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In the blink of an eye, two months had passed.
Your conversations with Declan after that last phone call had been few and far-between, mostly just messages from him to check in with you, confirm that he was alive, doing alright, but still so, so busy. You’d moved past your anger somewhere along the line, even though you still felt traces of it when he sent a picture of somewhere, something, of one of his friends without context, leaving you to just appreciate the glimpse of his life he offered you. These windows were probably meant to be a kindness to you, proof of life that would put you at ease but they were so zoomed in, figuratively, still so secretive in ways you wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t know at least some of the truth he was keeping from you. You wondered if he was beginning to suspect that you knew, when you stopped asking questions about them; stopped asking where he was, what he was doing.
It had taken all of your willpower to not outright ask him the day before the concert you’d be attending. They’d graduated from the hole-in-the-wall that was Howl to a slightly more upscale place you rarely went to - better acoustics, better drinks, better capacity. The best your little city had to offer. Your friends hadn’t let you pay for your ticket - they called it a gift for you finally landing a much better job earlier in the month - and they were on their way to pick you up before you all made the trek across town.
You were putting the final touches on your makeup (for the third time) when a message from Declan popped up on your phone.
‘Thinking about you’
You smirked and chewed at your lip as you weighed the pros and cons of telling him you were excited to see him, or of digging at why exactly he was thinking about you. Instead you picked up your phone and shot back:
‘I’m always thinking about you.’
That wasn’t a lie.
You’d always thought about him before, and he knew that, but it was different, now. These days, after you’d found his music and secretly torn away the shroud he’d kept over this part of his life, you couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. About what might have happened to him. Who might have happened to him. Because something certainly did.
You’d spent more time than you really wanted to admit digging through websites for scraps of context for what you were hearing, learning along the way that the fans of his band were - at least at the surface - incredibly defensive of his desire to keep his name and face secret and almost frighteningly keen when it came to finding clues as to what the songs could mean, offering sometimes wild speculations on the source of inspiration for this project of his.
And you’d found some of the context you’d been looking for but you’d felt so strange about reading it from someone else. It felt foreign and stilted reading about the man you knew so intimately from someone who was a complete stranger to him, but who seemed to know more about him than you did. Another part of you felt like Declan would be so angry with you for finding out that way and it was that part that convinced you to completely ignore and avoid the speculation. More than anything you wanted to know. You wanted to be able to shoulder that with him and maybe someday you’d know, but you wanted to hear it all from him, when he was ready.
Because somewhere along the line over these couple of months you’d decided that no matter what, you weren’t going to let this push you away from him. Whatever had happened to him, in some long-winded, roundabout way, had brought him to you and you refused to turn your back on the gift that the universe had given you. Even if Declan didn’t feel exactly the same way, if he was fine dancing on that thin, thin line between friends and more than friends for the rest of your lives then you would be, too. You’d follow where he led, for as long as he let you.
So you kept it all to yourself. Never let on what you knew, never asked the myriad of leading questions you always had at the tip of your tongue, never just called him and word vomited everything you knew and were feeling just to get it off of your chest and out of your head because frankly, despite your resolve, it was eating you alive.
But you’d decided this morning that if nothing else, tonight you would tell him that you knew his secret; that you knew about Sleep Token and the persona he wore on stage and that you’d listened to the songs, cried to so many of them and worried about him and what he was saying but you weren’t going to push past that. You just wanted him to know that he could be honest with you and that that’s all you wanted. And obviously all after the show; face to face, if you could convince him to see you without scaring him off.
Your phone buzzed again and it was Taryn, declaring they’d arrived and were waiting for you outside. One more glance in the mirror, and you were out the door, stomach in knots.
—
Your group had arrived early enough to have to wait outside the venue, your part of the line curling around the building towards the back where a tour bus was parked. You tried not to think who might be on that bus, but you stole glances to the dark windows every so often, fingers itching to message Declan, to say ‘fuck it’ to your carefully laid plan, but you refused to put that on him before the show even started. You sighed and finally thought to turn your back to the bus, just in case.
