what I do.”

“So you’re quirky. Tom has no social cues, I’m barely a functioning adult, and Max…well, Max might actually be perfectly normal. The point is that we’re all weird.”

“But we’re not all haunted.”

The chilly wind picks up and rushes the little pocket of space that Sean and Ryan inhabit out here on the balcony. Ryan doesn’t say anything and, eventually, Sean takes a drag off the cigarette before forfeiting it to Ryan. He smiles and then smokes what little is left of the rest. It’s getting colder as the sun sinks behind the buildings.

“Maybe you just need someone to keep you grounded,” Ryan says. His gaze lingers over Sean. “You need someone to remind you that you’re human.”

Sean smiles. “Maybe.”

Ryan shivers from the cold. It’s barely noticeable, but he slides closer to Sean, their hips brushing for a second, warmth blossoming in the spot. Sean wants to feel that warmth all over, the fading heat still feeling like the hint of an opportunity.

Later, once the sun has gone down and Sean feels normal again, he and Ryan sit in the living room. Sean reads the songs he wrote last night. Most of it is dark, fraught with fear, and Sean thinks maybe he’s a little too tender to reread them just yet. He eventually stumbles on one that he likes, one that feels good, feels like Empires. He’s never been shy about showing his work, but this song feels oddly personal in more ways than just ghosts fucking with his head.

“Tell me what you think of this,” Sean says, handing the notebook over.

“Potential song?”

Sean shrugs. “Something like that.”

Ryan reads it and Sean tries not to watch his face too hard. This song is heavy and real and, if Ryan doesn’t like it, it’d feel like he doesn’t like a piece of Sean. He alternates at picking at the carpet underneath him and glancing under his still-damp bangs at Ryan’s face. He doesn’t look like anything good or bad, so Sean waits until he’s set the notebook in his lap before he starts reading into things.

“That’s heavy, man,” Ryan says.

“Do you like it?” Sean flinches at the edge of desperation in his voice, just enough creeping in to bother him. He just needs Ryan to like it.

“Yeah, I do. I think we should show the others.”

He hands Sean back the book. Sean tries to imagine singing the cleaned-up version, sharing a piece of him with everyone. He’s almost tempted to keep it, just let it live between he and Ryan like a shared secret, an understanding. The urge to create wins out in the end, though, and he knows he’ll email it to Max and Tom.

They decide to record that song, along with a few others, right away, just to get back into the swing of things. Max has them on this casual kick where messy is good, better even than the tighter recordings they had in the past. Ross isn’t at the studio with Tom, which kind of surprises Sean. According to Max, they’ve mostly been out every night this week.

No one asks Sean what the song is about. He hopes they know him well enough to just absorb his intentions through musical osmosis because he doesn’t feel like talking about it, doesn’t even know if he could if it was asked of him. He’s still working out what it means to him, how big of a slice of himself he’s offering up to their audience.

They record the song in one take. It’s better to sing about it than talk about it, easier for Sean to speak through the music than to sit down and discuss it. When Max plays it back for them, it feels messy and loud but right in a really good way. Sean likes that kind of chaos. It reminds him of the feeling in his chest the night he wrote the song, reminds him of the mess in his mind that had to escape through ink.

After getting the song out, after it becomes real, Sean feels a lot better. He feels even more like himself, more than ever before. Music is something he can completely bury himself in without ever wanting to come up for a breath. He doesn’t tell Max or Tom about the dream of the girl who was murdered and he doesn’t think Ryan has said anything, either, so here, at least, he can blow off the thoughts that still weighs him down.

“You keep checking your phone,” Max says to Tom after they’ve recorded their songs for the night. “You got a hot date?”

Tom gives him a shit-eating grin and tucks his phone away. “Ryan messaged me to say he’s coming to get me.”

“So it is a date?” Max asks. Mostly, they’re just giving Tom a hard time.

Tom shrugs. “Yeah, kinda.”

“Wait, you’re serious?” Sean asks.

Tom’s gaze passes around the three of them. “Yeah, it’s a date. No big deal.”

“I thought he was dating Jon?” Ryan asks.

“They broke up a while back.”

“You’re going to go on a date with your ex-boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend?”

Tom turns to Ryan. “Yes, Mom, and I may even let him kiss me goodnight. But don’t worry, he promises to have me home by midnight so you and Dad - ” Tom’s eyes cut to Sean now “- don’t have to wait up.”

Sean smiles. “Have fun.”

“Yeah,” Max says. “I think you’re overestimating how much we care about this.”

“Don’t go to third base on the first date,” Ryan says. “Or do, it’s your life.”

Tom waves them off, but he’s smiling again.

“You guys wanna go out, too?” Ryan asks. He stretches and stands from behind his kit. “Go unwind?”

He says ‘you guys’ like he means both of them, but Max doesn’t drink, so Sean knows he mostly means Sean with Max playing companion to them. “Could be fun,” Sean says, looking at Max. “What do you think?”

