“You know, this bar is dead.”

Aiden, only half listening, glances around with vague skepticism. The bar is not dead. It’s Saturday, in a big city, and getting close to midnight. The bar is packed. He tosses back the better part of his drink and sets it down on the table, wincing against the burn in his throat.

“And the drinks here are terrible. I could make us better ones at my place.”

“Mkay.” Aiden doesn’t bother pretending to be interested in whatever this man is saying. The most that he’s contributed to this entire conversation is the occasional incline of his chin, and the guy doesn’t seem to have noticed. Or maybe he has, but he doesn’t care?

“It’s not that far away, actually. My place.”

Aiden’s eyes flick back to him.

“Are you trying to pick me up?” It comes out far more harshly than he intended, cold and sharp. The guy flinches.

“Oh, no, I just-” He takes a step back, but Aiden catches his wrist before he can get too far away. He wants a better look. This guy is cute. Blonde. Appears harmless. Aiden doesn’t mind the accent, either.

“What’s your name again, blondie?”

“It - why do you want to know?”

Aiden can read the fear in his eyes. It’s not even on purpose, sometimes. People just always end up looking at him this way. He must not be drunk enough, because he feels a twinge of guilt.

“Hmm, you’re right.” He releases the man’s wrist and takes his fingers instead. “Names don’t matter. I’m only in town for one night, anyways.”

The distress on the stranger’s face melts away. Something sparks behind his eyes.

“Then I guess we shouldn’t waste any time, huh?”

Aiden doesn’t remember most of the walk from the bar to the apartment building. He’s way too fucked up for that, and blondie is, too, half falling when he pushes open the lobby door. Aiden catches him, then shoves him up against the wall inside and yanks his head back for a messy, gin-flavored kiss. They stumble up the stairs, stopping before the door while the guy scrabbles around in his pockets for the keys.

Aiden presses up against him from behind, in part to tease him, in part to hold himself upright. Even still, he needs to brace a hand on the doorframe so that they don’t both fall over.

“So, come on, I need a name to work with,” blondie says, smiling up at Aiden over his shoulder, clumsily fitting the key into the lock. “Doesn’t have to be your real one, I don’t care, but something.”

Aiden normally just uses his real name, but if this guy doesn’t want it, then - he says the first one that pops into his head and regrets it instantly.

“Jamie.”

“Jamie,” the other man purrs. He leaves the key in the door and turns to push a sloppy kiss into Aiden’s neck. “Well, Jamie, you are the cutest guy I’ve ever seen at that bar, and I’ve been wanting to do this ever since I laid eyes on you.”

Aiden’s throat is suddenly closing up. Hearing those words, with Jamie’s name, coming from the mouth of some other fucking guy - he feels sick. He pushes the stranger off of him with more force than he meant and staggers back down the hallway towards the stairs.

“Hey, where are you going?” Aiden doesn’t answer; he’s focused on getting back to the lobby without tripping and braining himself on the railing. He’s long since hit the point in drinking for the night where his limbs are starting to feel numb, only loosely under his control. “Wait! Did I say something wrong?”

Blondie tries one more time before Aiden falls back out onto the cobblestone street. “Can I at least get your number?”

What city is he in, tonight? He can’t remember, but he’ll use the train ticket in his pocket to check later. Wherever he is, there’s a long, dark waterway cutting through the low brick buildings. Aiden walks alongside it, gulping in big lungfuls of cold night air, nauseous and furious with himself.

He hates that after all this time, the thought of Jamie with someone else still fucks him up so badly.

He stops and leans on the railing lining the waterway. Peers into the water below, which is scattered with discarded cans and browning flower petals and the occasional plastic bag. He digs around in his pockets and finds a crushed pack with one cigarette still inside. He hasn’t got a lighter, but someone gave him their number written on a matchbook, recently. He finds it in his pocket, lights the match with a pop. Stares down at the phone number. Who gave this to him, again? Was it the chick with the lip ring? Or that guy he’d met in Brussels?

