“Just come and walk with the living...” Ghost's roughwater voice fades out beneath the last growling thrum of Steve's guitar chords. With a final strike of the silver-steel strings, Steve gives the roaring crowd a little nod, then hoists the strap over his shoulder and sets the guitar on its stand.
Another show down, another hundred bucks in their back pockets—bucks that they plan to spend on band promotion, but will more likely spend on gas for the T-bird and pot. The car and the weed are, after all, what gets them from gig to gig—one to transport, even if it's precarious transport at the best of times, and one to ease the clunky drive a little, to take the sultry edge off long, dusty October roads.
Jacksonville next weekend, Beaufort the weekend after, making a steady crawl along the eastern state border. The Yew makes for good, homey practice ground though.
There's no place like home, thinks Steve as he hops off the edge of the stage and makes a beeline for the bar, dodging back-combed, kohl-happy teenagers, some of whom slap him on the back and utter such love poetry as “Good one,” and “You rock,” as he passes.
Steve doesn't need to turn around to know Ghost's right behind him; he can sense him, familiar and warm and smelling of old books and new energy, a breath of fresh sweat.
Before Steve's even wormed his way through the crowd, Kinsey's giving him a flash of a smile and sets down a bottle of Bud. Then he ducks again until Steve can see nothing but the top of his cap and the little stringy feather sticking up from the brim, before he re-emerges with a Natty Boho for Ghost.
Steve goes for his back pocket, but Kinsey reaches across the bar and knocks him gently on the shoulder with his fist. “Don't even think about it. On the house, Steve—you know that.”
“Aw, c'mon, Kinsey. We had the last two 'on the house'.” Steve reaches for Ghost's beer, passes it over his shoulder, feels an electric pulse zim under his skin as their fingers connect for a split second. “You know how me and Ghost pack them away. You'll be bankrupt in a few weeks.”
“Nonsense,” says Kinsey, taking up a sodden dish rag and mopping spilled alcohol off the bar. “Your gigs alone could keep me afloat. Keep 'em rolling in, boys. Anyway, I appreciate you tending bar when I'm strapped for help. Go on and enjoy the drinks. You played great tonight—you deserve them.”
“Eh, doing what we can,” Steve breathes into his bottleneck, inwardly thrilled. Next to him, something solid squirms into the tiny space at his side; now he and Ghost are like two sardines in a can.
“... don't smell so fishy,” Ghost's saying.
Steve glances at him, lifts an eyebrow. “Huh?”
Tropical-washed blue eyes buzzing with beer and adrenaline turn to look at him. “What?”
“What was that about fish?” Steve asks between swigs.
Ghost stares blankly at him for a second, then hitches one shoulder. It rubs hotly against Steve's arm. “I dunno. Did I say something about fish?”
“I dunno,” says Steve with a frown. “That's why I was asking you.”
“Oh,” says Ghost, and that's all. A brilliant, radiant, innocent smile that piques the hairs at the back of Steve's neck, and Ghost turns to his bottle and uses his blunt fingernails to peel the label off the front.
When Kinsey starts yammering to Steve about the latest shipment of National Bohemian and how the company sent the wrong stuff, sent some dark bitter crap instead, Steve only half-notices how the short, dark-haired girl standing to Ghost's right starts chatting to Ghost.
Not until Kinsey's finished, heading off down the bar to serve a raucous gaggle of steampunk ladies in earrings and pendants made from old clock parts, does Steve start picking up fragments of a silky, low voice, like black velvet dragged over skin. At a glance, her profile translates a delicate, sharp bone-structure, cheekbones you could shave your stubble on. Flesh like cream. Eyes lined darkly, some deep purple. Pretty.
“I like that I can hear your fingers on the microphone as you sing,” she's saying, and Steve has to admit it's a pretty good line, as far as lines go. “Makes it feel more... personal, you know?”
“Personal,” repeats Ghost, sounding surprised. “Well, yeah. I guess it would. You can really hear that? My fingers, I mean?”
“Yes,” says the girl. “It's really—”
A glass smashes at the other end of the bar and Steve misses what comes next.
Okay, yeah, it's eavesdropping, but Steve doesn't feel all that repentant about it. It's Ghost, after all. Ghost, who rarely talks to any female-of-the-species he didn't go to school with, let alone a cute one who loves his fingers on the mic.