“If you guys get shitfaced, I’m stealing your fucking car.”

It’s a risk they’re willing to take, so they throw on their coats. By the time they trudge upstairs, Ross is parked outside the house waiting for Tom. Ross waves from inside the car but doesn’t get out. Tom shouts his goodbyes as he slips into Ross’ rental car.

Ryan, Max, and Sean pile into Ryan’s car. They let Ryan pick the bar. It’s a place neither Max nor Sean have ever been to, but Ryan likes it and says they have good beer, so Sean is willing. Inside, it feels like a million places Sean’s been to or played at before, but Ryan is true to his word and the beer is better than usual. There’s a TV on near the bar, but the sound is too low for Sean to hear what it says. It’s something about a breaking news report. There’s no way he’d be able to hear the report even if he asked the bartender to turn it up for him. He doesn’t even know why he’s paying attention to the TV instead of his friends - maybe curiosity or the sick dread in his stomach. The screen switches from a reporter talking soundlessly to a screen with three little square pictures of three people. The screen is topped with the word: Missing.

Sean forces himself to look at the three people: two guys and a girl. He wracks his brain trying to remember if he’d seen their spirit forms around anywhere. He hasn’t, but what’s scarier than that is the thought that, maybe soon, he will.

Ryan nudges him in the side and draws Sean’s attention back to him and Max. Sean catches him glance at the screen just as the story fades away. His eyebrows pull together; it’s like he can see every thought in Sean’s head. Ryan touches Sean’s hand. “Lemme buy you something stronger.”

Drinking isn’t always the answer, but it sure as fuck helps. Sean doesn’t plan on getting shitfaced, but he lets Ryan get him something stronger than the beer in his hand. They move on and play darts and then pool, Max winning both just barely. By the time the bar closes up for the night and they hit the cold open night air, Sean feels good again. In fact, he feels better than good - he feels almost perfect with the chill of Chicago weather in his lungs and Ryan’s hand pressing against his back in a sorry attempt at leading Sean to the car.

They’re not completely trashed, just the annoying kind of drunk where you make your sober friends hate you for the night and you end up eating really shitty food on your kitchen floor and then maybe sleeping it off there while you’re at it. Max makes good on his word to steal Ryan’s car for the night, even if that just means he’s going to park it in his driveway and make Ryan and Sean come back for it tomorrow.

Sean and Ryan stumble into Sean’s apartment, a familiar feeling. Ryan starts shedding his shoes and coat by the door and Sean does the same. His head barely spins. He wants to sit but doesn’t want to go to bed. He and Ryan look at the couch at the same time, the sad, saggy couch, and Ryan grins so that Sean can see all his teeth. He doesn’t know why, but it feels like a race, suddenly - to the victor goes the couch! They stumble over each other, sliding around in socks; Ryan is tiny and quick, so he makes it to the couch first, but Sean doesn’t stop and topples onto the couch, too, falling on top of Ryan.

“Asshole,” Ryan says, his face muffled by Sean’s shoulder. He pushes at Sean’s chest. “I won. Go away.”

“No,” Sean says, laughing as he grabs for one of Ryan’s wrists, tugging it up over his head and pressing his hand against the arm of the chair. “Do you really want me to go?” Sean asks almost as an afterthought once he’s got both of Ryan’s wrists in his hands, tugged up over Ryan’s head.

Ryan snorts. “No.” He kicks at Sean’s thighs, trying to dislodge him and push him off the couch. It’s hard to say who’s stronger. Sean is bigger, longer; Ryan might be in better shape. Ryan hooks a leg over the back of Sean’s and makes like he’s going to roll them both off the couch, but Sean presses him down into the sinking fabric of the couch.

It takes him way, way too long to realize their position. He’s lying stretched out on the couch between Ryan’s spread legs, one of which is still hooked up over Sean’s. Sean has Ryan spread long, too, but he’s still smaller and has more room. Their faces are closer than Sean remembers; he can feel his own chest moving as Ryan breathes sharply in the tiny space. They smell like sweat and sharp, tangy alcohol and then Sean realizes that he’s been staring at Ryan for way too long. Ryan’s wrists twitch in Sean’s hands. He’s gone lax enough that Ryan could pull away if he wanted to, but he doesn’t do it. It stops feeling like a game.

Ryan’s lips are parted, like he’s going to say something, and Sean waits for it. Time drips by agonizingly slow. He should move, should go to bed. This is weird, even for him. He’s waiting for Ryan to tell him to move his fucking ass, but Ryan’s not saying anything. He’s just looking up at Sean with widened eyes.

Sean wishes he had drank more at the bar. He wishes he had gotten completely shitfaced so that he could at least blame these feelings on something other than his own semi-sober brain, but he’s aware enough to know what he’s doing, to recognize the warmth spreading between where their bodies meet, to be aware of Ryan’s heel pressing in against the back of Sean’s thigh.

