19

Song Without A Name
 Specimen Number 19 has always contained the end
As envisioned by
Lady Yate-xel

He stormed up the hill to Edgar's house, intent on something, though he had only a vague idea as to what. He knew there would be yelling involved, and perhaps some thrashing, but he wasn't sure, at this point, who would be on the receiving end.

He hadn't even been given a chance. Johnny had never once humored him or given Jimmy the opportunity to show that they could be so close, so alike. Maybe he'd been a bit of an extreme fanboy in the earlier years, but everyone grows up. Johnny himself had changed and stopped acting like an entitled child at the slightest provocation. Jimmy hadn't seen Johnny's behavior in that way back then, but when he reflected on what he used to think was badass, he found a few things lacking.

But Edgar had done the greater wrong. Johnny hadn't given Jimmy a chance, but Edgar was the one who slipped under the radar and infiltrated something sacred and special. Before Edgar had come along, Jimmy, Johnny, and Devi, with the occasional appearance from Tenna, were the core of the world. They were all that was, and they were the closest of friends. They all looked at Johnny as special, as something odd that they needed to keep close to them. He used to say that he remembered things, and even if Jimmy and Devi hadn't remembered, being visible to this intriguing person was enough to make them never leave his side. Edgar had come in and shattered it. Edgar had crawled his way into the room and then Johnny invited him in, spent the weekend with him.

Because Edgar had sounded crazier than Johnny did.

"I remember you," he'd said. Jimmy and Devi had known not to mess with Johnny's game, but Edgar had come in pretending he was the originator.

Something in Jimmy had felt betrayed when it all turned out to be true. He tried to remember things feverishly after that day, and thanks to Johnny's memories and countless Homicides shows, he knew how he was supposed to have died, but remembered nothing that he could place as not part of his current lifetime but a flash of light and a suitcase. Edgar seemed to remember more and more everyday.

He reached the corner of Edgar's block, and centered in on the house. Only two in from the corner. He stood at the door, his shoulders shaking and his breathing difficult. Instead of bursting through the door (he'd learned through some eavesdropping that Edgar never kept the door locked), he slid over to a window, and tried to look into the house without drawing too much attention to himself. The glare was a little too much to see clearly, so he tried to shield his eyes until the living room came into focus.

And a wave came over him that combined rage and vomit. He neither broke the glass, nor threw the contents of his stomach onto it, but he came close to both.

Just lying there, on the couch, Johnny sprawled nearly entirely on top of Edgar, who was propped up by the arm of the couch. Johnny actually making regular eye contact. Talking to him. Edgar brought his arms around Johnny's waist and Jimmy nearly jumped through the window. When Johnny didn't slip away from him, or even give him an odd look, but SMILED instead, Jimmy had had enough. In the second it took to ball his fist and pull it back in preparation to slam into the window, he saw a kiss.

Jimmy made some kind of noise, but it wasn't loud enough to be heard from the inside. Even Jimmy could tell that what he was seeing in this window was different from what he'd put up with looking at during shows and interviews. Had this been what went on while he let Johnny stay here on the weekends?

The next thing he knew, he was tearing through Edgar's door, and knocking things off of his walls in the process.

Johnny and Edgar jumped, and nearly fell onto the floor. Edgar looked suitably alarmed, but Johnny just looked furious. Jimmy's instinct was to puree Edgar into nothing and saturate the floors with him. He ended up with Johnny in his face instead.

"What the fuck are you doing?!" they screamed at each other.

"What am I doing?" Jimmy shrieked. "What are you doing?! You fucking lied to us! This was supposed to be a publicity thing, a game! And I find you here moments from fucking him into the couch?"

"I'm not! And if you'd make less of a habit of stalking me and breaking into people's houses-"

"It's a good fucking thing I did!"

"‘Good thing?’ What difference does this make to you, Jimmy?!" Johnny yelled. "The probability that I'd come home with you is no smaller than it was five fucking years ago! It's still ZERO."

"Because you didn't give me a chance," Jimmy countered, motioning towards Edgar. "You just tell us you're going to fake it with this guy who just stole you from us and you're not even faking anymore! Devi told me you've been taking this seriously for weeks! That you've been letting him slobber all over you away from the cameras, too! Were you just not going to tell me, hmm?"

"No, I wasn't," Johnny answered. "And you know what? No one was. We agreed that you didn't need to know until something was decided."

"I'm part of this, too! Why the fuck did you exclude me?"

"Because you'd do this."

"I'm worth just as much as he is," Jimmy said bitterly. He felt his shoulders shaking again from the rush of the confrontation.

"Congratulations," Johnny spat.

"You've treated me like this from the very start, Nny! Yet he comes along and goes puppy-eyed at you and you make out with him on his couch?!" Jimmy wanted to throw up even saying most of that sentence.

"If I've treated you like this from day one, Jimmy," Johnny said quietly, "then that doesn't make you terribly bright, does it?"

"Fuck you!"

"No."

Jimmy seethed. He looked at Edgar who was standing off to the side and seemed to be stunned by the whole exchange. He'd clearly expected to the one arguing and probably being torn up.

"This is bullshit," Jimmy growled, staring at Edgar. "You're just gonna watch, are you? Just stare while Johnny makes everything better and chases bad ol' Jimmy out of the house? Going to hide behind him, are you?" He sidestepped away from Johnny and towards Edgar. Edgar stood up straighter and opened his mouth to say something just as Jimmy was tugged back toward Johnny by the collar of his shirt.

"Your issue," Johnny sneered, "is with me."

"It's okay," Edgar said. "I think maybe this has been building for a while. Let him go, Nny."

Johnny's fingers untangled from Jimmy's shirt, and he stepped back, but kept a venomous glare locked onto Jimmy as he moved.

"I've never been entirely clear on what you wanted in all this, Jimmy." Edgar sounded remarkably calm, considering the circumstances. "But you've probably got a few reasons to obliterate my face by now. I'd appreciate it if you didn't injure my hands, since we still have to play, our feelings on things aside."

Jimmy was a bit taken aback. He hadn't expected calm and rational. He'd been looking forward to cowering in fear and pleading, and he wasn't sure how to deal with people who weren't. This was sort of disappointing.

"You stole him from us," Jimmy finally managed. He clenched and unclenched his fist as he spoke, trying to give himself something rhythmic to focus on.

"That wasn't what I came there for."

"But that's what you did. You destroyed everything," Jimmy said, realizing for the first time how long ago it had been - that he was clinging to something he’d loved desperately when he was fifteen, and that it still bothered him just as intensely years later that he’d lost it. Had it taken from him. "We had everything, we were fine, and Johnny was what kept us that way. We lived around him, and you waltzed in like it was nothing and took the center out from under all of us."

"It wasn't 'nothing' for me," Edgar replied. His voice shook like he was getting ready to let this escalate into something Jimmy was more skilled at dealing with. "It was one of the most frightening things I'd ever done. I remembered him and wanted to find him, and thought he might have the answers I was looking for. I never intended to take him from anyone. I wanted to be close to him just like you guys did."

"But we were there first!" It came out automatically. Even Jimmy realized how childish it sounded.

"And Devi was there before you were," Johnny snapped. He was sitting on the arm of the couch now, still glaring angrily.

"For what?" Jimmy asked angrily. "A whole month, maybe?"

"What difference does it make if it's a month or a year?"

"Are you kidding me?!" Jimmy burst out. "We WERE something. We were close, we were a tribe! We were all that there was! And you let this whimpering loser into everything! And now you're-!" He couldn't even finish.

"Can we just get on with this?" Edgar asked. "I'd rather you try to tear me up as soon as possible so I have hope of speaking coherently next time we have to appear somewhere in front of people."

"No!" Jimmy yelled. This wasn't about tearing Edgar apart anymore. This was about justice. This was the principle of the thing, this was pride. "This won't end if I just smear you into the carpet, Edgar. I'll leave and it'll still be you here with just him."

"I'm not planning on going anywhere," Edgar replied, "and I doubt Nny's going anywhere, either."

“Then I want it to change,” Jimmy said, trying to maintain control of his voice. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t keep him away from the rest of us like this.”

“I don’t,” Edgar explained. “I can count the times I actually asked him to stay here with me on one hand. He comes here because he wants to.”

“I like how we’re fighting over the guy who’s sitting right here,” Johnny muttered from the couch.

“I’m not asking you to stop whatever…,” Jimmy trailed off and made a face while he motioned towards the couch, “whatever this is. I’m telling you that you can’t fucking keep him to yourself.”

“So you’re all going to share me, is that it?” Johnny asked, irritated.

“Yes.” Jimmy nodded. “Like we used to.”

“And this wouldn’t be an issue if you’d just kept to your own damned business.”

“It’s not just because of that, Nny! I thought this was bullshit well before all this crap. Devi kept trying to tell you and you ignored her.” Jimmy flailed his arms for emphasis. “DEVI, Nny. You ignored Devi. I’m used to being ignored. When you ignore Devi, something is wrong.”

Johnny was quiet, and Edgar had returned to looking a little nervous.

“Do you see now?” Jimmy whined. “It’s not just this particular shit, it’s all of it.”

“And she didn’t come to see me herself? She sent you?”

“She didn’t betray your little secret on purpose. I made her angry. I’m guessing by the face she gave Tenna she didn’t mean it. She didn’t send me, I came on my own.”

“Of course you did,” Johnny muttered.  He rocked back and fell into the cushions, letting his legs fall over the arm of the couch. “So are you here to give Edgar a kick in the head, or some kind of fucked up blessing?”

“I-” Jimmy stopped. He didn’t know anymore.  Somehow, in the middle of this conversation, the outrage had stopped being about Edgar violating something sacred and holy and had been more about ‘don’t leave me.’  “I’m here because I’m like him.” He nodded towards Edgar.

Edgar looked uncomfortable, and leaned to take a step backwards.

“Because I’m just like him,” Jimmy said again, “and you’re all I’ve got.”

“What are you-?”

“Really, Nny. Think about it. It was you, and me, and Devi and Tenna. I was happy with it, I fit there. Do you know what it is now?” Jimmy waited for a few moments of silence. “It’s Devi and Tenna, and Johnny and Edgar, and then me.” For a moment, he almost added, ‘There, that’ll make you feel bad.’

“The stream of fangirls isn’t enough for you, then?” Johnny asked from the cushions.

“That’s not the same.”

“Seems you need a stream of fanboys, then.”

“Nny, come on!” Edgar’s voice. Johnny looked just as surprised as Jimmy felt. Johnny sat up and looked at Edgar. Actual eye contact. Jimmy clenched a fist again.