Your friends chatted around you, dragging you into the conversation here and there but you couldn’t move your focus away from the fact that Declan was so, so close, and that that proximity was wearing away at your resolve. When the doors opened an hour or so later, you felt ill. Each step towards the venue felt so ominous and heavy that you had half a mind to turn and leave, to abandon the plan and just… let things go the way they were: to live with this knowledge that Declan believed he still kept a secret from you and subsequently watch your relationship fizzle and fade; pulled apart by the fact that he was keeping so much pain from you, that he didn’t want you to see it.
Your friends led you through the crush of people, politely pressing their way forward. When you found yourself standing against the barricade, you began to panic, a little. Your friends noticed your trepidation but you reassured them that you were fine, just antsy for the show to start and they took you at your word, still chatting idly while the rest of the crowd filtered in, filling the venue with the dull roar of so many people in an enclosed space.
Your thoughts wandered farther than you meant to let them in the white noise of so many voices talking at once. What if Declan was mad at you for finding out, for digging into it like you had? What if he decided he never wanted to see you again? You’d decided that you could handle just being friends, if that was what he wanted, but the thought of him rejecting you so completely sent a cold sweat through you. You weren’t prepared for that reality. Another branch of your sprawling thoughts prodded at the notion that he didn’t care enough to tell you, that he’d been using you the entire time and he’d kept this from you because he didn’t trust you not to use it against him, somehow. Despite that feeling like the complete antithesis to the entirety of the Declan you knew, you had a hard time shaking that notion.
Eventually you were snapped from your thoughts by raucous cheers when the opener graced the stage. They were loud and fun and the kind of music you usually really enjoyed but you couldn’t bring yourself to match their energy. They played their set and you barely paid attention to it, your mind wandering from the crowd and the band on stage to who might be waiting just offstage, just a few rooms away. You vaguely clocked them thanking the crowd and disappearing, the stage hands swooping in to change things over for the headliner. You held tight to the barrier, trying to keep yourself focused. Again, you fought the urge to text Declan, to tell him you were here and relieve yourself of the stress of it.
But you fought off the urge, again, and when the lights shifted and Sleep Token took stage, you had to remind yourself to look up, to see Declan appear before you, painted black and masked like he had been in all of the pictures you’d seen for the band. No, not Declan, Vessel. The man on stage before you was someone else entirely, and for all of your worry and fear surrounding tonight, you suddenly couldn’t take your eyes off of him. The transformation was so profound that you wondered for a moment if it wasn’t him at all, if it was someone else playing the role.
The persona broke for you, though, when you saw flashes of Declan here and there, in the way he moved and how his voice sounded during certain lines in a few songs but otherwise you were watching a completely different man saunter across the stage, spilling his guts song after song. You scarcely noticed when Taryn turned to you between songs towards the end of the show, her wide smile changing quickly to a worried frown as she leaned in to ask you what was wrong, why were you crying?
You shook your head and wiped at your face, realizing that yes, you were crying. You wiped them away and reassured her that you were fine; just caught up in the song, you guessed. It had been one you’d listened to once or twice before, when you’d torn through all of the songs you could find. The more you’d listened to it, the harder it hit you, time after time. Maybe hearing him sing it live had been… more devastating than you were willing to admit.
You looked back up at the stage, casting glances at the two other masked figures who were stalking around the space. One of them, the tallest (Dylan, if you remembered correctly), had stopped suddenly, was looking directly at your section of the crowd and you ducked your head as if to hide. There was a fair chance he hadn’t actually seen you; the visibility in those masks had to be absolutely garbage and that fact alone had felt like something of a safety net, but you couldn’t shake the feeling of someone’s gaze laser-focused on the top of your head.
The next song started and you chanced to look back up at the stage, Dylan meandering over to Vessel and leaning on him as if to press a kiss to his face, the crowd cheering wildly but in the half a moment after he pressed his masked mouth to the side of Vessel’s head, Dylan seemed to lean back in just enough to say something to him and you watched the singer tense for just a split second. He never stopped singing, didn’t miss a beat, but something in him shifted nearly imperceptibly and he shifted his head to look directly at you.