So he can’t blame anything other than himself when he leans down into the little inches that separate Ryan’s mouth from Sean’s. He presses his mouth to Ryan’s, his hands still holding down Ryan’s arms. It’s the softest, kindest kiss he’s ever given out. Ryan sucks in a sharp breath before it happens and doesn’t even push away like Sean thinks might happen. He’s dizzy again, but it’s less with alcohol and more with ‘why the fuck is he letting me do this?’ He can’t even recognize and own up to the feelings in his own head, to comprehend that Ryan might have those feelings, too.

That safe, little kiss is like the last second before a floodgate opens. Ryan let Sean kiss him and then he’s pulling away but barely so that he can still smell the drinks on Ryan’s breath. He wants to ask if it’s okay to do it again but instead releases Ryan’s hands and then touches Ryan’s face. There’s a lot of Ryan to cover here; Sean doesn’t know where to start. He just…he can’t. His fingers twine in Ryan’s hair and then he tips Ryan’s head back against the couch and leans down with more aggression, kisses him again. The rush comes.

The kissing isn’t careful or one-sided anymore. It’s frenzied, heated. Ryan bites Sean’s goddamn lip after a second and Sean has never had that happen to him, but now it’s all he wants for the rest of his fucking life. His hands are still in Ryan’s hair and Ryan’s now-freed hands are clutching at Sean’s shoulders, fingers digging into the thin fabric of Sean’s v-neck.

Ryan’s mouth is damp and perfect. He tastes like everything Sean imagined he would if Sean ever admitted to imagining it at all. Their tongues meet; it’s all too much. Sean doesn’t know what to think or do because it’s Ryan. He’s kissing Ryan. Sean can feel Ryan shifting underneath him, crushed by Sean’s weight bearing down. He doesn’t want to break the kiss to move or talk or breathe. He wants this hurried, sloppy, chaotic mess of a kiss to last forever.

It can’t last, though, and it doesn’t. Ryan makes this noise that sounds similar to one he makes whenever he’s moving gear. It’s weird of Sean to notice, but he does. Their lives, friendship, profession, everything slams back into him in a jagged second. He breaks the kiss then, pulling away like Ryan’s mouth is burning him - and it is, but not in a bad way, in a way where Sean wants to be engulfed. He shouldn’t feel that and he shouldn’t know what Ryan tastes like and he shouldn’t fucking be hard right now.

Maybe Ryan can see the wild, panicked look emerging in Sean’s eyes. He bites his lip, looking wrecked, like fucking sex underneath of Sean, but he can’t do a goddamn thing about it. “Sean?” Ryan starts, voice thick with drink and…Sean doesn’t want to know what else; he’ll never leave if he puts a name to it.

Sean shakes his head. “I’m drunk,” he says, laughing pathetically fake. He’s sure Ryan can feel his hard-on pressing against his thigh. “I’m fucking drunk. I’m going to bed.” Even though Sean’s entire body is screaming at him not to go, he raises up off the couch, the cold air attacking him, feeling more like loneliness than anything else. He leaves Ryan spread long on the couch, cheeks as red as his mouth. If Sean closes his eyes, he can still feel the bite on his bottom lip.

“Sean,” Ryan says again. Sean has turned by now, his back to Ryan because, the longer he looks, the more he’ll inch back to the couch and lie there until he gives up. Whatever Ryan was going to say, he never finishes it. Sean walks to his bedroom without even saying goodnight.

***
Sean barely sleeps that night for a completely different reason than the last night he had this much trouble falling asleep. He’s painfully aware of Ryan’s presence in the apartment. He strips out of his shirt and pants because he swears he can smell Ryan’s cologne on them. He goes to sleep with his dick still hard because he doesn’t trust himself to jerk off and not think of…shit, he just shouldn’t think at all. He sleeps with a stomachache that he wants to attribute to the alcohol, but he knows it isn’t the same. He may have just messed up the safest place in his life.

He wakes up to someone tugging the blanket off his face. His heart leaps to his throat, thinking that Ryan came to make his own move, to try again, wild, crazy, thoughts that don’t make sense. When he rolls over, much faster and much more panicked than he should be, he isn’t greeted by Ryan, but by Tom. He sighs and flops back against the bed, heart still beating too fast.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” Sean groans.

“Why? Afraid the Missus will find out?”

Tom doesn’t mean to be an asshole, but the joke still feels like a punch to his gut. “What do you want?” Sean asks.

“I came to tell you about my disastrous first date.”

Sean’s reconsidering his whole ‘Tom doesn’t mean to be an asshole’ stance. “Let me go piss before you get into a whole thing or whatever,” Sean tells him, crawling out of bed. He’s halfway to the door before he realizes he’ll run into Ryan out there. It’s too late to turn back without Tom getting suspicious, so Sean sucks it up and trudges out into the living room.