“Jimmy’s not presenting anything unreasonable,” Edgar continued. “You don’t need to spit venom at him. He’s got a point. I’ve felt a little guilty sometimes about you being here all the time, and you really are the one that ties this whole thing together.”

An expression crossed Johnny’s face that Jimmy had rarely seen, so he had a hard time placing what it was.  Johnny crossed his arms over his chest and pulled his knees close. He looked odd for a moment – uneasy? - and then looked up at Jimmy.

“Get out,” he said. In a rare moment, it was Johnny that Jimmy wanted to tear apart. When he felt he was about to, Johnny kept talking.

“Get out. We’ll see you at Devi’s in an hour.”

Jimmy looked at Edgar, whose face echoed Jimmy’s confusion. Edgar shrugged a sort of apology and went to get the door.

“I don’t know, either,” Edgar told Jimmy as he stood on the porch. “But apparently, we’ll see you in a little while.”

“Riiight.”

“Thanks for sparing my hands,” Edgar said, smiling and wiggling some fingers.

“If I’d’a hit you, I don’t know how I’d play either. You got lucky, you bastard.” Jimmy found himself grinning, despite the weird of the situation.

With nothing else to do but stand creepily on the porch, Jimmy went back to Devi’s.

*****

Edgar leaned back against the door when he closed it after Jimmy. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go back into the other room. Had all this just happened a little while ago? Had he really been blissfully uncaring about anything but the feeling of being so close to Johnny less than an hour ago?

“You did that really well,” came Johnny’s voice from the other room.

Edgar leaned forward, but stayed against the door.

“Did what well?” he asked.

“Handled Jimmy.”

“I guess so.”

“You really were scared he was going to tear you apart,” Johnny said, “but you told him he could. The calm act was a bluff. I think I’m impressed.”

Edgar let himself drift back into the room. Johnny hadn’t moved from the corner of the couch cushion.

“He had no reason to listen to me screaming at him, like he does you, so I figured I needed something else.” Edgar shrugged.

Johnny looked at Edgar instead of the fireplace.

“I don’t think I want to be an anchor for them all, Edgar.”

“It looks to me like you used to.”

Johnny sighed. “Something like that.”

Edgar found he felt more awkward just standing there in front of the couch, so he sat back down. He was beginning to think that he was developing real love/hate issues with the couch. Johnny reached over and grabbed a fist full of the bottom of Edgar’s shirt.

“Don’t worry,” he said, staring into the floor, “this doesn’t change anything.”

Edgar felt immediately compelled to hang onto Johnny and just not let go of him for the next hour. When he hesitated, and took a breath to speak, Johnny slid closer to him and rested his head on Edgar’s collar bone.

“Don’t ask me,” Johnny said into the fabric of Edgar’s shirt. “You already know what the answer is.”

And Edgar held onto him until they were sure they’d be late to see Devi.

*****

“I like how he arranges for things to happen over here without even asking about it first.”

“I… couldn’t really say no.”

“You never could. Not to him.”

Devi tossed some hair over her shoulder and surveyed the room. It didn’t look totally horrible, but it wasn’t the heavenly clean of Edgar’s place. It was always darker than his place, even without the curtains over the windows.

Tenna wasn’t helping; she just seemed to be enjoying watching Devi move things around.

“So, you really saw a kiss, did you?” she asked Jimmy.

Jimmy made some distressed kind of noise.

“Yesss,” he hissed. “I already told you I’m not making it up.”  Tenna smiled.

Devi hadn’t wanted things to get this weird, but in a way, she was glad they had. Jimmy had done something reasonably okay for once, and a freak stroke of optimism let her believe Johnny was going to come over and actually apologize for ignoring everyone. Something about agreeing with Jimmy felt contrary to every logical cell in her body, but Devi let herself do it.

She’d missed the choir room antics, maybe not as much as Jimmy had, but she still missed them. Living there had been Johnny’s idea, and the rest of the group had been nervous, but they did it.  Jimmy’s trailer and Devi’s apartment and getting food and clothes had all been things that Johnny spurred on initially. It stood to reason that they would have followed blindly when he said ‘Let’s get noticed.’ They’d had no idea what it would do to them, but Devi suspected that Johnny knew exactly what it would do, and he’d known since the first day they’d met.

Johnny didn’t bother to knock, he just showed up, Edgar following behind him. From the look on his face, Edgar really didn’t know what was going on. He also seemed a little twitchy.

“Ta-da, I’m here,” Johnny said blandly.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Devi answered him. Did he have to act like it was torture to see other people?

Everyone found a spot in Devi’s living room that was a close approximation to their usual spot in the old choir room office. Johnny smiled from his perch on the back of Devi’s couch.

“If you squint, it looks appropriate,” he said with a trace of a laugh. “I guess you guys want me to take charge or something again?”

Devi and Jimmy shrugged, and Tenna giggled. The group sent her strange looks and she excused herself to go get something from the kitchen, snickering as she left the room.

“Riiiight,” Johnny started, clasping his hands, “So anyway, I guess I’m here because you think I’ve been ignoring you. The obvious solution is to just stake out your couch until you get sick of me.” A few raised eyebrows later, Johnny laughed and continued.

“Okay, okay,” Johnny said, “for real. Getting right to the point, I don’t think things can stay the way they were before.” 

Jimmy crossed his arms and looked close to pouting.

“Nny, you can’t just say you’ll come over here and then not actually do anything,” he complained. Devi almost wanted to hear him whine. Almost.

“If you’d just wait,” Johnny half-scolded, “I’d elaborate.” Jimmy huffed, but stayed quiet.  “We can’t even really go in the choir room anymore, you guys know that. This is not new information. Seems we changed a little since we moved in there, yeah?”

Devi laughed in the back of her throat, and Tenna came back from the other room while Johnny went on.

“I miss it, too, you know.  I wanted to be seen more than I wanted to live like that, though. I thought maybe I’d made this clear back when you guys started making noise with me. We’re at some kind of halfway point, now, I think…” He paused to think. Devi wasn’t sure what kind of ‘halfway’ he meant, but he didn’t continue on that vein.  “So what do you want with me? What do you need me to be when we get to not live in the van every few months?”

“Around,” Jimmy answered.  Devi bit her lip.

“I am around,” Johnny told him. “I’m at home like the rest of you. Come get me if you have to.”

“I did! Look how well that worked out!”

“Maybe don’t leer in my windows! Knock on the door, even!”

Edgar coughed from the chair to Johnny’s left. “Like you did, right?”

Johnny opened his mouth and pointed, presumably to say something dramatic, then stopped. He gave Edgar a look that Devi couldn’t place. “Okay, fine,” he corrected, “but the window thing was extreme.”

Devi smirked. Perhaps there was something to Edgar that she’d been ignoring for years.

“Maybe,” she started, before she even realized she was talking, “we don’t need everything back the way it was as much as we think we do. I mean, I miss it, and I miss you,” she looked away from Johnny for a moment to turn to Edgar, “and I definitely thought you were a loser in the beginning, Edgar, sorry.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he said. “I thought I was a loser.”

“But,” Devi continued, “I guess downtime at home is a good thing. We should just be meeting every now and then. We’re going to need to do some new songs eventually, anyway, right?”

Jimmy still didn’t look satisfied, and Devi found herself wondering what she’d been fussing about. Maybe Johnny did spend all his time with Edgar, but she spent all hers with Tenna. Johnny had as much a right to bitch that Devi was abandoning them. She also wasn’t juggling Tenna’s professions of love or experimenting with letting Tenna love her. There were reasons to stay with Edgar all that time.

“It just doesn’t feel like enough,” Jimmy said quietly. “It used to be all day, every day. Now it’s just Edgar who-”

“I don’t understand why I’m the only thing worth fighting over here,” Johnny interrupted. “Tenna gets Devi all day! No one’s angry at them?” He gestured emphatically at them and Devi was pleased that her mind still worked like Johnny’s every now and then.

“You’re different,” Jimmy muttered, looking away from Devi.

“Gee, thanks, Jimmy,” Devi said, not that she minded terribly that she wasn’t on the same pedestal as Johnny in Jimmy’s eyes.

“And here I thought you and Devi both wanted things to be different,” Johnny said, a tone of realization in his voice, “but it’s just you.”

“You said it yourself,” Jimmy answered bitterly. “‘Devi has Tenna.’ It’s just me dangling on the ends. I didn’t get a chance to not be.”

“You say that like there was some time when you could have had a chance.”

“I-”

“I didn’t scrape either of you two off of the invisible floor to be my own personal harem,” Johnny continued. “That wasn’t the idea. That was never the idea. That wasn’t even the idea with Edgar.”

“What is the idea with Edgar?” Tenna asked, using the cup of juice she’d gotten in the kitchen as a mask for her smile.

“Can we leave that?” Johnny asked. “Realistically, I can’t imagine I’d be imparting any information that would be new to you.”

“I don’t know,” Tenna said thoughtfully to her drink. “I mean, we’d rather hear it from the source, an’ all. Who believes Jimmy anyway?”

“Hey!” came the protesting squeak from Jimmy.

Johnny sighed once, glanced at Edgar, and then looked generally irritated, but to Devi’s surprise, actually answered.

“Seems we’re playing less of a game now than we used to be,” he said, staring at the empty space in the middle of the circle of people around him.  “I’m not trying to spite anyone, and to my knowledge, Edgar isn’t either. Just kinda worked out that way.”

“It didn’t just happen!” Jimmy protested. “Those were bizarre circumstances! You don’t just ‘work out’ to dating your best friend while he tries to get you to actually do that for weeks on end!” Jimmy stopped yelling abruptly, and looked like he wanted to cover his mouth. Devi braced for him to explode. 

“Best friend…,” Jimmy muttered. His mouth formed into a pained smile. “I’d been trying to avoid thinking about that for a long time. Might be time to get over that, huh?” He tried to laugh at himself, but it was painfully pathetic. Devi even felt bad for him, and she couldn’t remember that happening in her history of knowing him.

“Maybe,” Johnny said softly. Devi was sure she’d rarely, or conceivably never, seen Johnny look sympathetic. Edgar, however, she was used to seeing in a state of awkward and uncomfortable. Tenna continued hiding her face in her cup.

“I guess I’ll work on that, then.”

Edgar started to offer what Devi presumed to be an apology, but Johnny stopped him.

“Don’t. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Johnny told him, holding up a hand. He never looked at Edgar, but watched Jimmy for a few moments, and then smiled. “And, weirdly enough, breaking into my house aside, neither did Jimmy.”