Doesn’t matter. It was the last match, anyways. He tosses the matchbook haphazardly at the nearest trash can and leans his elbows on the railing again, smoking slowly, trying to steady himself out.

Aiden is having one of those nights. He’s really fucked up, well beyond the usual level of intoxication he maintains to keep the combination of grief and noise in his head at tolerable levels. Whenever he gets like this, all of the effort he puts into forgetting about Jamie seems to dry up and disappear. Suddenly he’s back to square fucking one again.

He fights the urge for a moment, curses himself, and gives up.

He listens for Jamie’s energy. It’s not hard to find. It’s never hard to find. He clings to it tightly. It rises above everything else, softens all of the other noise, brings the world back to solidity under his feet.

When Aiden can think again, he realizes that he’s not sure where he’s going to sleep tonight. He probably shouldn’t have stormed out on that guy. Where is he going to go? He sleeps by the side of the road pretty often, but usually when he’s crossing through smaller towns, ones with nature to offer him some cover. This is a bigger city, and he won’t sleep outside if there’s a chance his wallet might be taken. It has something precious, irreplaceable inside.

Is it too late for him to find a hostel? He pulls out his phone to check the time, then blinks down at a voicemail notification. Only one person has his number, so he knows who it is before he presses play.

“Aiden, hi, sweetheart.” The sound of his aunt’s voice twists a splinter buried deep in his heart. “I hope that you’re doing okay. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anything… I just wanted to call and say happy birthday. I miss you. You know you can always call me, even if… well. Have a good birthday, honey.”

He stares at his phone for a moment, then jerks upright as a huge sound cleaves through the air. The bell of some nearby church, chiming out midnight.

He’s just turned twenty-five.

The cigarette is burning his fingers. Aiden tosses it into the water and sits down heavily on the freezing pavement.

It’s officially been a decade of wanting Jamie. It dawns on him slowly. Ten years. Ten fucking years.

It strikes him that this might never go away.

The noise in his head swells up and claws at him, pounding against his skull, and he wants to fucking scream. He just needs one minute, one minute of silence to think. He struggles to breathe, trying to focus through the alcohol haze, and once again he’s forced to use the sound of Jamie’s energy. It’s the thread that leads him back out of the labyrinth.

His head clears for a moment, and he thinks, as he always does when he’s feeling weak: I could always go back.

Aiden tries to imagine a future where Jamie could forgive him. Where they could sit and talk and laugh together, tell each other important things. Where Jamie could feel safe around him, care about him. Where Jamie could trust him.

It's beyond impossible. Ridiculous. Laughable.

They don’t even know each other anymore. Aiden has no idea about Jamie's life, what he's been doing or how it's going. How different or similar he is to his high school self. What he likes and dislikes, his sense of humor, how he is to talk to.

All Aiden knows is that Jamie's soul is the same. He knows this because he listens for it every night. It's usually the only way he can get to sleep.

He closes his eyes.

That sound hasn't changed, not one bit. It's bright, beautiful - perfect, at least to him. Aiden needs it, but it's also torture.

“Hey.” Someone nudges Aiden’s side with a heavy boot. Words he doesn’t understand meet his ears. He blinks up at a police officer.

“What?”

The officer tries again, this time in clipped English: “No sleeping here.”

Aiden walks listlessly along the water, watching the shifting glow of the streetlights on its oily surface. He does his best not to lose his footing; he doesn’t know if the policeman is still watching him. His efforts at composure fall apart when he turns the corner. He ends up supporting himself against the nearest wall as he walks.

A decade, he thinks again. Ten years.

He forgot his backpack at that bar. Unfortunate. His flask is in the front zipper, and he could use it right now, but. He’ll go back and get it tomorrow. That place was too loud for him. He finds a different bar, a quiet, dimly-lit place with way fewer people than the last. He gets himself a whiskey neat and slumps into the booth in the farthest corner.