It’s empty, no trace of Ryan, not even the smell of a breakfast that has long since been eaten. Sean feels sick again and goes to the bathroom to piss and possibly make himself throw up while he’s at it. He doesn’t end up puking, but he does splash water on his face and then head back to his bedroom where Tom is rifling in the little piles of miscellaneous crap in Sean’s room.

“Was Ryan here when you got here?” Sean asks.

“Nope,” Tom says, going back to Sean’s bed, curling up at the foot of it like he’s a dog or some shit. “Haven’t seen him today.”

The weight settles in Sean’s stomach. He fucked up. He fucked up and kissed Ryan and now Ryan left and he probably won’t be coming back and it will ruin the fucking band because Sean couldn’t stop himself. He thinks about telling Tom, but…no, that isn’t fair. Tom’s already been on the losing end of band relations and Sean won’t put him in a situation where he has to choose a side.

“So, about your date?”

Tom rolls his eyes. “Yeah. I kind of know why Ryan came to Chicago now.”

“And?”

“He wanted to feel close to Jon, which makes no fucking sense because Jon isn’t even here!”

“Jon was the only reason for him to ever come to Chicago, though. The two were probably one and the same in his mind. Did he tell you that?”

“No.” Tom sits himself up now, straightening his legs out. “It was going okay at first. He found this nightclub that he wanted to go to. We never even had fish tacos, but I swear he put away every drink on the menu. Anyway, he gave me his phone and told me not to let him tweet or text anyone, and then after he was good and drunk, he starts angling for his phone back. I asked him what for and he tells me he wants to text Jon or tweet his feelings or some shit. I didn’t let him have it and he spent a good hour calling me an asshole while I ate my greasy bar enchilada.”

Normally, Sean would laugh - he’d laugh a lot - but he can’t bring himself to do much more than snort at Tom. “Besides that, was it fun?”

Tom shrugs. “Yeah, he apologized on the way to his hotel.” Sean raises an eyebrow and Tom makes a face. “Sean, I’m an asshole, but I didn’t sleep with him, shit. I think he’ll probably apologize when he wakes up, too.”

“Anyway,” Tom says before he pats Sean's knee, “get your ass up. I brought my guitar; I wanna test some stuff out on you.”

Sean doesn't fight it. He goes to sit with Tom in his living room and lets Tom play for him. It’s good - it always is with Tom - and he enjoys watching him. Something about how into it Tom is, how he zones in on one thing and never lets go, revitalizes Sean in a way that drives him forward. He knows that all of them feed off each other, but Sean is especially inspired by how Tom loses himself. Sean gets lost to the ghosts, Tom gets lost in the music.

Since Tom is in the apartment and they’re still alone, Sean debates telling him about all the weird shit with the ghosts and the dead girl. He almost does, but he feels like if he can just keep it down to him and Ryan, then it’s not real, it’s not something that Sean needs to worry about. Even though it could be serious - and if it is, then Tom very well deserves to know - Sean can’t muster the courage.

Tom’s phone starts buzzing across Sean’s coffee table an hour and a half into his visit. Tom glances at it occasionally with his typical fondly irritated look on his face.

“Why don’t you just text whoever that is back?” Sean asks.

“It’s Ryan,” Tom says. Sean raises an eyebrow and Tom waves a hand at him. “Not our Ryan.” He picks up his phone but sets it back down again after confirming the identity. “I'm letting him worry a little.”

“How nice of you.”

“Payback is never a pretty thing, Sean,” Tom says, though he’s clearly amused. Sean shakes his head. Despite his disastrous date, Sean can tell that Tom is enjoying his time with Ross.

Finally, Tom gives in and texts Ross back, reminding Sean too much of a giddy teenager with a crush - not that Sean can call him on shit when he still remembers the way Ryan tasted last night. He shakes the thoughts from his head before they take him over, before his stomach starts hurting. Sean glances at the balcony. The sun is sinking low in the sky, the daylight becoming ever shorter with winter closing in on them. Ryan is usually back at the apartment by now. His absence is just a bitter reminder of how Sean fucked up, how Ryan isn’t going to come back.

“Well,” Tom says, starting to pack his guitar up. “I’m heading out.”

“Meeting Ross?” Sean asks.

Tom doesn’t answer, but the small smile that winds across his face is answer enough. “I’ll text you later with the details.”

“Don’t feel obligated to do that,” Sean calls out as Tom slips through the front door.

After Tom is gone, the apartment feels too empty, even though Sean is more than used to living on his own and spending time by himself. He thinks about writing, his fingers and mind itching to dissect what happened last night, twist it into his own words set to music. It’s what he does: if there’s a problem, something he’s struggling with, he writes it out and turns it into something else. Somehow, it helps to just put it out there, remixed for him. He can’t do that now, though. He won’t let himself write about Ryan like he’s something Sean doesn’t understand.