A look crossed between Johnny and Jimmy. Devi didn’t have a name for it, but it looked promising. Johnny was so much harder to read than Tenna. It occurred to Devi for a moment that maybe Tenna wanted to be read.

As a group, they agreed to write something song-wise about how messed up things had gotten, and include it in their ‘resurrecting old songs’ act. Jimmy either took this well or faked taking it well and left as gracefully as he could. He lingered for moment looking at Johnny before he waved goodbye and closed the door behind him.

There was a silence while Johnny slid down from the back of Devi’s couch. When he hit the cushion there was a small cloud of dust.

“Sorry I let it slip, Nny,” Devi said, even just to break the silence. “I didn’t mean to have him break in on you guys.”

“Pff, it’s fine,” Johnny replied, tucking some strings of hair behind his ear. “I’d rather you never phrase it that way ever again, though.” He laughed weakly.

Tenna leaned forward, and opened her mouth, smiling gleefully. Devi clamped a hand over her mouth, and Tenna flailed her arms, spilling some water on the cushion beside her.

“That can’t have been good,” she said, glaring at Tenna.

“I was expecting to endure a little more than this, honestly,” Edgar offered, “so it’s not that bad.”

“I can let her talk if you want.”

“No, that’s quite okay. Carry on.”

Devi wrestled with Tenna for a few minutes before making her swear not to mention anything horrible. Tenna finally gave up and nodded. She slouched into her chair with a sulking expression when Devi let go of her.

“You’re no fun at all, Devi,” she pouted.

“You guys are free to go,” Devi told Johnny. “I don’t have any pressing issues with you.”

Johnny stood up and gave her a salute. Edgar could not have hidden his relief more poorly.

“We’ll see you in a few days,” Johnny said.

“Or a few months, whichever,” Devi answered, grinning.

“What’s the difference, right?”

Devi accompanied Johnny and Edgar to the door, and Johnny made some joke about Devi keeping an eye on Tenna. Devi rolled her eyes at him and told him to get the fuck out of her house. She shut the door behind them, and leaned back against it, letting out a long breath. A few moments later, she heard a kind of hum, and pressed her ear to the cold metal of the door.

“I’m not letting this go just because he’s upset about it.”  Edgar’s voice. He and Johnny were still standing in the hallway outside the apartment. Against her better judgment and what she thought must be ‘decent person laws’, she looked through the peep hole in the door.

Edgar had Johnny completely wrapped in his arms, and was talking with his face partly buried in Johnny’s hair.

“I’m not asking you to,” Johnny replied.

“I’m just letting you know.”

“Let me know at home, okay?” Johnny pushed Edgar away from him. “I think Tenna has enough fodder for now.” 

They walked down the hallway and vanished into a stair well. Devi felt a little dirty for watching, even though nothing had happened. She pressed her back on the door again and caught Tenna sitting across the room out of the corner of her eye.

“Was it steamy?” Tenna asked slyly.

Devi made a move for a pillow and aimed for Tenna’s head.

*****

In the few blocks it took to walk home, Edgar decided he wasn’t going to dodge around things anymore. Jimmy busting into his house had been it. He had been ready to take all of Jimmy’s wrath and any of Devi’s snarking, and even Tenna’s horrible jokes. He was done skirting around things.

He opened the front door, and he and Johnny stood in the entry way, staring at the staircase.

“Is it tomorrow yet?” Johnny asked.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“So were you planning on all this charming me to be punctuated with awkward on such a regular basis?”

The defense mechanism again.

“Yeah, this was part of my diabolical plan from the start,” Edgar said, nodding. “I thought, ‘Hey, you know what’s really attractive? Weird silence and crazy stalkers. Now he’ll love me for sure!’”

“You’ve got me pinned. How did you know those were my favorite?” Johnny grinned at him.

“I’m just that good, really.”

Johnny laughed and rested his forehead on Edgar’s shoulder.

“Keep this up, and we’ll have no awkward ever again.”

Edgar wrapped his arms around Johnny and held tight. Johnny’s breath caught for a moment.

“I’d actually like to do something about that,” Edgar said, his jaw against the side of Johnny’s head. Johnny’s defense mechanism would have them joking at each other for days if he didn’t do something now.

“I’m okay with that,” Johnny said, after some delay.

“Are you really?” His breath grazed the top of Johnny’s ear and Edgar felt him shiver.

“Really.” He curled some of Edgar’s shirt into his fingers.

“Does this feel awkward to you?”

“In some sort of circular way, I think. Since it’s not supposed to, or because we’re focusing on it.” Talking into Edgar’s shirt, or to the floor, maybe.

“But you don’t feel like running away or joking at me.” Edgar had meant that to be a question.

“No.”

“So here’s a question, then,” Edgar said.

“Okay.”

“Do we keep this kind of thing up in front of everyone else?”

“Your funeral, Edgar. Just because Jimmy decided to feel all existential about it or whatever, doesn’t mean he isn’t going to tear you up if you grab me in front of him.”

Edgar put his chin on top of Johnny’s head.

“I shouldn’t have to worry about it,” he said.

“And the others shouldn’t have to be subjected to it.”

“God, what’s made you so charitable all of a sudden? Did I suck the insensitive jerk out of you or what?”

“No, really.” Johnny ducked out from under Edgar’s chin and looked at his eyes. Edgar still relished moments of actual eye contact. “This is fine, really. But they don’t need to see you desperately hanging all over me. It’s…” He drummed his fingers on Edgar’s shoulder, thinking.

“Inconsiderate? Rude?” Edgar ventured after a few moments.

“Not the words I would have used, but yes.”

“What would you have said?”

“‘Fucking lame,’ I think.’”

Edgar laughed. “Alright, alright. Fair enough. You’re probably right anyway.”

“Of course I am.” He grinned at Edgar.

“You’re going to have to stop smiling at me like that,” he said, “or I don’t think I’ll be able to let you go.”  Johnny smile changed from pleased with himself to something like predatory.

“Sure you will,” he said, and slid out of Edgar’s hold seemingly with out effort.

“I- How the hell do you do that?”

Johnny shrugged. “Just part of being amazing and talented and, um, what was the other one?”

“‘Incredible.’”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

*****

Johnny hadn’t expected things to work out like this, not really.

He’d resigned himself to the fact that he was probably going to let himself fall for Edgar, but he hadn’t expected it to be so comfortable. Johnny had fallen asleep on Edgar in front of late night infomercials more times in the last few weeks than he was sure he wanted to admit. Edgar’s shoulder make satisfactory pillow material and Edgar holding him tightly for no reason at all every so often didn’t bother him at all. In fact, it had started to feel routine, and he found he enjoyed it.

The regular meetings with Devi and the others actually happened, and Jimmy seemed to improve with each one. Edgar had been stealthy in easing Jimmy into the idea of seeing him close to Johnny so that it took several meetings for Jimmy to even realize there had been a change.

Life in the van resumed soon afterwards. Johnny noted both Devi and Jimmy’s relief when he and Edgar did nothing out of the ordinary while locked in the van with the others.

People taking pictures of the Homicides obviously saw something new when they talked to Johnny. They kept saying, ‘Wow, this has come pretty far,’ and ‘Never thought it would last this long,’ but they never meant the Homicides as a whole; they were always nodding toward Edgar.  The first few had taken Johnny by surprise, so his answers to them were shaky and confused, but after the strange had worn away, he made sure to elaborate on the general awesome that was Edgar.  Edgar saw the humor in it after a few questions and also started talking about how cool he thought he was.

The only bumps in the road had been when people asked Jimmy and Devi about how they felt, and if they were seeing anyone. Jimmy had told the very first woman, “Your dad,” and continued on his way, fuming.  Devi politely told the first few people who asked about her and Tenna that nothing was happening, and had to be dragged away from pummeling the last one after being reasonable with nearly two dozen during the course of a week.

Johnny found himself on stages having small question and answer sessions in the middle of shows. Most people asked about him and Edgar, but others wanted to know inane things like the band’s favorite colors. One guy wanted to know what turned Devi on, so she walked to the front of the stage and threw a drumstick that nailed him in the ribs. Johnny had stood there holding a mic with his mouth hanging open for several seconds before he told the audience that Devi’s turn on was obviously crippling pain. Someone in the audience screamed that that was their turn on, and asked if Johnny would throw something at them. Johnny had bowed and smiled as sweetly as he possibly could in the general direction of the voice.

“That wouldn’t be terribly smart of me, would it?” he’d said. “I’d be cheating on Edgar in front a few hundred people.”  Some girls in the back had fainted, and Johnny had cackled to himself for what must have been several uncomfortable seconds before he cued the next song.

Stages in front of teeming masses of slobbering fans were among the most comfortable places on Earth.

*****

The Homicides stayed wherever they wanted at night, and no matter how much of a spectacle or nuisance they made of themselves, no one ever bothered them. They’d learned to accept that some of the benefits of being invisible had lingered on them, though Johnny insisted that he willed all their good fortune into being.  He didn’t know if they believed him anymore. 

The motel they’d chosen appeared tiny from the outside but the management had actually had the idea of building its floors underground, so it turned out to be rather spacious if still dingy. The people at the front desk were vague about how many floors there were down below.

Johnny ended up in a room with Edgar, while the others took their own rooms. The entire floor was theirs for the night, so all five of them played an eternal game of musical rooms for a while before settling on the ones they wanted. Tenna chose one for herself, but Johnny suspected that she wouldn’t be leaving Devi’s room for the remainder of the night.

Johnny and Edgar’s room was a miserable wreck, but the little motel had been pretty shady looking to begin with.

“This shitty painting is actually bolted to this wall,” Johnny reported, shaking the gaudy old frame that hung above the bed. Edgar was standing on a stack of chairs in the center of the room trying to reattach the light fixture that had crashed to the floor when Tenna had first flung the door open.

“I still don’t understand why you wanted the crappiest room on the floor,” Edgar said through his teeth, roll of duct tape hanging from between them.

“It’s kind of classy in its trashiness. Everything is bolted down like they think we’d want to steal it. It’s awesome.”

Edgar tore one last strip of duct tape off the roll and affixed it to the light bulb.

“There,” he said, stepping off the chairs. “Hopefully, we won’t burn to death in the night when this falls down again.”

“Only if you leave the light on all night, genius.”

“I don’t know, I would not be terribly surprised if this burst into flame just because it wanted to end its miserable existence in this place.”

“Well, that’s cheery, thanks for that.” 

Edgar sat down on the end of the bed, and grinned at Johnny. “I’m sure it’s payback for something you’ve said.”