You couldn’t stay in that crowd any more.
You pushed your way back through the crowd, thankful that the place was just this side of not too crowded, making the task possible but you still had to fight your way a little, finally breaking free as the song ended and another began, the one you’d heard was the closer for this tour. It was fine that you were missing it. You’d heard enough, for now.
The air outside was unseasonably cool and you were glad for it, all of you suddenly too warm and too keyed up and too nervous to try and put yourself back inside the venue. You sent off messages to your friends that you were going to catch an Uber home, that you weren’t feeling well but thank you for the night out, that you’d talk to them in the morning before you walked around the block, moving away from the venue long enough for them to leave without catching sight of you, waiting until the crowd had cleared a bit before messaging Declan to try and convince him to come out and see you, or to let you come to him, if and when he had a few spare minutes.
By the time you’d come back to the front of the venue the parking lot was nearly empty, the last few concert-goers trickling out, merch in hand. They paid you no mind as you sat on a ledge on the front of the building, pulling out your phone as you tried to collect yourself. How did you want to broach this? Was there even a somewhat graceful way to do it? If there was, you certainly didn’t know what it was. You typed out the first thing that came to mind, a version of one of the questions you’d wanted to send back to his message from earlier in the day.
‘What made you think of me earlier?’
You expected more time to pass but his response was nearly instantaneous.
‘I get the feeling you know the answer to that already.’
The knot in your stomach tightened.
‘Does it have something to do with the fact that you’re in my city right now?’
For a long moment you wondered if you hadn’t made a mistake in saying that, in showing your hand so plainly. You wanted to see him, needed to see him, needed to have this talk with him and you didn’t know what you would do if you failed.
‘where are you?’
‘out in front of the venue’
Your heartbeat was so loud in your ears you couldn’t make yourself focus on anything else but you waited, trying to listen past the sound of rushing blood for any hint of his approach, for the ping of your phone. Then you heard a sigh. Not a tired, aching sigh. Not an annoyed, contemptuous sigh. It was more like…relief.
“I thought Dylan was fucking joking when he said you were in the crowd.”
You turned and there he was.
Not Vessel anymore: the black paint was washed away and the mask and cloak were long gone, the sauntering persona completely dissolved. Instead it was the Declan you knew, dressed plainly and comfortably and clearly fresh from a shower; standing in front of you like you hadn’t been apart for nine months, looking at you like he was revisiting every moment of those last nine months, like you’d risen from the dead, before guilt flashed across his face and settled there. It was stark and painful and you could feel your heart breaking. That could wait. It all could wait, as far as you were concerned. You were just happy to see him.
You closed the distance between the two of you with quick steps, hesitating a moment when you were right in front of him. You were suddenly unsure if you had the right to seek affection from him, if he wanted to touch you at all or be seen out in the open with you like this. Your answer came when he reached for you, pulling you close and kissing you, hard , the same way he had in the hallway of his hotel. His hands wandered down your arms, pausing at your hips before moving to the small of your back, meeting there and bringing you in impossibly closer, your own hands moving from his chest to over his shoulders, fingers carding up into his still-damp hair. When he finally broke away he was breathing hard and there was a shy rosiness on his cheeks you couldn’t help but grin at.
“Hello, Declan.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” you breathed, pressing another kiss to his mouth. You’d forgotten how he tasted, how perfectly you fit against him and now that you were being reminded you had no issue throwing your plans to the wayside, if it meant you could continue remembering. He groaned into your mouth before reluctantly pulling away again. He took your hand and pulled you back towards the rear of the venue, towards the bus and away from the prying eyes of the street.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” he said once you were both in the shadows between the bus and the building, a finger tracing the line of your jaw before trailing down your throat, towards the neckline of the sundress you’d worn. You shivered in response before he pressed a gentle kiss to your mouth and pushed you against the brick wall of the venue. “We’re leaving tonight, yet.”