Instead of writing, he lies on the couch and tries to watch movies on basic cable, trying to ignore the pulsing worry in his gut of 'What if Ryan doesn’t just want out of the apartment? What if he wants out of the band?’ He tries to convince himself that it wasn’t that serious, just a stupid drunken kiss. He considers everyone he’s ever kissed at the peak of drunkenness. They never felt half as good as last night did.

Sometime later, once night has begun to fall over the city, Sean hears the doorknob rattle. He’s expecting Tom and steels himself to listen to him bitch about how Ross fucked up another date, but instead of Tom, it’s Ryan's gaze he’s meeting in the doorway.

“Oh, hey,” Ryan says easily. He slips inside and takes his shoes off near the door.

“Hey...” Sean says. He's surprised, really fucking surprised, that Ryan doesn’t look pissed or nearly as miserable about what happened as Sean feels.

“Are you alright?” Ryan asks, probably sensing the clipped tone in Sean’s voice.

Sean props himself up on his elbows on the couch. “I...yeah, no, I’m fine, man. I thought...I don’t know. I thought you were spending the night at Nick’s or something.”

Ryan shrugs, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of one of Sean’s dining chairs. “I was hanging with him. He had a business dinner or something and offered to take me along. I mean, do you want some alone time? I can always - ” Ryan picks up his jacket and motions towards the door.

“No, no, stay. I didn’t mean that I wanted you to go or anything - ” It’s stupid how after dreaming up a million scenarios about how Ryan would never come back, would never even speak to him again, Sean hadn't planned for what would happen if Ryan did come back, and now he’s floundering. He can barely even look at Ryan and he hates himself for it.

Ryan seems to be fine, though. He crosses to the couch, perching on the arm next to Sean’s feet instead of pushing Sean’s legs aside and finding himself a spot like he might have done before.

“Here,” Sean says, turning so that he’s sitting straight ahead. There’s a good distance between his end of the couch and Ryan’s.

Ryan looks at the opened space and sinks into it. Sean didn’t think it was possible to miss the stupid dip in the center of the couch that made their bodies meet, but God, he does. He really does. An uncomfortable silence settles between them, not at all the companionable kind he’s used to. He’s straining for something to say. He almost settles on how Tom is seeing Ross again tonight, but even that feels weird.

“Max sent me a text to tell me that Tom has cooked up some cool shit,” Ryan says, finally breaking the silence. Okay, cool, the band. Sean can definitely talk about the band.

“Yeah, he came over to show me some of it. It’s good. We’re probably going to use some of it.”

Ryan nods, drumming his fingers against his jean-covered thighs. Sean can barely sit here, can barely watch him without remembering last night. Everything is triggering his senses. His body remembers what it was like to have Ryan pinned under him, to feel warm and rough all at once. Sean scratches a hand through his hair harder than necessary. He needs to stop. He can’t do this, can’t think like this.

Sean pushes up from the couch without a real direction beyond ‘get the fuck away from him before you fuck up again’ and ends up just standing there. He can feel Ryan’s eyes on him and the air grows heavier between them.

“Sean,” Ryan says, his tone perfectly calm. Sean panics. He’s sure Ryan is about to launch into a discussion about what last night means. Sean can't do it; even if it needs to happen, he can’t label it or talk about it. He can’t even admit to it. “Blade is on. Sit down and watch it.”

Damn Ryan for knowing Sean's favorite movies and damn him for being so casual when Sean is freaking out. Sean sits back down because, well, why the fuck not? His only other option is running to his bedroom and hiding in there until Ryan falls asleep. Somehow, that feels even worse than sitting out here with him.

They get through the night without talking about it, but Sean can feel a wall, a distance that right now is just a tiny pinhole but, if it isn't plugged up, will only continue to grow, expanding outwards and eating away at everything until there is nothing left. Sean doesn’t want that, but he doesn’t know how to fix it, either.

***
It’s obvious the next morning, as Sean and Ryan pack up their shit to go to the studio, which direction they’re going to take with this whole kissing thing. They’re going to pretend it never happened - at least, Sean thinks that’s what they’re doing. Ryan is acting normal and Sean thinks he is, too, even if he feels like a jittery mess. He can pretend it never happened. That’s what he’s good at.

Again, Sean can pour out all the excess feelings into singing. He surrenders to the sound booth, giving up all he has and pushing it into the art he’s devoted his life to making. He doesn’t know how the emotions will change or how they’ll sound until it’s all done, but all he ever wants is for the feeling to resonate with someone, for someone to listen, for a chord to be struck, for a connection to be made.

He’s keenly aware of Ryan out in the studio at his drums, aware that he’s watching and listening. Sean sometimes stutters over a line because he’s busy wondering if Ryan can read him like a book. Some days, like today, Sean gives all of himself to the creation, and when he slips from the booth and downs two bottles of water, he feels like a clean slate.

He listens to Max and Tom record their parts. Sometimes, they play all at once and, sometimes, they break it into sections. They don’t really have a structure this time, but Sean likes what they’re doing, likes the release. It won’t last, because even looking at Ryan is drumming up something in his chest, but for now, being empty is good.