Steve smirks and gulps back more Bud, swallows back the weight that's begun inching up his throat, pushing it back down into his gullet where it settles, stone-like, but bearable. Ignorable. Ghost's turned entirely to face the girl now, his back to Steve, so Steve pushes back through the throng, through the tide of white faces rolling toward the bar, the tide he swims against.
“Hey, Steve,” says a familiar voice in his ear, and he turns to see R.J smiling at him. Feels R.J's nicotine-stained hand clapping on his shoulder. “You sounded good up there, man.”
“Hey yourself.” Steve grins at R.J, glad to see him, glad for the distraction. “Welcome back. Why'd you bother coming back, anyway?” he asks with a hint of mirth.
“Ahh.” R.J releases him and holds up both hands. “I got ties. Y'know, not just Gumbo.”
“Oh yeah? I thought you guys were networking down in New Orleans.” Steve is only half paying attention to what he's saying; the other half is not turning to check on Ghost, is resolutely not even stealing a glance over his shoulder toward the bar.
“Emphasis on 'were',” R.J tells him, shrugging. “My girlfriend's expecting—I had to come home. I wanted to come home.”
Steve doesn't miss the tone. It's one he's used himself more times than he'd care to admit. The tone where you convince yourself of something you don't fully believe. Shit, yeah, Steve's all too familiar with that tone. So R.J's going to be a dad? Steve works his smile back up onto his face. “Congratulations to you both,” he says, nodding, trying to battle away the memories of Ann that rise drenched in red bandages.
“Thanks!” R.J starts to say something else, but Steve's done with the idle chatter, is suddenly not feeling particularly sociable; in fact, he'd rather get out of here.
“Great catching up, R.J,” he says quickly. “But I gotta get Ghost and head out. Maybe we can shoot the breeze some other time.” It's a non-committal non-question, one that Steve doesn't even wait for an answer to. He turns around and then he's moving with the tide, rather than fighting it. Drifting back toward the bar, the pale lights that illuminate the shelves stacked with beer bottles, Kinsey's stupid feather hat.
Then he sees Ghost and the girl, the cute, petite girl, and Steve stops in his tracks, and someone bumps into him from behind and mutters a rough, “Watch it, dude,” that he doesn't pay attention to.
The empty Bud bottle slips out of Steve's hand, crashes somewhere below, the sharp sound of broken glass muted and unimportant under the chatter, the chatter muted and unimportant under the pounding drum—his heart accelerating in his ribcage like the fucking thing wants out of there.
It's her eyes that do it. Something in her eyes, or maybe it's just the shape, slanted, swooping, catlike eyes that are all too intelligent, shining like light off a blade. The way those eyes spear Ghost, like he's some kind of Happy Meal and oh God, oh fuck, Steve is rooted to the spot. Because this can't be happening. Not again. As she smiles, leers closer to Ghost's face—his neck—barlight touches the two fine points of her front teeth, wet-looking and eager, mouth opening and opening and opening impossibly wide.
Steve's cold, ice cold but for the molten, vicious roil deep at the core of him. It bubbles up and he remembers the night at Ghost's place, the punkass freaks getting in through the window, the kid—the little bastard kid Nothing—and the kid's murderous friends.
People-clusters part easily for him like he's a knife sliding through soft butter, but Steve's not aware of shoving anyone aside, barely even aware of his own footsteps or the sticky floor tacking to his bootheels. To be aware of that would to be in two minds, but he only has the one right now—the one focused entirely on Ghost, getting to Ghost, getting to Ghost before it happens.
First comes the smell of her perfume, something musky, reminiscent of a scent one of his ex-girlfriends used to use. Underlying that, he smells something metallic, like old, rusty pennies.
Taking a fistful of long dark hair, Steve yanks her back, feels a satisfying jerk of her neck as she stumbles and gasps and her hands come up to claw as his wrist.
“'The fuck away from him,” he growls, shoving at her, though she doesn't go far, just rebounds off the pulsing wall of bodies mingling around them. Light plays on her creamy face and Steve can see a fine little network of veins beneath the translucence of her skin.
Steve grabs Ghost by the arm and pulls him into his hip.