Johnny ignored him and fished around in the drawers in the bed side table. He pulled out a Bible and a large piece of plywood. Attached to the plywood was the remote for the ancient looking television in the corner of the room.

“Oh, this is great,” Johnny said gleefully. “Does Jimmy still have the camera?”

“I wasn’t aware he had one at all.”

“Yeah, I guess that was a long time ago, now that I think about it. Still, check this out,” Johnny said, handing the board to Edgar, “it’s actually screwed onto the wood.”

“That’s insane,” Edgar marveled, turning it over in his hands. “Who would want the remote to a television they can’t even steal?”

“Does it work?”

Edgar shrugged and rammed his thumb on the big green ‘ON’ button. The television flickered on, but showed nothing but black. Edgar frowned and pressed a few more buttons. Black on every channel. He scrolled a few times through several channels, though Johnny wasn’t sure if they’d ever get an indication that they’d cycled back to the beginning. Johnny felt something flicker in the back of his head as Edgar passed a channel that looked the slightest bit blacker.

“Wait, wait, go back,” Johnny said, hitting Edgar’s shoulder.

“What, you haven’t seen that episode of ‘Black on Black’ before?” Edgar asked angrily, moving his shoulder away from Johnny’s hand.

“Just go back.”   Edgar shrugged and channeled back down to the blacker channel.

“Something is wrong with this one,” Johnny said slowly.

“Nny, there’s something wrong with all of them. The whole thing is shot.”

“No, there’s something in there. That’s not a black screen.” Johnny walked up to the television and poked at the buttons on the front. When that didn’t do anything, he felt around to the back of it, but there was nothing but the cable connection and the base the television was bolted to.  He turned to Edgar and held out his hand.

“Gimme that,” he said, motioning at the remote board. Edgar humored him, and gave it up without a fuss.

“You know, there’s an old movie about a girl in a television…,” Edgar started.

“Yeah, but she was in a nice rustic cabin. I doubt there’s any wells to be thrown into under this shitty place,” Johnny said as he fussed with the buttons on the remote.

“Johnny, if Pepito comes out of that television, I’m sleeping with Tenna.”

“Wimp. Okay, here we go.” Johnny pressed two buttons at once, and the black in the picture remained unchanged for a few moments, but soon the image started to reveal itself as a close up of something in the background of a larger image. The image kept zooming out, yet it still didn’t look like anything concrete. There seemed to be some tentacles or limbs and maybe some teeth and claws, but it didn’t look like anything. The pieces just writhed against the screen and made a sickening purring sort of noise.

“Is this some kind of medical show?” Edgar asked, squinting at the screen.

“I’m… not sure.” Johnny kept zooming out. The black that had formerly taken up the entire screen was now a tiny triangle in the corner of the screen. Suddenly the coils of whatever they were looking at began moving rapidly, and the mass of flesh and teeth parted to reveal a few dozen eyes that stared out of the television and at Johnny pointing the remote in their direction.

Johnny froze. He wanted to turn the television off, but his muscles wouldn’t listen to him. The creature made some noises like scraping against glass and concrete at the same time. Johnny heard the sounds from the television, but he was sure he heard them around him at the same time. His vision started getting fuzzy and he heard voices that weren’t his. He kept begging his hand to move and change the channel or just go limp and stop provoking the thing behind the screen but nothing moved.

It knew he was there, and it wanted out again.

The scraping got louder and higher and Johnny felt part of his brain black out, while the rest of him stood there still frozen by the creature behind the screen.  The scraping escalated further and the pictures that had been bolted to the walls began to vibrate. The light came loose from its duct tape hold and swung from a noose of wires and circuitry. Part of the drywall cracked, and a crack shot across the bottom of the television screen. Johnny heard screaming and he didn’t know who it belonged to.

There was a spark, black and then a flash of a small explosion.

Johnny opened his eyes in a strange bed, hugged tightly against Edgar.

He tried to sit up and his flailing woke Edgar.

“No, no, no,” Edgar protested, trying to hold Johnny’s arms down. “No, stop. Stop, calm down. Nny, please!”

Johnny stopped fighting, and looked around in a panic. The light fixture from the ceiling was gone, and the television had a giant hole in the screen. A lamp that was secured to the bed side table was the source of the only yellowed light in the room. There was a humming somewhere in the building. Humming and scraping. He didn’t remember dressing in these giant clothes.

“Edgar we have to go.”

“Nny, what the hell happened?”

Johnny tried to pull away, to escape. Edgar held him tighter.

“Dammit, let go! We have to go! We need to find everyone else and get out. We need out, oh god, how deep are we?”

“Johnny, please!”

“Edgar, I’m not fucking around! We have to go! We need to get out of here! Let go!”

Edgar looked frightened, and released his hold on Johnny’s arms. Johnny shot off the bed and ran to the door, tearing open every lock that they’d made so sure to secure just a few hours ago. He flung the door open, let it slam against the wall beside it, and looked at Edgar, who was sitting on the bed, still looking concerned, but not in any kind of hurry.

“Edgar, I don’t know what you need me to say for you to take this seriously, but you need to stand up and help me find everyone else, or so help me, I will drag you out of here unconscious.”

Edgar stood up and followed him. 

Johnny yelled through the hall and started banging on all the doors as he ran by them. The hall seemed to go on forever, and now that he saw the surroundings he was in, he wondered how they’d ever agreed to this place. The walls looked stained and warped. Drywall was cracking, floorboards were broken and things looked like they were seeping in from above and below. Things were leaning towards him.

“Nny, what happened?!” Edgar yelled, running behind Johnny in one sock and some plaid flannel pants. “What are you doing?!”

Devi emerged from her room groggily, and Johnny flailed wildly at her, yelling that they all needed to get out of the building.

“Nny, are you fucking- Do you know what fucking time it is?!” Devi yelled, clad in some sweatpants and a small black shirt. Tenna appeared from behind her in fully matched pajama set and orange fuzzy slippers.

“Get out, get out, get out,” Johnny chanted at them, “Please, come on, we don’t know how deep we are, and I don’t think the elevator is safe.”   Devi gave Edgar a glare.

“What the hell did you do to him?”

“I didn’t!” Edgar protested. “He freaked out doing something to our television, and there was this scraping noise and he wouldn’t move, and one thing led to another, so I… god, I don’t know, I guess I panicked, he scared me. I threw our light at the TV when it fell off again, and then the remote, for good measure. He just fell over after that, and he woke up like this.”

Jimmy emerged from his room in some long shorts, and started to complain to Edgar about the noise. Johnny got to him first.

“Jimmy,” Johnny pleaded, grabbing Jimmy’s hand, “if you have ever wanted to do something for me, you would convince them to get the fuck out of this place.” Jimmy looked at Johnny with a dazed expression, and then up at Edgar and Devi, who alternated between looking lost and annoyed.

“Let’s go,” Jimmy said.

Their footsteps echoed in the stairwells, as they tailed Johnny up the stairs. The stairs shook and creaked and something made angry scraping and screaming noises with increasing volume no matter how high they went.

“What the hell is that?!” Tenna yelled, taking the steps two at a time. Her very plush orange slippers squeaked every time she put her foot down.

“It’s nothing!” Johnny yelled. “Just keep going!”

Stairwells stopped being stairwells and started being ramps and what looked like abandoned handicapped access points. Some of them went right into ugly, stained walls. Jimmy had tried to stop and make some jokes about wheelchairs, but Edgar grabbed his wrist and pulled him along.

“This is crazy!” Jimmy shrieked as he tried to gain his footing. “What the hell is even back there?! Did he tell you what we’re running from? Edgar, come on!”

Edgar let go of Jimmy’s wrist and he hit the floorboards with a smack that startled everyone into stopping. Somewhere below them, they heard things collapsing, people screaming, and a roar that sounded like it was generated by implosion.  Jimmy looked around him and stood up slowly.

“What is that?” he asked softly.

“It’s getting closer,” Johnny said.

“Nny, come on, tell me this is some sort of game,” Devi begged. She sounded a little more desperate than Johnny thought she wanted to.

“No, I don’t think so. It used to be in the wall. How did it get in the TV?”

“Nny?”

“Someone knew it was there.”

“Nny!”

Johnny looked at Edgar. He wasn’t sure if that was who had last spoken, but he thought so.  “We need to keep going.”

Johnny turned around and headed to the next way up and out. He felt the others pause, and he turned to look at them. They were regarding each other nervously, and eventually Devi, Jimmy and Tenna seemed to look for answers in Edgar.

“I don’t know,” Edgar said hopelessly in response to the begging stares. “I’m as scared and confused as you are.”

“If this was anyone else but Nny…” Devi mumbled.

“Then you’d all get eaten,” Johnny said. “Let’s go.” The group gave one more nervous look at each other, then semi-reluctantly followed Johnny. Another stairwell, filled with webs and a few bugs. Jimmy complained that he’d crunched one as they sprinted up the stairs, while Tenna expressed disappointment that she hadn’t – a crunch and a squeak at the same time would have made for some interesting sound effects, she thought.

No one laughed.

The stairwell ended abruptly several floors up in an empty room. There were two ladders on the far wall and Johnny ran for them. Grinding noises and humming sounds leaked into everything.

“Oh, you have to be kidding me!” Devi yelled. “Nny, this is crazy!”

“NO!” Johnny yelled at her from several rungs above, “No, this is not crazy. Crazy is that thing in the TV. I know that thing. If we don’t get out of here now… It used to live in the wall.”

“Nny, please, this is really not…” Edgar’s voice.

“No, no, no!” Johnny shouted, shaking his head, still climbing. He looked over his shoulder and saw that despite what his friends were saying, they were still following him. “Just trust me, okay?”

And behind him were four people who’d followed him into everything. Into a choir room, onto roofs, and into basements, and onto stages with stars on their faces and make up on every inch of their skin. 

“Trust me.”

“Okay.”

And they climbed. The building looked like something had happened there once, something not very nice. It had been cleaned, but something was still there. They’d missed it when they cleaned, whoever they had been, and the thing had been waiting to be rediscovered. Leftovers from something that had long since disappeared. Something that should have died long ago. Something that used to need regular attention to stay put.

Something that was making regular screaming and sliming and slithering and roaring behind them.

What had been keeping it there until now?

Another roar echoed behind them six more floors up, and Devi showed signs of panic.

“Nny, what’s going on?” He didn’t answer.

“How deep were we?”  He didn’t know who said that.

They climbed into a lightless room, and Johnny felt everything shaking around him. His friends, the walls, the air, the dust, the bugs. It was familiar. There were things coming for them. Things that had probably already destroyed the level they’d been staying on.

