Aiden sits at his desk, nibbling his thumbnail, staring out of the window.

The window is the reason he chose this flat for his remaining time in Berlin. The place is ridiculously small, especially for someone Aiden’s size. But the corner window: two oversized panes of glass that open out onto his third-floor view. He always keeps them open. Even right now, though he’s wearing only a thin pair of sweatpants, and the brisk evening breeze is drifting in.

His laptop is turning on, and slowly. He bought it used. The museum he works at is tiny and pays an equally tiny salary, given that he’s working the lowest-level archival gig. But it gets him by, and he doesn’t need much. His flat is sparse, and that’s fine. He only intends to be here until he’s well enough to go back to Ketterbridge.

Besides, he’s not used to having anything. Groceries in his fridge, a place besides his backpack to put away his clothes, and he’s even bought two or three books from the little stand near the museum. After so long wandering, sometimes even these few possessions feel like too much, all starting to weigh him down and suffocate him.

When that happens, Aiden goes and sits by the window, and thinks of home.

He watches the people go by outside, lost in his thoughts. It might be time to go back, soon. Maybe within the next few months. Maybe.

It’s been a long time since his last relapse. The longest he’s ever gone without relapsing, in fact. He’s cut down on how much he works out every day, recognized that it was becoming an unhealthy coping mechanism of its own. He’s set himself a limit on how long he can spend at the gym in a week, and that prevents him from going overboard.

Aiden glances at the mirror in the far corner of the room. He can see the difference sobriety makes in him. His cheeks are less hollow, his eyes no longer bloodshot and unfocused. Even his skin seems a warmer color than it was before. The fine lines around the corners of his eyes will always be there, and he's not happy about that, but - all things considered, it feels like a small price to pay.

A familiar note shakes itself free in Aiden’s head, singing sweetly over all the other noise.

Jamie sounds even brighter than usual, today. He must be in a good mood. Goosebumps rise up on Aiden’s arms. The sound is so stirringly, heart-stoppingly beautiful. He closes his eyes, smiling to himself.

It makes me happy, he thinks. To know that you’re having a nice day.

Before, Aiden would only let himself listen to Jamie's song when it was absolutely necessary. To fall asleep, or get through hearing a death. To save himself, when noise and nightmares were pulling him under.

Now, everything is different. Listening to the note no longer feels like weakness, or losing a battle against himself. Now, it feels like a taste of a possible future. A future that Aiden has dreamed of and hoped for since he was fifteen.

So he doesn't restrict himself anymore. It's one of the best things to come out of all the changes he's made.

Aiden listens whenever he wants. Little snatches of it during the day. He uses it without guilt when the things the alcohol used to keep down threaten to overwhelm him. Aiden likes to be alone, but he does get lonely, and Jamie's song has become a friend to him. He'll lay in bed for long stretches, or pause on the sidewalk, listening to the peaceful music their notes make together.

On the hard days, it's a reminder of what he's working towards.

His computer finally starts up. He goes to the website and puts in his class code.

He’s been testing out various non-alcoholic techniques for keeping the noise in his head at a manageable volume. Jamie’s song remains the most effective, but Aiden has found a few other methods that work.

Still, the noise is louder without a strong drink to soften it up. When two slender hands slide their way down Aiden's chest, he almost jumps. He hadn’t heard the shower turn off.

“Hey there, Aiden,” a playful voice murmurs.

He looks up and finds her wrapped in a towel, her loose black curls spilling down her front.

“Hey there…” No, he was listening, earlier. He’s been trying really hard to actually listen when people talk. He knows her name, it was... “Samantha.”

Her eyes narrow. “Did you just forget my name for a second?”

It’s more that it was difficult to hear in the first place, but. Half to distract her from the fact - and half for fun - Aiden turns his chair, undoes her wound-up towel, and slips his face beneath it. He presses his nose into her stomach and leaves a trail of kisses down to her belly button. She laughs and pushes him back, closing up the towel again.

“Don’t think you’re gonna distract me! It’s fine if you forgot, we only met a few hours ago.”

“Samantha,” he insists. He’s pretty sure it’s a rude thing, to forget someone’s name, and he’s trying not to be that way anymore.

She smiles at him. Goes to the bed, pulls off the towel, and drops it onto the sheets.

Aiden watches in the mirror as she slips back into the lacey green panties he pulled off of her earlier. The two thick bands of eyeliner she’s wearing were smudgy even before he took her home; now they’re two shiny circles of darkness around her eyes. It looks wild.