The decade marker has Aiden thinking that this would be the perfect time to officially, finally let this go. The problem only exists in his head, which means it’s entirely within his power to put a stop to it, right? He’s been trying ever since it started, to no success, but... Maybe now, maybe if he can just draw a hard line between that part of his life and the next. Leave Jamie in the rearview, and-

Just thinking of it makes him want to collapse down onto the table. Weak, he tells himself. Weak, weak, weak. But he can’t help it. The thought practically guts him. Is this really how it ends for us? Before there ever even was an us?

This bar has a little outdoor area in the back, and, feeling suffocated, Aiden lurches to his feet and makes his way outside. Someone else is out there, a guy smoking a cigarette.

“Hey,” Aiden snaps. The man twists to look at him, raising an eyebrow. “Find someplace else to be.”

The guy opens his mouth to argue, takes a better look at Aiden, and changes his mind. He flicks the cigarette away and hurries back into the bar.

The cold air is instant relief, but not for long. Aiden leans his forehead against the brick wall, the world spinning around him. He puts back another gulp of his drink, sets the glass down on one of the tables, and fumbles his wallet out of his pocket. Finds the two pages tucked inside and takes them into his hands.

If he’s really going to do this, he needs a clean break. He presses his thumbs into the pages. It would only take the smallest movement to rip the poem in half. He stands there in the cold, staring down at it, his pulse racing.

Aiden sinks a little pressure into the paper. It begins to tear, the slightest hairline split at the top. He gasps and stops, drawing in a shuddering breath. He presses the poem to his heart like he’s trying to apologize to it. His hands are shaking.

He can’t fucking do it. There’s just no way. There’s no way he’s ever going to be able to do it. No matter what he does, he can’t let this go, not unless Jamie himself tells him to.

And if he can’t let it go… There’s no point. No point to running anymore. The realization stops Aiden’s breathing, halfway through an inhale.

I could always go back.

It would mean officially abandoning his search, but - this is more important. He’s already wasted ten fucking years. He still can’t see a future where Jamie forgives him, or even wants to talk to him, but he’s never going to forgive himself if he doesn’t at least try.

This is not going to be how it ends for him and Jamie. Aiden is not going to let that happen.

He dials his phone. It rings three times. His aunt sounds out of breath when she answers.

“Aiden? Hi, honey! I’m sorry, I was about to go out, I didn’t expect you to call me back!”

“Auntie.”

“Yes, hi! How are you? Are you having a nice birthday? It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“I…” His throat feels like it’s closing up again, but in a different way, this time.

“Aiden?” This is why he never calls her. She always sounds so scared for him, and it fucks him up. “Are you okay?”

And now the feeling in his throat makes sense. He realizes that he’s crying, for the first time in ages. The last time was when he woke up in the hospital. How long ago was that?

“Aiden, please don’t hang up, honey-”

“Auntie, I think I want to come home.” His voice breaks on the last word.

There’s a beat of silence from her end of the line.

“Really? Oh, sweetheart, oh my goodness, okay, where are you? Let me get you a plane ticket-”

“No.” He looks down at his drink and shoves it away from himself, all the way across the water-ringed table. “No, there’s… something I need to do first. It’s going to be a while. Probably a long time, but...” He hesitates. “Does - does Jamie Keane still live in town?”

“Jamie Keane?” His aunt is clearly surprised by the question, but that’s fair. “Well, yes, sweetie, he does. He was just helping me take some boxes to Goodwill. Such a nice boy. He’s been-”

“No, I - I don’t need to know all that.” Aiden’s fingers tighten around the phone.

“Okay…” A pause. “Do you really mean it, Aiden? Are you really coming back?”

He closes his eyes and lets himself listen to Jamie’s sweet, brilliant song. As always, it steadies out his galloping heart.

“Yes. I mean it. I’m coming home.”