After practice, Ross shows up to collect Tom. He invites them all out to this place that is clearly a bar he picked up from Jon. Sean is feeling weirdly disconnected with everyone, but it’d be weird if he said ‘no,’ seeing as how everyone else said ‘yes,’ so they split two cars. It’s already weird that Sean has decided to ride with Tom and Ross instead of Max and Ryan.

Sean doesn’t allow himself to get drunk like the night he kissed Ryan. He orders a water and a beer and then alternates between listening to Ross and Tom argue about some story from when he tagged along on their tour and playing pool with Max. He doesn’t know where Ryan is; he isn’t keeping track. He just knows that he’s not where Sean is, which is probably better in the long run.

He manages to avoid Ryan for at least two hours before he goes back to the bar to get another beer and catches sight of Ryan standing off to the side near Tom. He sees Sean - he’s looking right at him. At first, his face is blank, but then, slowly, he smiles. He doesn’t look all that genuine, but Sean tries to give it back to him. He’s not sure what his smile looks like in return.

He thinks Ryan will approach him now, slide up to him and, then, well, Sean doesn’t know what happens. He glances towards Ryan, who’s drinking deep from his beer, eyes slated in Sean’s direction. It feels like a goddamn walking temptation. He forces his gaze away, staring down at the glossy, wooden bar under his palms and waits for that second beer. In the back of his mind, he wonders what number drink Ryan is on.

Ryan never does approach him. Sean slinks away from the bar with his beer and glues himself to Max’s side. It’s shitty and obvious that he’s keeping his distance, but Ryan isn’t trying to close in on him, either. Occasionally, though, Sean can feel eyes on him. He knows that it’s Ryan watching him from a safe distance. Sean isn’t even brave enough to do that.

Sean notices that, when a bar is getting ready to close, the lights dim down to almost nothing. Tom says it’s so lonely people who are too shy in the light to make a move can snatch up someone to go home with, but Tom says a lot of shit. In the almost-darkness of this bar, though, he can clearly see Tom whispering something to Ross. Max is paying for his last cranberry juice. He’s got Ryan's wallet in his hand, so he’s probably paying for Ryan’s shit, too. Speaking of Ryan, though, Sean doesn’t know where he is. He scans the dark of the bar for him until he feels a hand brush his arm.

Sean startles and hears a throaty laugh. “Did I scare you?” Ryan asks from behind Sean. “That’s impossible. Nothing scares you.”

Sean turns around so that he’s facing Ryan. “That’s not true. A lot of things scare me.” Just nothing he hopes Ryan will notice.

Ryan wiggles his fingers at Sean. “Like…” He leans in close, like he wants to whisper in Sean’s ear - except Sean isn’t leaning down, so it’s more like Ryan is whispering into Sean’s v-neck. “Like ghosts?”

“Something else has been scaring me lately.” Sean doesn’t know why he's saying this. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he isn’t drunk enough to have a reason for a loose tongue, but maybe Ryan is drunk enough to not remember.

Ryan’s brows furrow together. “What is it?” Now Sean knows he’s drunk, because he’s all over the place. He feels Ryan’s hand brush against his own and sucks in a quick breath. “What are you scared of?”

“Ryan - ”

“No,” Ryan says. “Don’t be afraid of me.” He sounds sad, and Sean's chest hurts.

“I didn't mean that,” Sean says, though he kind of did. His heart is beating faster now than it ever did within the presence of a spirit.

Ryan’s hand finds Sean’s. He’s holding Sean’s hand in the middle of a dark bar. Ryan’s hand is rough from playing. His fingertips scratch at Sean’s palm, but his hand is also warm and solid. Sean feels more anchored now than he has in the last few days. Ryan’s thumb sweeps against the back of Sean’s hand. It’s not particularly intimate, but it reminds Sean of what they aren’t supposed to be doing. He isn’t supposed to be doing this.

“Hey,” Sean says. He slides his hand from Ryan’s. “No. Anyone could see.” That’s not even really the problem. Sean’s mouth is moving faster than his brain.

“Does that mean you’d hold my hand somewhere where no one could see?” Ryan asks, one eyebrow raised in Sean’s direction.

“The bar is closing,” Sean says instead of giving a real answer. “Let’s go find Max.” He doesn’t even look back to see if Ryan is following him, but he knows that he is. He can feel Ryan’s gaze burning a hole in the center of his back.

They find Max at the bar and, when they get outside, Sean grabs Max by the shoulder. “Hey, I’m not drunk. I’m good to drive.”

Max looks skeptical, but they both know that Sean wouldn’t lie about something like that. He isn’t drunk, barely running on a buzz at all. He drank more water than beer tonight. Max gets Ryan in the backseat. He’s not too smashed, either, but he’s in no condition to drive.

He drops Max off and then it’s just he and Ryan in the car on the way back to his apartment. Ryan is crammed up by the door, his forehead against the cool glass of the backseat window.