“What's the matter, Steve?” Ghost asks, breath Boho sweet on Steve's face, and he really doesn't have a fucking clue what this bitch was about to do to him? That's the last time Steve leaves him alone with a girl. With anyone ever again.
“We're leaving,” Steve tells him, and Ghost doesn't reply, simply goes loose in Steve's grip and allows himself to be tugged, twisted, manoeuvred through the people until they're near the door. Only then does Steve feel resistance.
“You going to tell me what that was about?” Ghost asks him, as they step out onto the dusty street, Steve finally able to pry his fingers from around Ghost's arm—and there might be bruises there tomorrow; Ghost's so fine and pale they could be dark ones—and shove his fists in his jeans pockets. “Steve?”
“Yeah. It was,” Steve begins, falters, mumbles, “just she was.” He stomps along the sidewalk, heading toward the shabbier end of Firehouse Street, Ghost at his elbow.
“She was?”
Steve bites his tongue. Watches the ground.
“What are you trying to say?” Ghost asks slowly. “You knew that girl?”
“No, I'm trying to—fuck.” Steve fumbles in his pocket, finds a half-smoked reefer, rifles in his other pocket for his lighter. As he slides it out his numb fingers lose their grip and the lighter goes tumbling to the sidewalk. As he stops, Ghost stoops in a graceful arch and retrieves it, then hands it to him, and Steve picks up his pace again. “Look, it's to do with last year. She was... not normal. How couldn't you tell she wasn't normal?”
Ghost's staring across at him with wide eyes now clear of adrenaline and full of concern. “Oh, shit,” he whispers, blinking at Steve. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Steve says without bothering to extract the sarcasm from his voice.
“No, I mean oh shit—I think I get you now. She wasn't—”
“That's what I've been trying to tell you.”
“No, wait. I mean, that girl wasn't a vampire.”
“You had to go and say it.” Steve sparks up and tokes deep and hard, feels the sticky-sweet smoke curl down his throat, seep into his senses in a wonderful, reassuring headrush that tapers into a mellow cushion for his brain. “You just had to say that word, didn't you?”
“She wasn't, though.”
Steve follows the billow of smoke he blows out, watching the cloud of white crawling through the darkness just ahead of him before he strides straight through it.
“Her teeth were fakes,” Ghost goes on, sneakers pattering on the concrete. “She was just showing me.”
Steve stops again, his boots scuffing the standstill symphony. “What?”
Ghost stops too, worries his lower lip for a second. “She took one of them out to show me, then when she put it back over her normal tooth she leaned in as if to bite me. I guess it was her way of joking.”
A joke? That girl was... “No.”
Ghost nods.
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. You pulled her pretty hard.”
“Oh, shit!” Steve absently passes the joint to Ghost, feels Ghost's cool fingers for a heartbeat, but the touch doesn't register like the one earlier, if only because all Steve can think about is the satisfying jerk of that girl's neck. “Fuck!”
“I think she'll be okay,” Ghost tells him hopefully. “I mean, so she looked like she was gonna cry, but she said she'd just had an argument with her boyfriend anyway and she was hoping to—”
“I've gotta go back,” Steve says, turning on his heel, feeling that marvellous headrush again, wishing it didn't feel so good when he should be feeling so bad.
“Nah, it'll be all right.” Ghost touches his arm, just two fingers on his t-shirt sleeve. Steve knows if he looks down he'll see milk-white skin against once-black material faded to grey, complimenting shades.
No, think about the girl. God, it'd looked so real, so authentic, with her cat-eyes and her paleness and those teeth. Fakes! All just fake, and Ghost, too, with his head tilted, neck sloping, eyelids lowered, lashes so fine and pale they were hardly there at all. The heat that'd boiled up inside, the way it'd melted Steve's momentary freeze. The need to get to Ghost, to pull Ghost to him, to feel Ghost safe against him.
Ghost steps closer. “You were really worried.” When Steve looks at him, Ghost has his eyes closed just like at the bar. “Steve.”
“Don't. I don't want to talk about it. I've gotta go apologise.”
“And get maimed by her boyfriend, who she's probably gone to find.”
“... Hell.”