“How long?” You manage to ask, the rough texture of the brick a sharp contrast to just how gentle his hands feel on you, how sweetly he’s kissing down your jaw, your neck. You’re desperate to have him again, greedy for him and your mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to do the math to make this work and still have your talk and-
Your thoughts were interrupted by Declan shifting his weight and pressing a leg between yours, letting his upper thigh press tight against your core and it’s all you could do to keep yourself from grinding down against him to alleviate the sudden wave of need that came over you. He caught your groan in another kiss and pressed against you just that much harder, his hands catching yours and pinning them above your head, leaving you feeling exposed even though you were still fully clothed and hidden in the shadows.
“Long enough,” Declan murmured against your ear, easily holding both of your hands with one of his while the other slid down, making its way under your dress before pulling aside your panties. He pressed one finger deliciously against your wetness there, teasing a little as he smirked. “To at least hear you say my name the way I like again.”
You stifled the moan he’d worked out of you and looked up at him through your lashes, your face flushed as you ground against his thigh and hand, desperate for relief from the pressure he was building up in you. It had taken him a minute, tops, to get you breathless and wanting. You wanted to see how far he could take you in the next minute but he made it clear you were moving at his pace. When you surged against him he pulled away teasingly, antagonizing you until you settled, letting him swallow your moans and keep them from escaping your throat.
When you finally stilled, he gently pressed up into you again, his touch restrained in a way you couldn’t believe he could keep up. When he shifted his thigh just a fraction closer you could feel the length of him hard against your hip and you wanted, so badly , to feel him in your hands again, to have him inside you, to make up for all the nights you’d nearly sobbed for want of him - all of him and not just his voice and instructions and promises.
“Come on, let me hear you,” he murmured against your ear, sinking a second, a third finger into you and you nearly wailed at the feeling of it, nearly crying as he plied pleasure from you in the way he seemed so intrinsically suited to do. You buried your face in his chest as you came, letting his body muffle your voice as you chanted his name, pleaded with him to never stop, to keep touching you like that, your words turning into shuddering groans that you fought back at by biting at his shoulder, trying to keep yourself quiet while he kept at it, still gently circling your clit until you pulled away, overstimulated and spent, leaning breathless and languid against him. He let you, wrapping his arms around you before kissing the top of your head, letting you recover in silence for long minutes before he broke it with a question, shattering the stillness of your post-orgasm bliss.
“When did you find out?”
You tensed in his arms and he pulled away, looking down at you. Your breathing had evened out but now the knot in your stomach returned. This wasn’t how you imagined this conversation going.
“Do you remember that phone call, about two months back? When I asked if you were okay and you-”
“I hung up on you? Yeah.”
“My friend had sent me a link to the cover of ‘I Want to Dance With Somebody’ you’d done. I recognized your voice from when you’d sang a few lines to me, the night we’d met.”
There was a long silence and in the shadows, despite how close to him you were, you couldn’t quite see his face. Your carefully thought out questions and confessions felt like sand in your mouth, and suddenly you felt like you were running out of time, that you’d pressed a self-destruct button with no killswitch, like you had to throw everything you had at him now or it was ruined. You spoke again.
“I know you had your reasons for not telling me, and you probably didn’t want me to know but I didn’t want to lie about it anymore, that’s why I came to the show tonight. I didn’t want to lie about what I knew and I’ve been so dog shit at being honest with myself and with you and I want this out of the way, at least.”
“What do you mean, you haven’t been honest with yourself and me? About what?”
Of all the things to pull out of your word-vomit confession, he picked that. The one piece you were still fighting, still too afraid to look dead in the eyes and name and own. Declan might have been dancing on the fine line between friends and more-than-friends, but you were dancing on a finer line and calling it ‘protecting yourself’. You took a deep breath. You’d gone this far, there really wasn’t a going back.
“I…um… about how I feel. About you. About us.”
Another pause and you wished you could take the words back. You regretted this so much already, you had fallen so far off track and you felt the ominous lump in your throat.
