#tilldec

there’s a single shoebox under the bed, away from everything else, and declan rifles through it like an explorer, or maybe a cartographer, like someone who looks to make sense of things.

he grabs a printed photo on glossy paper, shows it to the edric guy, sitting on the edge of the bed and swinging his legs. there is declan in the photo, or someone who should be declan. there is another man. his eyes are very wrong.

‘who the fuck is this guy?’

edric cocks his head to get a better look. ‘that’s fuckin, tilly.’

the man in the photo stares out. he’s holding onto declan’s arm tightly, leaning on his shoulder, smiling. his smile is just, fucking annoying. no-one actually smiles like that unless they’re making fun of you.

edric must have spotted the nothingness on his face.

‘tilly? tillman? tillman henderson?

‘who?’

this declan goes to watch some of the firefighters games, even though he’s not playing. his team don’t mind his presence in the dugout - they are, apparently, his old friends, so they let him. it’s a game against the crabs, which apparently means something. it’s all too overwhelming to think about, to process, so they just resolve to Not Do That.

the game is fun to follow, to be fair! it’s easy, simple, comforting. it feels normal.

across the field, kennedy loser is Haunted.

declan feels like he should recognise the guy from the photos, because half the people on the field turn to look at him, playing candy crush on the dugout. 

that fuckin’, ghost guy, has his eyes fixed on them, mouth open like a goldfish. the first ball whizzes cleanly over his shoulder, thwaps against the ground. his face twists. declan thinks he might be about to cry. he won’t stop looking.

then a flurry of motion as the crabs catcher grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him back, because he’s just tried to run off home plate towards them, trying to get rid of the catcher furiously, but he’s only a little guy. declan catches what he’s shouting for a moment,

‘where is he!?’ he yells across the expanse of the field. ‘what have you done with him! what the fuck have you done with him!’

he shrugs off his teammates and gets a good few metres towards the dugout before the catcher in her red jersey grabs him by the arm and pulls, hard. 

‘give him back!’ declan hears, before the man strikes out and leaves this body.4

this declan gets a text from kennedy loser, who they had no idea they owned the number of. it doesn’t look like it’s been dialed since they got it.

Can I come round to yours? Tillman wants to talk

yeah okay

i don’t mind

Cool. Is tomorrow after the game okay?

yeah whatevs

See you!

they’re dreading this. they pace around their their room in a fire department that isn’t the firehouse. they don’t attend the game, but they let kennedy in when they arrive. 

‘okay, uh, sorry, i’d love to stay and chat but. tillman’s pretty impatient.’

they’re in declan’s little part of their fire station, like a college dorm - one kitchen, one bedroom, one bathroom, declan awkwardly on the sofa they never would’ve bought. and then there’s that bright light and plume of smoke, the disorienting feeling that lingers for a second too long as reality bends in front of them—and the guy from the chiclawgo game, the guy from the photo, tillman, is standing right in front of them.

he sits down on the other side of the sofa, like he’s been rehearsing this exact set of actions for weeks.

they both try their hardest not to make eye contact.

after an agonizing minute, tillman sobs. 

he’s fixed on declan in a way that makes their skin crawl, the way he looks at them up and down like he’s searching for something he can’t find. declan tries not to meet his eyes.

this, by all accounts, should be his boyfriend. he should feel something about him, grief, maybe—anything. tillman sniffs a little, half hidden tears. declan hates it.

in a bid to kill whatever this is, declan gently places one hand on tillman’s cheek, leans in and kisses him so softly that it might not be anything.

and tillman just sits there, frozen utterly in shock, until he brings both hands to the back of declan’s neck with a fierceness and kisses back hard, hungry, starving. they will notice half an hour later/too late, that tillman’s eyes were screwed tightly shut. it’s messy, cruel, with too much teeth.

tillman melts into him desperately, and in the places where they meet, where tillman’s hand has moved down to the slice of skin between his shirt and the top of his jeans, if he was anyone else, he would be floating. their bodies do not tessellate. this kiss is sharp, and it is only the means to an end.

he breaks away as soon as he opens his eyes, shooting upright, walking over to the kitchen sink to hide the horror on his face that declan can’t help but catch. tillman bends over, like he might throw up.

‘i don’t love you.’ declan says, as if it’ll help.

‘i know. i don’t love you either.’

maybe, in another life, this silence would be shelter. but they are here, and this is no man’s land.

‘why.’ tillman whispers, barely noticeable.

‘what.’

‘why did you fucking come here? why are you here?’

‘do you think this was my fucking decision? do you think this doesn’t suck for me as well? i’m sorry i’m not your fucking boyfriend.’

tillman breathes steady breaths through his teeth. 

‘why did you even come?’

tillman swings around, hisses out, ‘because i thought it’d make me feel better.’

this is a means to an end, after all. this is a transaction.

‘fuck off.’

‘you fuck off. why won’t you just—’ tillman’s chest heaves, a conviction in his voice, ‘stop looking like him! stop being him!’

‘what—wh—’ declan stumbles. ‘seriously?’

‘stop fucking being declan! you’re not!’

‘don’t give me shit because your boyfriend fucking died!’

their words sink like lead, the weight of them. ‘he’s not dead, asshole.’ the room is quiet again, laid thick with silence.

declan doesn’t even fucking like tillman. he doesn’t like those kinds of guys, the repressed assholes, and yeah, he’s well aware that’s hypocrisy. but him? really?

fuck this. he crawls under his (his?) bed to find the battered shoebox hidden away in the back corner, brings it into the other room to tillman, holds it out to him.

‘if you can like, take shit back to wherever you are, like, have this. i was going to chuck it anyway.’

tillman opens the lid of the box. he slams it shut.

‘fuck you.’

‘fuck you too.’

tillman sobs again, voice choked. ‘fuck you. fuck off. i hate you.’ and he says it so solemnly, that declan almost believes it, that declan almost misses the ways that tillman’s eyes linger on his face. he’s searching, that he knows, searching for the missing piece that will bring his lover back, whole.

‘i’m going.’

‘go, then.’

‘okay.’

and then he’s gone in a flicker of light, and kennedy loser is leaning against the counter, panting from exertion, eyes wide.