It suits her.

Combined with the waterfall of dark curls, the piercings he didn’t expect to find on her, and the effect the chilly air is having on her body - he has trouble breaking his eyes away. She catches his gaze in the mirror, halfway through pulling her top back on.

She settles the top over her ribs, then comes back to him. He’s sitting with his legs spread, and she fits herself down onto his lap. He moves automatically to hold her in place, his hands on her back.

“You know,” she says, slowly dragging a fingertip down his throat, “That was a lot of fun.”

Aiden needs to answer, and he needs it to not sound cold or mean or anything like that, even unintentionally. He needs a second to think about how to do this.

Samantha tips her head to the side, confused. People always expect immediate answers from him. No one ever wants to wait. He scrambles around for something, but she keeps going before he can get there.

“I’m so glad you happened to walk past the show during my smoke break.”

“I’m - so glad I took that shortcut home,” Aiden tries.

She smiles. “I’m so glad that tonight's venue was on your shortcut home.”

“I’m so glad your bandmates didn’t mind me running off with their drummer.”

Samantha laughs. It’s a cute laugh, raspy like her voice, and Aiden almost smiles at her. Every tiny success is a success that counts, for him. Every sentence he can get through without accidentally upsetting her is a victory. He doesn’t think he’s fucked up even one time, tonight. Not yet, anyways.

“You want a cig?” she asks, reaching for her pack.

“Nah.”

“Cool if I do?”

“Sure.”

“Oh, wait-” Samantha shoves the pack across his desk with a sigh. “Can’t have any until Monday. I’m on a detox.”

If Aiden was his old self, he would point out that, as they just discussed, she was in fact smoking a cigarette when they met earlier this evening. But there’s no need. No need to be an asshole for no reason. He bites it back, trying to think of something else to answer.

Apparently he’s let the silence go too long again, because Samantha once again fills it for him. “You ever do a detox?”

He actually laughs, and she arches an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I have,” he says. “It was one of the worst experiences of my life.”

“Oh.” Samantha looks faintly puzzled. “Sounds like you signed up for a bad program.”

No, the program was pretty good. Aiden’s continued sobriety is evidence enough of that.

Samantha is waiting for him to answer. He bites the inside of his cheek, searching for something nice to say.

“So, listen,” she purrs, before he can land on anything, “Like I said, that was fun. I don’t have anywhere to be right now.”

She wiggles further down into his lap. An answering rush of warmth and want moves through him.

"Oh, no?" he asks, touching the tip of his nose to hers.

“No," she says, "Nowhere at all. So… before I put the rest of my clothes back on, is there anything else you want to do tonight? We made good use of the bed. How about the desk, next?”

Aiden would like that very much. His fingers start to drift up her body, itching to undo her halter top. He glances at the desk, giving her idea serious consideration.

His eyes land on his laptop, where the course page is pulled up. He remembers all at once: he doesn’t have time for this. Actually, he needs to get to work.

The easiest thing to do right now would be to say something cold. Then Samantha will leave, and Aiden won’t have to struggle for the right words, or worry about getting them wrong. They’ll never see each other again, anyways. It would be very easy.

But he’s trying not to solve his problems that way anymore. He’s trying to actually talk to people, and get used to telling them things. Maybe the truth is the best way.

“I - would love to,” he says, gently squeezing her thigh, “And honestly, I had a great time, too, I just - I’m taking an online class, and it starts in like ten minutes. It’s a - certificate program.”

It’s hard for Aiden to know how much detail to go into, because he's used to sharing no details whatsoever. He hopes he got it right, that this wasn’t too much information.

Samantha twists to look at his computer, and sees the page already pulled up.

“Oh, cool. What sort of program?”

“Archival studies.”

“Is that for work?”

“It’s for a job I’m hoping to get eventually, yeah.”

She climbs out of his lap and reaches for her clothes.

“Okay. That’s understandable. I like a guy with some drive.”

Aiden gets up as she hop-dances into her jeans. She’s not wearing a bra, and he can see those piercings through her shirt. He’s very into that, and it occurs to him that there’s still time to change his mind.

But he hasn’t missed one class, and he’s not about to start now.

“My phone is on the desk,” Samantha says, buttoning up her black jeans.

“You want me to grab it for you?”