“You don’t…?” His voice was smaller than you’d ever heard it, and your heart shattered into a million pieces. How could he come to that conclusion? How could he ever think that you felt nothing for him, that you hadn’t spent so long agonizing over your feelings for him, avoiding it because to admit it made you so vulnerable but it was what you wanted to give him more than anything else? Before you could stop them, words started falling out of you. Nine months worth of words, feelings, fears, desires, unstoppable and irrevocable.
“No, Declan. I do. I care about you so much, maybe too much, I don't know. I… I hated walking home from your hotel that morning, after we met. I was sure I wasn’t ever going to see you again or talk to you and then we kept talking and it felt like maybe we were friends but I wanted you so badly but it always felt like you didn’t want to go down that path and then New Years happened and I thought maybe we were just using each other and that scared me but not more than if we’d just stopped talking, if we went back to being strangers. I couldn’t lose you like that.”
You stopped to take a breath and realized you were crying. Declan was still, face twisted into a look that teetered on anguish but he stayed where he was, didn’t say anything, so you continued. Might as well lay it all bare now. There really was no going back now.
“When I heard you singing that song, it was like finding a way to have you around. I had been so worried about you. I had missed you so much and hadn’t heard your voice and then there you were… it was a relief to hear it. But then I was mad. I was so angry, I wondered why you didn’t tell me, why you’d keep it so… sectioned off. I wondered if you didn’t trust me, didn’t care enough to tell me… but now I knew so I listened to everything, even if I thought you didn’t want me to. And I know something happened, and it doesn’t… I don’t care what it is. I don’t need to know. I'm still here, I'm not… I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
Declan watched you with that same pained look, something else ghosting in his eyes that you couldn’t name or place and it scared you. You reached for him and took his hand, and he laced your fingers together but he remained silent, only pulling you closer to wrap you in an embrace. You stayed like that for a long moment, focusing on his even breathing, the steady thump of his heart in his chest, the feeling of his hands solid and warm through the thin fabric of your dress. Despite what you’d done just a few minutes before, this all felt somehow innocent and domestic…sweet and final, somehow. Dread welled up in you.
From a few yards away, you could hear a familiar voice calling for Declan, shouting that they were back, that it was time to go.
Time’s up.
“Do you really mean that?” Declan asked, pulling away and looking down at you. His gaze was soft and melancholy and you suddenly didn’t want to answer him. You knew what he was referring to. You swallowed hard and tried not to panic, squashing down the feeling as it rose. You meant it. You’d meant all of it, without condition or stipulation. No matter how much it might hurt you. No matter how much it was going to hurt you, right now. You’d meant it.
“I’m not going anywhere.” You repeated, returning his gaze. He smiled at you, sad and hopeful and thankful and regretful and he pressed a kiss to your mouth that was the twin of the one he’d given you in the hall before you’d left his hotel that morning. It was sweet and yielding and you knew now that something had sparked in him that night the way it had for you, but there was still a long road that you’d both have to walk before that spark became the fire you knew it could be, one that might be lonelier and quieter than you’d expected. You’d walk it, though. And you’d tend that spark as long as you needed to. For him, and for yourself. Because both of you deserved at least that fighting chance.
“I don’t… I can’t ask you to wait for me. But I need some time.”
Another voice called his name again and the bus engine rumbled to life. He kissed you again, both of you shedding tears that you did nothing to stop. You didn’t need to know why. He’d tell you, someday. And you’d wait for him, for his story. As long as it took.
You shook your head, smiling at him, still crying.
“That doesn’t change what I said.”
The horn of the bus blared for a moment and then Declan’s phone pinged several times. He cursed under his breath but didn’t take the device from his pocket.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“I know.”
He gave you one last kiss, lingering and intentional before backing away from you, watching you as you watched him go, still offering him a smile. He finally turned and jogged back to the bus, disappearing inside. A heartbeat later it pulled out of the lot, leaving you alone in the shadows next to the venue.
No matter how much it might hurt you, you were going to wait.
Somewhere in your chest, hope fluttered.