“It’s okay,” Johnny said. “This is the top. We’ll be fine.” The silence behind him was not terribly supportive.

“Really,” he stressed. “Come on, here, someone take my hand.” He felt several hands at once.

“Guys, this is really not the time for this. Here, gimme Edgar.”  Edgar’s hand. “Okay, some one take his other one, make some kinda line, alright? There’s no light in here but there are stairs to the top in the corner.”

“Are you sure?” Devi again.

“Yes.” He was sure, and he hated that he was sure. Things buzzed at him, and he tried desperately to focus on remembering and not remembering at the same time. Remember where the stairs are. Don’t remember why you remember the stairs.

They made their way across the room, which was covered in wood that had long since rotted in places. Tenna got her foot lodged in the floor when a plank broke, which had made a terrifying squeak, but other than that, and the collective shiver that Johnny felt all the way to his hand when something roared again, they made it to the stair case with no trouble at all. At the top, Johnny pushed on the ceiling, and the fluorescent light that poured in told him they’d hit the lobby. A fancy rug fell from the top of the trap door, and coughed up a cloud of dust.

The women at the reception desk ran over to help, though none was needed.

“How on Earth did you get down there?” one of them asked. “We closed that off years ago!”

“I think we’ll be going home now,” Johnny told her. He looked at her, and heard the creature tearing at the floors below him. Shame, she seemed like a nice lady.

Devi signed them out as fast as she could, her signature spilling out of the little white square that she was given many times over. The woman behind the desk asked if she needed a cup of water or some sugar. Devi told her no, but suggested that she go on break soon. The woman giggled politely at her.

The doors to the van could not be unlocked fast enough, and Tenna practically had it in reverse before everyone’s limbs were securely inside. Johnny refused to move from the rear window, so everyone who wasn’t driving watched with him. They watched the building shudder a few times, and then seem to swell. Devi held her breath, and Tenna kept yelling ‘what’ with increasing volume from the driver’s seat.

Johnny let his finger hover over the glass. “Right…,” the building heaved and collapsed in on itself as tentacles and gore shot from it in every direction when Johnny poked the glass, “there.” 

Devi backed away from the window slowly and climbed back into the front seat with Tenna.  “What happened, what happened, what is it?” Tenna sounded frantic, and the van lurched as she sped up and slowed down with alternating panic about the motel and worry about the speed limit.

“Just keep driving, Ten.”

They spent the night in the van, driving as far away from the building as possible. Tenna was so jittery she forgot a few turn signals and caused a guy on his bike to crash into a ditch. They didn’t stop to see what happened to him.

“Fuck him, keep driving,” Jimmy had said when Tenna put on the break.

Johnny stayed in the far back of the van, with Edgar wrapped tightly around him. Jimmy didn’t object, and in fact poked his head back and told Edgar he’d be in the front seats trying to keep Tenna calm so they didn’t escape Hell only to die hitting a telephone pole.

When the sun rose, they were still driving. The radio announced sometime around a quarter to seven in the morning that a town that no one had heard of before had simply ceased to exist the night prior. Police were looking into it, the announcer said.

“He’s lying,” Johnny said into Edgar’s shoulder.  Jimmy and Devi turned to look at him, and Tenna glanced into her mirror. 

“He’s lying. There aren’t any police there anymore. There’s nothing there anymore. And nothing will be there ever again.”

*****

Johnny was alarmingly quiet after the incident with the motel. Edgar tried to joke with him and things fell flat. References to cleaning layers of paint off of furniture or jokes at Edgar’s own expense got no reaction at all. Jabs at Jimmy’s fanboying or Devi’s relationship with Tenna sparked only stares, as though Johnny was only processing that he might know the people Edgar talked of.

Given all of that, Edgar felt a little guilty that he enjoyed the final side effect of the motel-induced crazy. Since the night they’d returned, Johnny spent every night curled up next to Edgar, clutching sheets or Edgar’s shirt desperately in his sleep.

Edgar held him, since he thought it helped, but he didn’t really know what to do for him. He tried to ask about the television, about what Johnny had seen, about what was wrong now. He even tried to ask if Johnny was afraid of the thing coming to get him, even if it sounded childish and dumb. He’d not been given any real answers.

Finally, at an hour of the morning that Edgar had rarely seen, he was woken up by Johnny shaking him violently.

“Edgar, wake up!”

“Whoa, whoa, okay, what, what?” He shook his head, and his eyes tried to focus on Johnny.

“The motel,” Johnny said urgently. Edgar was silent for a moment, hoping Johnny would go on. When he didn’t, Edgar tried to nudge it out of him.

“What about it?” Quietly.

“The motel,” he said again.

“Johnny, please.”

Johnny tightened a grip on Edgar’s collar that Edgar hadn’t even noticed he had.

“It was my house, Edgar. I lived there.”

“In the motel?”

“It wasn’t a motel! I lived there! The rooms underneath, the … thing. The thing in the wall. I lived there. It got into the TV somehow.”

“Nny, slow down.”

“I knew the room because I lived there,” Johnny repeated, burying his head in Edgar’s shirt. “I remembered the rooms. And the thing remembered me.” Johnny was still half-heartedly shaking him. Edgar took his hands and held them together.

“I’m awake, you can stop shaking me.”

“It knew I was there.”

“From the TV?”

“Yes… You think I’m crazy.”

“No,” Edgar replied gently. “I remember crazy. This isn’t quite it. You’re acting weird though.”

“You don’t believe me.”

“Nny, the town disappeared overnight. I believe you. We’re all alive because you went a little crazy in there.”

Johnny’s breathing, which had until now been frantic and panicked, slowed until Edgar could barely hear it. He pulled himself away from Edgar, and Edgar released his hands.

“This is going to sound bad,” Johnny warned.

“O…kay.”

“How long ago did that happen?”

“About a week.”

Johnny nodded. “I see.”  Edgar figured he really didn’t.  “I don’t…remember any time passing. The last thing I remember is being in the van.”

“That would explain a lot,” Edgar said.

“What happened to everything? The last few shows and stuff, I mean.”

“We had to cancel them. We couldn’t even get you to speak, let alone sing.”

Johnny rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I hadn’t wanted to remember any of this stuff, Edgar.”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” Edgar said quietly. “I didn’t want you to either.”

“What were the odds of that? Of going to that one place? How many motels were out there?”

“I can’t even believe you’re asking me that.”

“Is it the key?” Johnny asked, fingers brushing the metal key that hung from the dark ribbon around his neck.

“Nny, it’s not just the key by now,” Edgar said. “It can’t be. Things are getting weirder than just Pepito and his key to hell.”

“It’s coming after me.”

Maybe asking that question earlier hadn’t been as dumb and childish as Edgar thought.

“Still?”

“Yes.”

Edgar knew he’d regret asking, but he went ahead anyway. “Really?”

“I think so.”

There was a long silence. Edgar worried that Johnny had crazied himself to sleep, or that he’d willed himself to stop breathing.

“You know,” Johnny said softly, “we walked through your room.”

“My…?”

“The one I killed you in.”

“Thanks for not saying something while we were there.”

“I thought it would be appreciated,” Johnny said, shrugging. “I didn’t want you to freak out.”

“I was doing that pretty well already, actually.” Edgar laughed quietly, and slid over closer to Johnny. “I was terrified that something was wrong with you,” he said, pulling Johnny into a hug.

“I’m pretty sure you’ve known something was wrong with me from the start.”

“Maybe,” Edgar replied, pressing his face against Johnny’s hair, “but I’m used to your standard, regular, everyday wrong. That shit was just horrifying.”

Johnny moved away from him and looked at Edgar’s eyes. He squinted, as though he was trying to find something, then smiled.

“Thanks,” he said, ruffling Edgar’s hair. “I’ll be fine, okay?”

“Okay.” Edgar tried to smile, but it didn’t work the way he wanted, and he suspected that he looked a little dumb. “You’re welcome, I guess.”

Johnny laughed at him.

*****

Devi stopped by to see him, and then Jimmy. Johnny thought the concern was nice, but he hadn’t been in the hospital or even really in a coma, so he didn’t quite understand the fuss.  Devi and the others seemed so much more rattled by the experience than he’d expected them to be. 

Edgar had gone to the store to replace their stale tortilla chips, so Johnny was left alone with Devi and Jimmy. That might have been Edgar pulling a ‘considerate like Tenna’ move, but Johnny wasn’t sure. He thought to ask about Tenna, but thought if she hadn’t shown up, maybe it was bad, and let it be.

Devi had hugged him the moment she laid eyes on him.

“I don’t know what happened to you,” she sniffled into his shirt, “and I don’t know whether to kill you or tell you I love you, but god, you scared the shit outta me.”

“I’m… sorry?”

“Don’t say that, that’s even scarier.”

Johnny grinned at her, and she lamely punched him in the shoulder.

“Fuck you,” she said, smiling back at him.

That had been all Devi needed. Jimmy had been a little more roughed up by the experience of scaling stairs for his life.

“I’m glad you’re not crazy,” he offered, when finally left alone with Johnny.

“Yeah, I’m sorta glad too,” Johnny answered. Jimmy clenched his fists a few times, but wouldn’t say anything.

“Umm, Jimmy?”

“I don’t know what happened back there,” Jimmy choked out, “but we’re all alive because of you.  Thanks for saving me too.”

Johnny almost laughed. “What, you thought I wouldn’t?”

“You had Edgar with you already,” Jimmy explained, gesturing weakly. “You could have just… left.”

“I think you’re missing a key point of my relationships,” Johnny said, standing from his spot on the corner of Edgar’s bed. “He’s my best friend. I should probably even stop calling him that, but ‘best friend’ is a label I find easier to swallow.” Jimmy flinched and looked away from him. “But,” Johnny continued, sliding around to look Jimmy in the eye, “there’s nothing in me that’s going to let some tentacle monster take you and Devi when I know I can save you from it. I think there used to be, once, but I hope it died somewhere along the way. You guys were it for me for a long time. I can’t afford to lose the only connections I’ve got.”

Jimmy looked strange. “I wasn’t sure,” he said quietly.

“I’d miss you if you died, you miserable fucker.” Johnny grinned at him, and Jimmy stared blankly at him for a moment before returning the grin.

“I’m not gonna stop, Nny.”

Johnny blinked at him. “Stop what?”

“Following you.”

“That’s okay. Just stay away from my windows.”

*****

 

Edgar returned from the store after Devi and Jimmy had left. Johnny was in the living room, trying to make the television do something, though Edgar wasn’t sure what.

“So, I had an interesting experience at the store,” Edgar announced, setting down the bag of tortilla chips.