“Don’t throw up in your own car, dude,” Sean says. “You’ll hate yourself in the morning.”

Ryan mumbles an unintelligible response and flips Sean off. That feels more like how they used to be before this weird tension found its way into their friendship. Sean could almost feel better about things if he didn’t remember the hand-holding at the bar.

The cool night air seems to have sobered Ryan up somewhat. He’s able to walk without stumbling and doesn’t need Sean’s help in getting up to the apartment. Once they’re inside, he doesn’t even kick off his shoes or take off his jacket. He goes straight to the couch and collapses there like he can’t bear to take one more step.

“How drunk are you?” Ryan asks from his back on the couch. His legs are opened a little, enough to look like an invitation.

Sean bites his lip. “Not at all. How drunk are you?”

“Drunk,” Ryan says. “Drunk enough that I can’t take my shoes off.”

“Christ,” Sean says, but he’s laughing. Ryan rolls his eyes and, really, Sean can’t watch him struggle to take his shoes off, so he kneels down by Ryan’s legs and pulls Ryan’s foot onto his lap. Ryan’s wearing those fucking ankle boot things that zip, so it’s a bitch to get them off of him, but he eventually does. He tries not to think about how close he is to Ryan or how warm Ryan’s socked feet are against Sean’s legs.

Sean touches Ryan’s ankles with the purpose of moving his legs off of him, but then his fingers are touching smooth skin and Sean’s thumb is rubbing just above Ryan’s ankle just like Ryan’s thumb had done on the back of Sean’s hand at the bar.

Ryan makes a tiny noise and Sean feels a sudden and all-too-clear want. There’s no hiding from the feeling. He wants to devour skin with his palms and taste with his mouth and feel that smooth warmth everywhere. Fuck. Fuck, how does Ryan do this to him? How do all his safely-guarded plans fall through when he’s this close to Ryan? It’s maddening.

He unceremoniously drops Ryan’s feet and stands up. “You gonna sleep there tonight?” Sean asks him.

Tonight, Ryan is as bad at hiding his real feelings as Sean is. Sean can clearly see the disappointment crawl across Ryan’s face and he sinks into the couch brings his legs up to the cushions. “Yeah, I think so.”

Sean nods and goes to the extra bedroom where Ryan usually sleeps when he isn’t taking the couch. He grabs the blanket off the air mattress and goes back to the living room. Ryan’s eyes are already closed and he doesn’t move or open them when Sean drapes the blanket over him.

Sean isn’t stupid. He can definitely tell when someone is coming on to him and it felt like Ryan was coming on to him. He doesn’t know how to feel. He can’t even conjure up the thought that Ryan would want him like that. Except…he kissed Sean back the other night. He kissed back and didn’t push away. Sean was the one running; he was the one who ran at the bar. He’s the one who’s running right now.

He goes to sleep feeling too aware of Ryan in the other room, a few feet and a solid wood door the only thing parting the two of them. The feelings Sean had just cleared away in the studio that day are back in full force. He lies on his stomach with his face in the pillows. He just wants everything to make sense again.

***
Sean likes to write as soon as he wakes up and, with his bedroom door still closed, he can write without broadcasting that he’s up for the day. Nothing is coming to him, which is surprising because his head feels completely full. The words are all tangled up in his brain; he can’t get it out the way he wants. He writes a few lines and a lot of bullshit that he’s sure won't ever make sense before he abandons his notebook and goes out to use the bathroom.

He’s not sure what to expect with Ryan today. It could be the same after the kiss and they can just pretend nothing happened (Sean is planning on taking that route) or Ryan could remember everything or nothing and the gap between them could only grow wider.

It turns out that he doesn’t have to worry about it at the moment because Ryan isn’t in the apartment. There’s a sloppily-written note on the table for Sean from Ryan that reads: Hey, I went to do my laundry at Nick’s. I would’ve taken yours but didn’t want to wake you - Ryan.

It’s hard to detect tone through a note, but nothing seems unusual, so Sean tries not to worry. He grabs his laptop and goes back to his room to attempt getting the jumble of words out of his head. He does better the second time around, but the words on his screen are cutting too close and Sean almost erases them several times, unwilling to write about that even if it’s all he can think about.

Sean must fall asleep while he’s writing, because the next time he’s opening his eyes, he finds Ryan standing in his bedroom. His cheeks are red from the cold outside and he’s still wearing his jacket, so he couldn’t have been back for long.

Sean sits up and knocks his laptop with his knee and shit, the lyrics he’d written were just sitting open on the screen where Ryan could see. Sean pulls the laptop back on his lap and closes the screen before he looks at Ryan. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Ryan says, motioning to Sean’s bed. “Do you mind?”

“No, go ahead.”

Ryan sits on the end of Sean’s bed. “I just wanted to talk to you. Sorry if I woke you. Did you get my note?”

“Uh, yeah. You didn’t wake me, it's cool. I was just working on some shit.”