“No, I want you to put your number in it.” She crouches to lace up her combat boots, smiling up at him. “So we can meet up when the tour is over, and we’re both stateside again. You said you’re planning on going back, too, right?”

Aiden hesitates.

What’s the nice way to do this? He’s used to putting in fake numbers, or taking other people’s numbers and then tossing them, or just being enough of a dick that the person doesn’t even ask. All of those are technically options right now, but… again, he thinks the truth might be the best way.

“I’m, um...”

Samantha slings her wild hair out of her face, and stops. “Oh. I think I get it.”

“No, no, it’s not-” Aiden tries to find the combination of truthfulness and friendliness and non-threatening tone that so evades him. He hopes that this is going to come more naturally one day, that he won’t have to pause this long before he speaks. “I’m actually right in the middle of getting sober right now, and I already have a lot that I need to focus on.”

He could add that it wouldn’t work anyway, because he’s completely devoted to someone else, but he decides against it. That seems like too much truth, and he’s trying to strike a balance, here.

Samantha pauses, surprised.

“Oh, I see. That kind of detox. Well, that explains why you didn’t want to go into the bar.” She glances at his kitchen. “And why you don’t have any booze in here.”

“Yeah. So I can’t really - I’m not looking for anything beyond-” Oh, god. He’s struggling, and it’s obvious. “I’m sorry if I led you to think-”

“No, you didn’t. But a girl can hope, right?” Samantha moves around the bed and twines her arms around his neck. “That’s a bit of a bummer, but I respect that, man. Good for you. I know it's not easy.”

“Oh.” Now Aiden is the one surprised. He’s not sure why, but it’s kind of nice to hear that from someone besides his aunt. “Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

He walks Samantha to the door, trying to think if he’s done everything he can to be nice, to not be a jerk, even by mistake. Was there anything more he could have done?

“Do you want me to walk you home?" he offers. "Or to your hotel, or-?”

“Nah, I’m gonna head back to the bar, see if any of my bandmates are still there. Slash still willing to talk to me, after I ditched the show halfway through and took off with a cute stranger.”

“You were in the middle of the show?” Aiden asks, startled. “Oh, shit. They’re probably mad.”

He’s spoken without thinking it through first, and he freezes, worried that he just fucked up somehow - but Samantha laughs.

“If they’re mad at me for that, then they’re all hypocrites. You know the title of the very first song on our setlist? I Do What I Fucking Want. I wrote that one, incidentally.”

Aiden finds himself grinning. Samantha grins back, and he thinks: I like this one.

But he’s got his eyes on the prize. His course starts in a few minutes, and he needs the certificate to get that job back in Ketterbridge. Jamie is in Ketterbridge. Everyone else is for distraction, for fun, and to help him rediscover how to talk to people without coming off scary or mean.

Samantha is wearing a lot of heavy rings, and they click together softly when she runs her fingers over his face. He remembers how they felt pressed against his skin. He's pretty sure she gave him some prints, with those.

He wishes he could skip tonight’s class.

Samantha seems to be thinking along the same lines.

“You sure you don’t want to give me your number?” she asks. “Or… I could leave you mine, in case you change your mind?”

Aiden likes her, but she deserves to be somebody’s first choice, and he already knows who his first choice is.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Samantha blows out a sigh, then taps his chin with her calloused finger.

“Your honesty is weirdly refreshing,” she tells him. “It’s nice to know that there are guys like you out there.”

She leans up, folding a ringed hand around the back of his neck. Aiden doesn’t really do goodbye kisses, but maybe that’s part of being nice, too, so he kisses her back with slow and thorough attention. She releases him, smiling, then pokes his chest.

“You’re a lil’ gem, Aiden. Nice knowing you.”

She’s all the way to the end of the hall before he realizes he should have answered.

“Samantha!” he calls, and she pauses. “It was really nice knowing you, too.”

Samantha makes that mischievous face she’s so good at, the one that first pulled Aiden in when he saw her outside of the bar.

She winks, slings her hair over her shoulder, and turns the corner.

He watches her go, finding himself surprisingly uplifted. What she said means that he’s getting better, more natural at this. Alcohol isn’t the only thing he’s working on quitting, and the little victory sends him smiling all the way back to his desk, where he opens up tonight’s lecture and starts taking notes.

If every day, he can be a better person than he was the day before…

Then maybe, one day, he’ll be the kind of person that Jamie could love.