“Yeah? What happened?”

“I was standing in line at the check out, and this lady in front of me recognizes me, which is weird, now that I think about it, because she was something like seventy…”

“Weird. So, what’d she say?”

“She looks at me, and she goes, ‘Oh, honey, you’re in that killing invisible band, aren’t you?’”

Johnny made a face.

“Yeah, I know. Just wait, it gets better,” Edgar continued, “She looks me up and down and pats my shoulder and says, ‘I’m glad you can be publicly gay in this day and age, boy. You done good.’”

Johnny’s jaw dropped and he looked utterly horrified.

“I KNOW! I just stood there. I couldn’t even answer her. It was just like, “Gay?” I never thought of it like that. I never thought I fit that.”

“You still don’t,” Johnny said.

“And I thought, ‘I just like Nny, lady, really. The guy behind me is not doing anything for me at all.’ And I thought, you,” he gestured towards Johnny, “you know, you’re just – well, no.”

“Hey, thanks. That’s great.”

“You know what I mean! It’s like I’m just… you-sexual. Nny-sexual.”

Johnny snorted. “Something like that on my end, too, I think,” he replied, laughing.

*****

They’d ended up watching something awful on late night television again. It was rare that Edgar and Johnny ever watched something that was supposed to be taken seriously, and the things that had been made to be taken seriously were hilarious for that very reason.

Of course, Johnny assumed his usual ritual of using Edgar as a full-body pillow. Since the episode with the motel, Edgar had gotten used to Johnny clinging desperately to him, and while it was significantly less desperate now that Johnny’s brain seemed to have returned to him, it was unquestionably more comfortable. Edgar thought they got more comfortable with each other every day, and he relished the idea.  He no longer had to be concerned with how creepy it sounded to ask Johnny where he wanted to sleep – Johnny would follow him to the couch as casually as he would Edgar’s bed. They’d sleep in a sort of heap, with Johnny’s arms draped over Edgar’s ribs.

Edgar had been trying to fall asleep to the sounds of a man screaming, unconvincingly, that the demon spleen was going to devour them all.  Johnny, however, found the man hilarious, so Edgar would be jostled from sleep, almost always at a crucial sleep-deciding moment, by Johnny laughing at some horrendously overdone line, or some obvious plastic monsters being puppeted close to the screen.

“I wonder how you enjoy these so much,” Edgar said groggily.

“What are you talking about? This is gold.”

“You’d think after you’d seen so many people fuck up in the attempt at being serious, it would get old.”

“Funny,” Johnny replied, his breath near Edgar’s neck, “you’d think after seeing so many people excel at being serious, it would get old.”

“Point taken.”

“Besides, you don’t have to watch them if you don’t want to,” Johnny added. “Despite how this may look, I’m not holding you down.”

“Oh god, get him off, he’s crushing my ribs.” Edgar mimicked the distressed woman on the television as best he could, flailing arms included.

“You’re a natural B-Movie star, Edgar. Let’s build a little city for you to menace out of some construction paper and film it.” Johnny ran the back of his hand under Edgar’s jaw. “We’d be rich,” he hissed.

“That band thing wasn’t working out anyway.”

“Do you like it?”

“Like what?”

“Playing. With me. With all of us.”

“With you specifically,” Edgar answered, running his fingers along the side of Johnny’s head. “But I guess the other instruments are nice, too.”

“We’d make a sad duo.”

“I don’t think so.” Edgar curled his fingers under Johnny’s jaw. When Johnny closed his eyes at the touch, Edgar took the very rare opportunity to catch Johnny off guard.

It still surprised him when Johnny didn’t just freeze up and lifelessly permit kisses, but actually responded to them. Thin arms around his neck or fingers in his hair made Edgar shudder, and it was wonderful.

“I feel a little delirious when you do that, sometimes,” Edgar managed afterwards.

“Will suck the coherent right out of you.”

“It’s just that kisses like that used to be really far-fetched fantasies for me, you know?”

"And what are they now?"

"You can't just ask. That's cheating isn't it?"

"I don't think so," Johnny answered, stretching. "It's communication or something like that."

"Or something?"

"Yes." Sly grin.

"I don't think about things like that terribly often, really." Edgar adjusted his glasses.

"So you're going to tell me," Johnny said, tracing Edgar's jaw, "that you spent years aching after me, but not anymore?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what are you going to say instead?" Fingertips grazing Edgar's neck.

"I," Edgar coughed, "am not sure."

"Then here's a question," Johnny purred. "What about me did you like? You fantasized about kissing me on occasion, right?"

Edgar nodded.

"So you find me attractive on some level, then."

"Of course I do. What kind of question is that?"

"A legitimate one," Johnny answered. He was still lying on Edgar, but had turned onto his side. He tended towards this cat-like behavior when they found themselves like this - stretching and clawing at Edgar’s shirt very much included.

"I am having a hard time following here," Edgar confessed. "This... this doesn't sound like you. Are you actually bothered by thinking that I don't find you attractive?"

"No," Johnny replied, smiling. He raked a nail down the side of Edgar's neck. "I'm not bothered at all because I know you do. I admit I'm not sure that we're looking at the same person, and often find myself questioning your tastes, but I know you do."

"Soo..."

"So am I attractive to you psychologically? As some kind of fucked up kindred spirit?" He rolled onto his back. Edgar thought he really should have seen this quirk coming. Johnny rarely looked at anyone when he talked to them, and frequently got lost in wood grain and carpet squares; the fact that he would choose to pull at Edgar's shirts or stretch himself out in odd ways when they were close rather than actually look at Edgar didn't really surprise him terribly.

"Nny, I really don't think I'm fucked up enough to be a kindred spirit of yours."

"I love you, too."

"Come on, really."

Johnny laughed against Edgar's neck, and then used Edgar's shoulders to pull himself closer to Edgar's face. Edgar felt breath against his ear.

"So, it's not kindred spirit attraction," Johnny breathed. "Then perhaps it's emotional?"

"It's..." Hot. Edgar felt sure the burn on the skin around his ear was going to melt his brain. "It's sort of a combination, I think."

"Of?" Johnny, purposely, from what Edgar could tell, held the 'f.' Edgar shivered.

"What are you trying to get at?"

"This is interesting to me," Johnny answered. "Psychology, and all."

"Is that what they're calling this now?"

"You don't think I'm telling the truth," Johnny said, winding part of the collar on Edgar's shirt in his fingers.

"Maybe you're not," Edgar choked, trying to move Johnny's hand from his neck, "but it rarely affects the outcome of our conversations."

"And yet," Johnny sighed into his ear, "you still like me."

"You might need to remind me of why," Edgar said, trying to ignore the burn that was spreading to his neck. "You also need to get your knee out of my stomach."

Johnny obliged and moved his leg, but did not seem interested in leaving Edgar's ear un-breathed into.

"I can't do that," he said, "because that's what I'm asking you."

Somehow, Edgar had gotten completely turned around in this conversation, and he wasn't sure how it had happened.

"That's really not the same question," Edgar stalled.

"But it's pretty close."

"It's on an emotional level, and a personality level, too, I think. When you start with those, physical attraction tends to follow doesn't it?" Edgar was determined to steer this towards psychology.

"It does," Johnny answered, nodding. "This is probably why we worked out in the first place. Knowing that someone else is attracted to you automatically makes that person more attractive to you, even if just a little."

"So I somehow looked like less of a loser while I was trying to convince you that this was a good idea?"

"No, your sheer force of lose was so great that there was pretty much nothing left to redeem you." Johnny grinned against the side of Edgar's head. "I think you caught me off guard somewhere. I was unassuming in the face of such sheer fail."

"Why on Earth do I put up with you?"

"I can think of a few reasons." His arm draped over Edgar's chest. Breath on one side of his face now, and fingertips on the other. "So we've established that by liking my brain, you now like to look at me."

"Wait, what?"

"Aaannnd," right in Edgar's ear again, "this brings us back to where we started."

"It... does?"

"Yes. It does."

A few things clicked in Edgar's head, but he wasn't sure what to do with them.

"I think you're twisting things around here," Edgar said slowly.

"Am I? You don't find me attractive by way of our scientific theory then?"

"Not by the theory, no."

"So then you do anyway, and the theory really doesn't matter."

"I-" Edgar stopped. "Yes. Yes, okay."

"So how deep does that go?"

"How deep?"

"How much?"

Edgar hummed part of his song. Johnny actually stopped clawing at Edgar's shirt for a moment.

"It's a bit like that," Edgar said after he'd hummed through a verse or two.

"I think that finding someone physically attractive really implies a few things, and you're ignoring them."

"Did it occur to you that maybe despite wanting you desperately I was trying not to be a jerk?" Shit, wait.

"Oh, really?" There was breath in syllables that should have been physically impossible to contain it.

"Yes."

"So you lied to me."

"What?"

"There are some fantasies left in there after all."

With that, Johnny picked himself off of the couch, and wandered into the other room. Edgar heard the refrigerator open. All of his skin was burning.

 

Two days later, Edgar stood in the archway leading into the dining room he never used. The conversation with Johnny on the couch had eaten its way into his brain, and it consumed him. He’d thought the burning would have died down by now, but the sensation in his neck and under his ear was just as intense two days later. He tried ice packs, and thought it wasn’t just his imagination that he melted them in record time. Johnny had asked him why he’d stuck his neck in the sink when he saw Edgar’s soggy shirt.

Edgar managed the few steps to the other side of the stairs.

Johnny was sitting on the couch, scribbling away in a notebook. At first glance, he looked like his younger self clad in the shoddily sewn shirt and socks full of holes that he tended toward on the weekends. Hair that was never allowed to fade from whatever shade of blue Johnny liked that particular week and the lingering look of Tenna’s Homicides make-up pointed away from younger Johnny. The combination of the two was strange and fascinating to Edgar, but he wasn’t sure if that was the effects of Johnny’s little game from the other day talking or a genuine interesting contrast.

Edgar slipped into the space between Johnny and the arm of the couch. All their most important interactions had taken place on the couch, so this felt appropriate. He slid his arms around Johnny’s waist and Johnny just then seemed to notice that Edgar was there.

“Hey,” Edgar said. Johnny looked at Edgar, Edgar’s hands, and then back at his notebook.

“Hey,” Johnny echoed.

“You said something the other day that interested me,” Edgar tried. How else he was going to bring this up, he didn’t know.

“Oh, really?” Casually disinterested, like Edgar had just told him the sky was blue and that he’d seen a bird in it.

“Yes, really.”

“I don’t remember.”

There was some kind of game going on here.

“Don’t remember? You were pretty into it before.”