Ryan smiles and looks at his hands. Sean can feel the tension creeping back in. “I was trashed last night,” Ryan says. "I hope I wasn’t a mess."

“Nah, you were fine. I think Tom was mostly babysitting you.”

“That explains that text from him where he called me a cockblocker.”

In the small space of his bedroom, Sean can smell Ryan. He smells clean, so he must’ve showered before he left for Nick’s.

“Anyway, I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but I think what we’re doing is really amazing,” Ryan says. He looks at Sean now.

Sean swallows thickly. “What we’re doing?”

“The band,” Ryan clarifies. "Watching you sing last night…it felt like you hit a whole new level. I don’t remember ever feeling as sure about your talent as I was last night. You were something else.”

Sean is shit at taking compliments, especially from his own band. He can feel his cheeks pink up and scratches at the back of his neck. “Thanks, man. You were on point with your drumming, too.”

Ryan pulls himself up on Sean’s bed, folding his legs up, looking like he belongs there. Ryan smiles at him. As far as mindfucks go, Ryan is the king of them lately. Either he was too drunk last night to remember what happened at the bar and what could’ve happened back here at the apartment or he’s pretending again, like Sean has been pretending since that kiss…maybe even before that.

“Do you remember anything from last night?” Sean asks. He’s curious, even if he shouldn’t be.

Ryan shakes his head. “Not much. I think I remember you took my shoes off?”

Sean tries not to flush at the memory. “Yeah, I did.”

Ryan grins. “You're too good to me.”

Sean waves him off. "Shut up. It was no big deal.”

Ryan laughs a little and ducks his head. Sean can’t see his eyes because his hair is in the way, but he can still see Ryan's smile and how it doesn’t stretch all the way across his face like he’s used to.

“Hey, care to show me what you’re working on?”

Sean looks at his keyboard and thinks of what he wrote versus what he wants to write and how Ryan can’t see either one. “It’s mostly shit. Pretty unusable.”

Ryan changes position so that he’s on his stomach, his feet barely hanging off the end and his face pillowed on Sean’s mess of comforters that make up a nice little nest. He still can’t see Sean’s laptop in his new position, but Sean still defaults to his email to be extra-safe.

Ryan looks at him through his lashes. His hand is close to Sean’s thigh. It looks like, if Ryan just extended his fingers all the way, he could brush Sean’s skin where the shorts he’s wearing end. Sean watches him without trying to look like he’s watching him. Ryan’s eyes slip closed and he rubs his face against Sean’s blanket, like he’s settling down for a nap.

Sean doesn’t say anything. He pretends to check his email a few more times while he tries to figure out what he should be saying or doing. It was never hard before - conversation isn’t something difficult for Sean - but, with Ryan now, he just doesn’t know where to tread.

Then, Sean does feel the barely-there graze of fingertips against the side of his knee. He looks at Ryan’s hand before he switches to his face. “I wanted to know if you’ve had any ghostly visitors recently,” Ryan says.

“Ah, no. Not since the girl.” Huh, he hadn’t thought of that. He hadn’t noticed the lack of ghosts pestering him. They don’t even hang around outside anymore. The most contact he’s had with spirits since the dream of the dead girl has been the spirit that’s inhabiting Ross. “You're not dumping salt around the apartment, are you?”

Ryan laughs. “No. I’ve just been thinking about how much they bother you on tour, but at home, it’s different.”

“Maybe I’m pushing them away again. Apparently, they don’t care for me when I’m off-putting.”

Ryan rolls over on his back and inches up the bed a bit. His head is just barely on Sean’s pillow. “I was worried for a while about the stuff they were saying to you.”

“How it was my fault that girl died?”

Ryan props himself up on his elbows and frowns at Sean. “Sean, don’t - ”

“I don’t understand it myself. I still don’t know what they expect from me. Maybe when you die, you become really aware of everything all at once and you forget what it’s like to be a human and not know jack shit.”

“You think?”

Sean shrugs. “I don't know, I’m a human.”

Ryan lies back down, but he’s looking at Sean now.

“It might be my fault and it might not, but if they want me to do something, they need to give me more information.”

It’s weird that Sean is telling Ryan all of this. He didn’t want to because he didn’t want Ryan to worry. This is all stuff that he was saving for when he eventually told Tom about the dream and the girl in the paper. Now that he’s telling Ryan everything he's been thinking about, though, he can’t see why he thought he shouldn’t.

“I just don’t want you to drive yourself crazy,” Ryan says. His eyes are closed again, his feet tucked underneath Sean’s comforter.

“I save all the crazy for the songs.”

Ryan smiles, but it doesn't last long. After that, they sit together. The silence doesn’t feel as deafening. Ryan falls asleep in Sean’s bed with his feet under Sean’s blanket. Sean doesn’t move because he doesn’t want to wake him up. He writes while Ryan sleeps, writes until the sun goes down.

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