Smoke tendrils escape the corners of Ghost's mouth and he opens his eyes, slowly like a videotape played at half-speed, blue pools of light in the bland night. “Steve. I'm sorry.”
“Whatever. It's no big deal.” The smoke smells so sweet, coiling up into his nostrils, straight from Ghost's mouth. Steve's aware he's shivering, October nights getting cooler, rolling into deeper fall. Ghost's fingers on his arm are like two shimmering points, two large embers working down through the material. Maybe there'll be holes singed there in the morning. Maybe.
“You're still getting dreams about it.” Ghost's so close now his features are a little blurred. Steve's conscious that they're standing on the street, the deserted, sparse street. Anyone comes along, they might think... might think... hell.
“Yeah,” Steve admits. “Not so much lately. Probably will now, though.”
The barest twitch of Ghost's mouth. “Well, I'm here. I'll be there. I'll share it all with you.”
“Yeah,” says Steve, feeling like he's trapped in some dreamscape, some vision of the past, a night in an unfamiliar bed with Ghost's familiar body furnace-warm next to him, Ghost's breath cool on his cheek, his chin.
“I still dream about it, too.” Ghost rises like he's going up onto the balls of his feet. Steve pictures the arch of his worn, scuffed sneakers, a weird, random image to be having right at this moment. Feels Ghost's lips a little chilly, half against the corner of his mouth and half against his cheek, a crooked connection, a perfectly crooked connection. “Thanks for looking out for me. I owe you one.”
“No, you really don't,” Steve breathes into Ghost's mouth, cannabis kiss green and smooth and damp like dewy grass in sunlight.
This is the moment Steve knows purely, truly, fundamentally, that Ghost is safe. The safety-taste is on Ghost's lips and on his tongue; Steve can taste the fact that Ghost knows it too. Knows Ghost wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Steve wonders where the hell he'd go anyway—where either of them would go.
The only place the nightmares can't touch, the place the monsters can't stalk, is right here. It's hotter than in The Yew, standing on Firehouse Street with Ghost up against him, a charm point in the breath of October, closing in on Halloween. The spooks have never felt less real, even though Steve knows at the back of his head they are.
For a rush-fire moment, he clutches Ghost's narrow hips and breathes through his nose, feels Ghost clinging to his t-shirt. Wet press of tongue, gentle clack of teeth, taste like childhood, safety, sweet things. Tree things. Home things.
Never like this with a girl.
Ghost moans at the back of his throat, a soft bird-wing sound, a wild bird from the nest, raw in its suddenness. That roughwater sound. Steve drinks, feels dizzy, feels like some stupid chick on a first date. Aches, deep down, but refuses to analyse it—too dangerous, doesn't want to break this precarious... thing, that they have. Feeds on Ghost's reality instead, and then finally, like a wisp of silk, cool air works its way in the gap, brushing Steve's damp mouth.
“You don't owe me a goddamn thing,” he gruffs in a not-quite-stoned rumble, unable to feel his fingers as he wrenches them off Ghost's hips. The ground tilts, rights itself. “You know that.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Ghost smiles, just a bleary up-sway of his lips; they shine dimly in the distant streetlight. “Let's go. I'll make pancakes.”
“I'm not drunk enough for pancakes,” Steve says, and oh, but he is. Maybe he only had six Buds at The Yew, but they might as well be twelve right now.
“You don't have to be drunk for pancakes,” Ghost informs him, cheeks this wonderful merry red Steve doesn't think he's ever seen before, not even in the wild roses that grow fat and beautiful—possibly the only beautiful thing—along Violin Road.
“I'm not so hungry,” Steve says.
Ghost wanders off down the sidewalk, and that thing? That thing that just happened? That will not be spoken of. Not now, not later. It is what it is, as it was what it was once before—the time Steve had thought only this one time, just now when I need it most.
“That's okay,” Ghost tosses over his shoulder. “I'll eat for both of us.”
Steve thinks about the dreams—the nightmares, pretty sure Ghost's been eating more than just pancakes for both of them for quite some time.
No more. Steve'll just suck those sick fuckers up and deal with it, because it's the least he can do. He'll get on, maybe not great, but on nevertheless, because Ghost is here, will be there. Because it's what Ghost wants.
Steve pushes the monsters back into the past where they belong, and follows Ghost home.
~Fin~
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