“Was I?”

A game.  Johnny was obviously toying with him, and it was ridiculous. He’d managed to get this mess all wormed into Edgar’s brain, and now was pretending it hadn’t happened. Then, somewhere in Edgar’s thought processes, a piece fell into place, and there was sudden realization. Edgar didn’t quite understand how it had happened, but he’d been seduced into seducing Johnny. A moment’s reflection made Edgar wonder why that hadn’t clicked before.

“You’re not listening to me,” Edgar breathed into Johnny’s ear.

A shiver. “Now I am.”

“Are you toying with me?”

“Maaaybe.”

“I am considering indulging you.”

"Are you, now?"

"Unless you don't want to hear about this."

"Mm?"

"You seemed inclined to expose all of my fantasies, before," Edgar muttered into Johnny's neck. "Not anymore?"

Johnny let the notebook fall to the floor and leaned into Edgar.

“I could be re-inclined, if need be,” he answered, smirking.

“There seems to be a need here.” Edgar let his teeth graze Johnny’s ear before he even had time to think about doing it. Johnny tensed up for a moment, but relaxed almost immediately.

“I think you made this a little too easy,” Johnny told him, brushing fingertips around Edgar’s ear. God, Johnny really had wanted to be pursued.

“You’re a manipulative bastard, and I’m fairly sure this makes the previously mentioned need even worse.”

“Here I thought I was going to get to have some fun with you.” He ran his fingers across Edgar’s scalp once. Four trails of burning skin.

“I think that’s what I’m asking you for now.” Teeth against the skin on Johnny’s neck.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said, “Maybe I’ll think about it.” He curled his fingers under the collar of Edgar’s shirt as he spoke.

“Don’t make me bite you,” Edgar growled.

“Please,” Johnny said, grinning. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?”

Edgar’s fingers brushed bare skin underneath Johnny’s deteriorating old shirt. Johnny twitched a little, but whether it was at the touch near his ribs or the bite on his neck, Edgar didn’t know. He also didn’t care. He went to remove the offending shirt entirely, but stopped suddenly. Pressed his nose against Johnny’s temple and spoke into his ear again.

“May I?”

One more line to cross.

“Yes."

*****

 

“So have you noticed?” Tenna asked.

“Noticed what?”

“So you haven’t noticed.”

“Ten, what?”

“Edgar and Johnny.”

“God,” Devi sighed, exasperated, “What about them now? You aren’t satisfied with having called it so long ago, are you?”

“Something changed,” Tenna said, grinning.

“What?”

“Johnny really trusts him,” Tenna answered, raising her eyebrows.

“That’s nothing new.”

Tenna started laughing, and Devi thought maybe she’d just snapped.

“Maybe Jimmy will notice,” she laughed through her words.

Devi had suspected Tenna of sniffing markers again, until she talked to Jimmy. Comparing sanity notes with Jimmy seemed a little backwards, but he’d been surprising her lately.

“It’s hard to look at them anymore,” Jimmy told her.

“‘Anymore’?” she asked. “Wasn’t it hard before?”

“Yeah, but, just…,” Jimmy motioned to nothing, “look at them.”

“I do, and I don’t see anything different than I did before. You and Tenna shared the fucking markers, didn’t you?”

“Markers?”

“Never mind. Explain this shit to me. What’s different?”

Jimmy looked a little disturbed. “Johnny doesn’t, and hasn’t, let anyone that close before.”

Devi raised an eyebrow at him, and he gave her a ‘fill in the blank, moron’ face. Devi wanted to go find Tenna and smother her with a pillow for making her hear this from Jimmy.

*****

Edgar couldn’t pinpoint why, but he felt like he was being stared at. When he shared this concern with Johnny, Johnny hadn’t thought much of it.

“You’re on TV occasionally, Edgar,” he’d said, trying to glue something he’d knocked off the wall and broken one too many times back to its spot on the wall. “Just stick, you fucker, and we’ll both be a lot happier. You’re on TV,” he said again, “people are going to look.”

“Why are you even bothering with that? We’re going to be gone for a few months.”

“Yeah,” Johnny said, applying pressure, “and if it doesn’t fall off in the time that we’re gone, I can assume I’m never going to have to put up with knocking this thing over again.”

“I don’t need it, you know. You can just get rid of it.”

“Shut up. This is not about wanting the damn thing now; this is the principle of the thing.”

“Whatever you want.” Edgar walked into the other room to round up some last minute items, and check over what they’d already packed.

“Are we leaving from Devi’s again?” Johnny asked, presumably still holding the cracked ceramic mess against the wall.

“Don’t we always?” Edgar shrugged. “The van’s already there, and we don’t have much to transport. Plus, this is that route that circles back over home, so we’ll be back here in the middle sometime.”

“Just check- FUCK!” Johnny’s outburst erupted over the sound of shattering. “Shit, I’m gonna be picking this out of my hands for a week. Do we have something bigger than a Band-Aid?”

“No. Um, do I want to see this?”

“Prooobably not. Let’s just go check Devi’s, she’s got that store near her place. Um. Yeah, this is bad. Can you carry my stuff?”

“Are you going to bleed to death from your palms?”

“Most likely.”

“Well, give me a heads up before you kick the bucket, okay?”

Johnny clicked his tongue. “Will do.”

*****

“And you’re sure?”

“Yes, Devi, I can tell these things.”

“You’ve got some kind of sex radar or something?”

“I think so,” Tenna said proudly, putting on a mock-snooty expression.

“I don’t even want to be hearing this,” Jimmy muttered into his hands. “Why are we still talking about this?”

“Oh, grow up,” Devi snapped, kicking his lawn chair.

“Hey!” he shrieked, “I’m not the one fixated on it!”

“He does have a point, Devi,” Tenna said coolly.

Devi wanted to tear her hair out. Instead, she kept packing things into the van.  Tenna tortured Jimmy for the next fifteen minutes, until Johnny and Edgar showed up. Edgar was carrying absolutely everything, and Johnny’s hands were wrapped in some questionable looking fabric.

Devi and Jimmy managed a very lame ‘hi’, but Tenna struggled with just keeping her laughter in, so said nothing at all. Edgar seemed to notice, and bit his lip for a moment.

“Heeelloo,” he said, looking at everyone expectantly. “Is there something wrong?”

“No,” Devi answered quickly. She shook her head a little too emphatically, and Edgar’s clear uncomfortable feeling did not appear to lessen.

“Well, then,” Edgar said, setting all his bags down, “I was wondering if you guys would load this stuff into the van for me.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Jimmy asked.

“Johnny and I are going to run over to the Quik-Mart.”

“Oh,” Tenna said, “gonna get some supplies?”

Jimmy made a face like he was going to cry, and Devi thought she must not be far behind. Edgar had a look of absolute bewilderment on his face, but something close to recognition flashed across Johnny’s and he stepped in front of Edgar, and bowed slightly towards Tenna.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Should we pick something up for you and Devi as well?”

Tenna’s jaw dropped and she managed nothing but pointing wildly at Johnny and Edgar as they walked down the street. Jimmy and Devi stared after them in silence.

For weeks, that day was known as ‘That Time Nny Got Tenna,’ or, more frequently, ‘That One Time’, and even after being explained to an incredibly mortified Edgar, was frequently referenced in conversations that had nothing to do with her, or needing ‘supplies.’

*****

It seemed that the Homicides didn’t hold concerts this time around, they held parties. Stages were lower to the ground, so that the pulsing mob could easily have dragged Johnny under had he gone too close to the edge. He wasn’t sure what was keeping them from climbing up most of the time.

In the spirit of encouragement, Johnny and the others had a few small groups of local kids from every place they played perform some small sets around the Homicides show. This gave the group a chance to mingle and weave their way through the hysterical groups of sweaty teenagers and frighten people on a more personal level. They told people it was to get close to their fans, but even Edgar knew it was just to fuck with their heads.

When the groups of high school students stopped playing, the auditoriums and clubs played recordings of the Homicides over the screaming. Johnny had thought it was odd to hear the songs and not be feeling them run through him at the same time, but appreciated the devotion.

“I don't think that it's
Gonna rain again today
There's a devil at your side
But an angel on her way”

A song the Homicides had sung, but not written, a resurrected song, came over the speakers at one show near the group’s hometown. The tour had gone on a strange pattern this time around and was going to pass through home for a few days in the middle before continuing onward in another direction.

Johnny wandered through the crowds of people, who often shrieked that it really had been him who had just bumped their sister or best friend or cousin or boyfriend. He wasn’t looking for anyone or anything, he just enjoyed the atmosphere of near-panic.

“Someone hit the light
'Cause there's more here to be seen
When you caught my eye
I saw everywhere I'd been
And wanna go to”

He suddenly felt that he was being stared at.

“You came on your own
That's how you'll leave
With hope in your hands
And air to breathe

I won't disappoint you
As you fall apart
Some things should be simple
Even an end has a start”

This wasn’t the ‘almost-celebrity’ stared at, this wasn’t even a ‘That One Time’ kind of stared at. This was malicious staring. Johnny kept whirling around, looking for the source of it, but with so many people and so much movement, he had a hard time pinning it down. He finally narrowed it down to what he’d thought was an empty corner of the hall. He navigated around fans and people who had just seen him for the first time, but if they said anything to him, he didn’t hear any words. Clearing people out of his way like stray branches, he moved gradually towards the stare.

The woman that he found in the corner never moved toward him, or backed away. She just stared. She wore glasses, and glared at Johnny over the top of the frames.

“You came on your own
That's how you'll leave”

“I-,” Johnny started, “Don’t I know you?”

“Something like that.”

When she spoke, he thought of tracing demented drawings on rotting wood, of the sky and the floor and the air going black. Of realizing he’d been wrong, and finding it funny.

No one noticed her, no one spoke to her, and no one even seemed to acknowledge the corner she stood in. She moved her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, and looked at Johnny a little more directly. She shifted her weight, and the light from a nearby mirror ball caught on a metal ankh on a chain around her neck.

“I do know you,” Johnny said quietly. Too quietly to be heard in the pulsing room, but the woman nodded.

“I wondered how long it would take.”

Every word made something horrible flash in his head. Something deafening, and bone shattering. Steel and leather crushing his skull later, when it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.  She was like the house, and he couldn’t stay. He backed away from her, and she made no efforts to follow him.

“You came on your own
That's how you'll leave”

“Don’t worry,” she mouthed.  I’ll see you again.

He backed into Devi, who hadn’t been looking for him. When he finally managed to get her to understand what he was yelling into her ear, the woman in the corner was gone.

