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Even though some part of his trembling body had clocked the heavy darkness that cloaked the icy rain outside his bedroom window, he had gone ahead and sent the message. He felt wholly unworthy of the wires Bren had brought back to him, but he reached for them anyway.

The intro to Dreams hadn’t finished by the time his phone vibrated on the pillow beside him.

Everything ok?

A.J.’s back brushed against the cool surface of his headboard and the vice crushing his chest spun so tight he thought his ribs might crack. Two in the morning. Now, on top of everything else, he’d woken Bren up. Needy asshole, party of one.

He forced air into his starving lungs and focused on the curve of the buttons as he typed.

It’s fine. Sorry. See you in the morning.

Another wave of disgust mingled with the panic that carved fissures up and down his chest when Bren didn’t text back. Was some part of him doing this for attention?

Unable to stay still any longer, he pulled the headphones out of his Discman and let his legs carry him to the piano at the other side of the room. The cable clicked in and his fingers flew across the keys.

The Navigator? No, scales. He could start familiar and branch out. Countless variants, endless repetitions. If he played enough, maybe he could find the notes that would put him right.

***

He didn’t know when he’d switched from scales to Debussy, but he wasn’t about to question it. The stiffness in his fingers had faded away without him noticing, too. His hands slowed as he jiggled the stand with his foot. Sometime back in grade ten, the audio jack had decided that if things weren’t lined up perfectly it needed to crackle.

He sighed. Deux Arabesques would have to remain une until he figured out what the hell was going on with his headphones.

“Hey, Robolad, open up alre—”

The figure crouched on the other side of his window didn’t get to finish before the cry of surprise bubbled up in A.J.’s throat. He managed to turn it into an unflattering squeak as he leapt to his feet. His headphones fell to the floor, still connected to the keyboard and he braced himself for the sound of rushing footsteps. But aside from the ever-present whir of the ceiling fan above his bed, the house was silent.

Shaking with what he could only assume was suppressed laughter, the figure pointed towards the latch, mouthing something he couldn’t make out through the gloom. On the off chance that this was some kind of Bren-shaped vampire, A.J. didn’t invite him in, just slid the window open and stood back.

“You get real focused when you play, like. Anyone ever tell you that?”

A.J. had been prepared to clap a hand over Bren’s mouth, but his words had come out as close to a whisper as he’d ever heard him manage.

“What are you—?”

With his shock subsiding, A.J.’s focus cleared and he got a good look at the boy dripping on the carpet. He was dressed in a windbreaker and jeans but hadn’t given headwear a thought, his hair plastered in a dark cascade across his forehead. He was holding two of the thermoses that Mom had given him back in September, one clenched in each hand.

“You’re soaked.”

Bren shrugged, but A.J. thought he saw a shiver break its way through.

“I’m Irish.”

A.J. smiled. Bren could moan about the rain at least a hundred different ways, but the second anyone else brought it up it was no big deal.

“I know you’re proud of your country's chief export and all, but how about some dry clothes?”

Bren tossed the thermoses onto the bed and when he’d unzipped his windbreaker, he pulled his sweater over his head. “Knew you just wanted a shag.”

A.J. let both the comment and Bren’s admittedly inviting abs lie and pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt before throwing them at his soggy boyfriend. Bren shook his head like a dog and slipped off his pants and—

“Sorry, Robolad. I don’t wanna spoon in soggy jocks,” he said as a wet splat broke the quiet of night.

A.J. slid under the covers and let the cool curve of his pillow leach some of the heat from his face, and Bren slipped in beside him, mercifully clad in moose-spotted pajama bottoms. The thoughts that had driven him out of bed were quiet enough now for him to close his eyes for the first time since he’d woken up.

How did this boy keep giving him these gifts like it was the easiest thing in the world?

“You wanna talk about it?”