“Please, calm down, please,” Edgar told him that night in van, as they pulled out of the parking lot.

“She wasn’t – she didn’t – I don’t think she deserved this.” He alternately tried to attach himself to Edgar’s shoulder, and talk with his hands. He must have looked hysterical.

“Okay,” Edgar said, grabbing one of Johnny’s wrists, “stop flailing, you’re going to hit something and reopen some of those cuts.” The cuts were too small now to be much trouble, even if they could somehow reopen. Johnny felt that Edgar was worried about him, but he knew it wasn’t about cuts.

“I wasn’t going to kill her.”

“Pardon?”

“She just got caught in it. She wasn’t supposed to be there. The guy with her was an asshole. I think I’d be happy to know he was killed a second time.”

Edgar raised an eyebrow and kept hold of Johnny’s wrist.

“She reminds me of dying.” Johnny stared at the back of the chair in front of him, but sank desperately into his own seat. Tenna and the others were in the van, but kept silent.

“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Really. Things in my head shut down when she talks. Everything goes black.” He looked at Edgar frantically. “Do you know what it’s like when the air goes black?”

Edgar let go of Johnny’s wrist and pulled him into an awkward hug.

“Don’t worry about it. She’s not going to grow tentacles and chase us home. It was only a matter of time before you recognized someone else from before, right? We’ll just go home and be as completely lazy as we can possibly be, and you’ll feel better.”

Johnny tried to nod, not out of agreement, but just because Edgar sounded like he was really trying to be sensible.  He stayed quiet for the remainder of the ride back home. It would only be a few days, but being somewhere where the woman wasn’t would be nice.

Only when Tenna dropped them off on the sidewalk near their house, and they were left standing in light rain, did Johnny speak again.

“I can’t remember her name,” he said.

After that night, Johnny didn’t think he would enjoy the party concerts quite so much.

 

*****

A few days and some calming down later, Edgar and Johnny decided to have Chinese for breakfast. As soon as Johnny managed to find some place that would actually deliver to two lazy guys who didn’t want to leave the house, and a place willing to believe that he was who he said he was (“No, there’s nothing after that. It’s just a C. No, really. Yes. Yeah, well, you know what? Fuck you and your Sweet and Sour Pork.”), he and Edgar had two little white boxes of Lo Mein and a marathon of the Worst Movies in Existence on one of the channels in the 300’s.

Johnny maintained that the epitome of lazy was to eat food in bed in front of the television, and so Edgar ate food in his bed for what he was sure was the first time.

“This is insane,” Johnny said, pointing at the black-and-white monster on the screen with his chopsticks. “You can see this guy’s zipper! How did they miss shit like that back when they made this?”

Edgar dropped some noodles onto the blanket beside him. “Shit, that’s all your fault,” he said, trying to pick up what he’d dropped with little success.

“Me? What the hell did I do? You’re the one who can’t handle chopsticks.”

“See, I thought the idea here was to be lazy. A fork really would have been lazier.”

“Yeah, but the chopsticks make it ironic.”

Somewhere in the middle of the box of Lo Mein, during some commercials, Edgar heard something fuzzy. He thought it was the commercials, so he ignored it for a while, but it continued when the movie returned. He looked off the side of the bed for a CD player that had been left on, but saw nothing but the shirts Johnny had thrown all over his floor in an effort to ‘de-lame’ Edgar’s closet.

“Do you hear something?” Edgar asked when he couldn’t find the source of the noise.

“What?” Johnny looked up from his noodle box, and slurped a few stray noodles into his mouth.

“Nothing, maybe it’s just me.”

Johnny shrugged and continued eating. “Whatever.”

Edgar tried to concentrate on the movie in front of him, but the sound was changing rapidly, and kept demanding his attention.

“What’s that sound?” he asked, when he couldn’t tolerate it anymore.

“I don’t hear anything,” Johnny answered, trying to make a little noodle bridge on his chopsticks.

“Really? It’s some song, or something. I think you left the stereo on.” Edgar looked towards the door to see if he could hear the sound better from the direction of the stereo.

“I think you’re on crack.”

Edgar leaned over and inspected Johnny’s neck and ear. “Are you wearing headphones or something?”

Johnny leaned away from him, and pulled up his shoulders, irritated. “No! Shut up and eat your Lo Mein.”

Edgar kept looking around. He knew he could hear something, and he knew it was close, he just had no idea where it was coming from. It sounded so odd, like something he wanted to make louder just to make sure he was really hearing what he thought he was.

“I swear,” Edgar muttered almost to himself, “it’s like I’m sitting on it. It’s right here.”

The sound – no, the song – twisted and turned and changed into other things, but still retained something that made Edgar sure it was the same as the first bit he’d heard. The notes were strange in places, but were surprisingly enjoyable all the same.

“What the hell?” Edgar said, frustrated. “You really can’t hear this?”

Johnny dropped his noodles, and made no moves to attempt to recover them.

“What does it sound like?” he asked quietly. He was staring straight ahead, but wasn’t watching the movie.

“It’s just some strange song, and it’s like it’s coming from totally no-” Edgar stopped abruptly when he realized it.

“From nowhere, huh?” Johnny sounded like he was having trouble breathing.

“I can’t tell where it’s coming from.” Edgar slowly set his noodle box on the floor beside his old t-shirts.  Johnny sat in his spot, his shoulders shaking. He picked up an arm and, without turning around to look at him, put his hand over Edgar’s glasses. Edgar closed his eyes.

“Where is it coming from, now?”

Edgar felt his chest tighten and he had to fight to get enough air in a single breath. He reached up slowly and took hold of Johnny’s wrist, moving his hand.

“You,” he breathed.

Johnny finally turned to look at him. He looked terrified, and Edgar felt Johnny’s wrist trembling in his hand. The song was definitely coming from Johnny. It wove itself around all of Edgar’s thoughts, and permeated anything he’d ever imagined. Everything in the fathomable world was saturated with this song, every connection he’d ever made sewn together with these notes, held together with some fragment or another of the melody. To have had something so deeply tied into everything that he was, and not have seen it there until now scared and amazed Edgar.

Johnny tried several times before he formed words that Edgar could hear. 

“What does it sound like?” Johnny whispered.

“I can’t describe-”

“Hum,” Johnny snapped. Edgar jumped at the desperation in his voice. “Please,” Johnny added a moment later.

“I-Isn’t that cheating?”

“Edgar.”

“You told me-”

“Edgar, a long time ago, you sat around every day miserably alone, wondering what the hell you were looking for all day.” Johnny’s voice quivered when he spoke, and as often as Edgar thought he would, he didn’t choke on a single word. “And when you found it, you were desperate for it, and you followed it around until it drove you crazy and finally someone let you in. The damn thing took a hold of you and wouldn’t let you go.”

Edgar felt Johnny’s wrist slide out of his hand, and Johnny moved close to Edgar’s side, nearly sitting in his lap, staring him in the face.

“I’m still the same way,” Johnny continued. “I have been looking for that same thing for longer than you knew what it was.” He closed his fingers around Edgar’s wrist. “You can’t keep it from me. You can’t.”

“But-”

“Then I fucking cheated, Edgar! I don’t care!” His grip on Edgar’s wrist tightened, and Edgar tried to pull away. Johnny yanked his wrist back down against the bed. “Please,” he managed, still trembling.

Edgar rested his free arm on Johnny’s back, and Johnny fell against Edgar’s chest as though he’d just been barely balanced where he sat. Edgar felt him shudder.

“Okay, okay,” Edgar said softly, closing his arms around Johnny. “Just give me a minute, alright? Let me try to get the feel of it.”

Johnny nodded against Edgar’s ribs. Closing his eyes, Edgar tried to focus entirely on the song. Tried to find parts that repeated, something that he could predict. The song was evidently not interested in cooperating, and swirled around him, but never got close enough for him to grab. Things echoed at the back of his head that soothed his breathing, and things happened at the front of the song that tried to stab him. There were layers and elements to this song that Edgar couldn’t hope to replicate by humming. It was sharp and violent but flowing and enchanting at the same time. Edgar thought he could get lost in it for days.

Finally, one underlying tune found him, and he followed it until he was comfortable with where it went, and started to hum along. He felt Johnny take a sharp breath and hold it in. Rather than ruin it for him by asking Johnny if he was alright, Edgar kept humming, trying his best to incorporate the other layers. If Johnny wanted to pass out while hearing his own song, that was fucking okay. Edgar started, almost entirely without thinking about it, ‘playing’ the appropriate notes to the other elements on the song along Johnny’s spine.

He felt the weight on his chest lift, and Johnny sat back up. He put his hands gently over Edgar’s ears and looked his face over like he’d never seen it before, or he wasn’t going to see it again for a long time and needed desperately to remember.

“I would give anything to be in your skin right now.” Johnny’s voice had stabilized, and it seemed his breathing was improving.

“If that wouldn’t involve one of us being severely disfigured, I’d let you.”

Johnny laughed and let himself fall back against Edgar. He let out a long breath and everything normalized. No one was having trouble getting air, and no one was in pain from desperation. Edgar tightened his arms around Johnny and hummed lightly. For the first time, he felt things the way Johnny often described them, not as tactile things through his skin, but as perceptions. Felt that Johnny was remarkably content, if not quite happy.

Made him happy.

“I could probably die happy now,” Johnny said, laughing softly.

Edgar went to make a remark, something witty or sarcastic, perhaps, but did not get the opportunity. Johnny suddenly grabbed onto Edgar’s shirt with such force that he thought Johnny was trying to choke him. Edgar jumped, alarmed, and Johnny let go, only to claw wildly at him, while making noises that sounded something like gasps.

“Nny? What’s wrong? Is it the noodles?”

Johnny didn’t say anything, but his expression reflected absolute terror, and his eyes refused to focus on anything. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. Edgar started to panic, and tried to shake sense into him. Johnny was easily moved, his head snapping back and forth when Edgar shook him. Edgar yelled Johnny’s name, but Johnny neither responded nor seemed to notice. Johnny suddenly arched his back, his eyes went wide, a tiny, strangled noise escaped his throat and he fell back limply against Edgar’s arms.

And as it faded away, Edgar realized that Johnny’s song had had no words.

Never Been Hot Enough.

She’s Got Technicolor Shoes.

Work In Progress.

If Happiness.

And as Edgar sat there screaming at the dead man in his arms, the last tendril of the wordless song slipped from his mind as easily as Johnny had always ducked out of Edgar’s embraces.  Johnny would have been so disappointed to find out that there had been no words, no chorus, no identifying phrase.

Song Without A Name.

 

Editors - An End Has a Start

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