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It’s a slow and painful process, bringing Trevor Wilson back into their lives again.
Ray starts with dinner, just him and Trevor and the kids. Even the ghosts are banished to the studio for the night, and Ray lets Trevor’s personal chef come over and cook for them because that’s the best way he knows to ensure Trevor eats, and it goes all right, considering the circumstances… but it’s awkward. Julie smiles politely and shovels gourmet food in her mouth. Carlos turns his shrimp into a modern art piece. Carrie picks at her food and taps her fork against the table and checks her phone when she thinks Ray and Trevor aren’t watching. It’s nothing like how it used to be, when they were all a family. In the kids’ defense, Ray’s not sure any of them really remembers when they were all a family.
And the empty place they set for Rose sits between Ray and Trevor like a blazing beacon. Trevor keeps looking at it.
It’s uncomfortable, to say the least, but when Ray calls Trevor a week and a half later to invite him over again, Trevor agrees.
“I would like you boys to join us,” Ray says the next morning, hands on his hips as he faces his daughter’s ghostly bandmates all huddled up on the living room couch. “If you’re able to behave.”
“I’ll behave if he will,” Luke says, and Alex hits him.
“We’ll be good, Ray!” Reggie promises, and Luke mutters, kiss-ass.
“This is gonna go terribly,” Alex says matter-of-factly, and Ray can’t find it in himself to disagree.
When the hour actually rolls around, Ray gets an incomprehensible text from Trevor full of a lot of extraneous consonants and not enough vowels that he eventually (with Julie’s gracious assistance) translates to read, running late, sorry. He’d be concerned, except that Trevor’s always been bad at arriving places on time and even worse at texting, so nothing really seems out of the ordinary.
When he does finally get there, he’s wearing a dark pair of sunglasses and he looks pale. Ray’s stomach sinks.
“Sorry we’re late,” Trevor says tightly, face impossible to read behind his shades.
“We wouldn’t have been,” Carrie says primly from behind him, “but someone was throwing up five minutes before we were supposed to leave.”
Ray’s heart swoops. “Trevor!”
“I’m fine,” Trevor insists, cutting a glare at his daughter before returning his gaze somewhere off center of Ray’s face. “Shouldn’t have had that afternoon cocktail. Can we come in?”
Ray steps back to let them, resisting every urge inside him to grab Trevor’s arm before he can get too far, to ask him if he’s really okay. He didn’t even know Trevor was drinking again.
A tiny voice in the back of Ray’s mind points out that Trevor doesn’t smell the slightest bit like alcohol when he steps past Ray into the front hall, but Ray squashes it down, shutting the door behind the Wilsons. Sure, Trevor just did an interview last week celebrating his fifth year of sobriety, and he’d told Ray, the first time they spoke after the boys came back, that seeing Julie’s Orpheum performance had done everything to him but drove him to drink, and sure, Ray’s never seen Trevor get so pale when he’s drunk or hungover, just flushed and blotchy with heat. But Trevor’s changed in the last five years. They both have. Ray can’t pretend to know him anymore, not well enough to tell the truth from a deflection. He has no choice but to trust Trevor’s words at face value.
“Thanks so much for inviting us, Mr. Molina,” Carrie says with a polite smile, a little too bubbly to be natural. “I’ve really been looking forward to meeting Julie’s bandmates, finally.”
Ray smiles. “Go on, Carrie, they’re in the studio. Dinner’s in ten minutes, don’t be late.”
“Thanks!” She hurries off, and Ray can’t help the warmth that blooms in his chest. Things have been complicated lately, but it’s starting to seem like Julie and Carrie might be friends again, and that means the world to him.
His happiness fades pretty quickly, though, when he turns back to Trevor and realizes they are now alone. Trevor still hasn’t taken his shades off, so it’s hard to tell, but it doesn’t appear that he’s looking at Ray, and he doesn’t say anything. And Ray doesn’t know what to say.
“Can I get you anything?” he finally manages after too much awkward silence. “A… drink, or?”
“Coffee would be great, if you have it,” Trevor says, flashing a quick, tight smile. “Thanks, Ray.”
“Coming right up,” Ray says, and almost adds more—Are you sure you’re okay? Or I really am sorry or We were always better at talking when Rose was here, weren’t we?—but he closes his mouth around the impulse and heads into the kitchen, grateful for the chance to give his hands something to do.
So, the night gets off to an auspicious start, to say the least.
The kids appear in the dining room five minutes late, but Ray’s so relieved to have a buffer between him and Trevor that he can’t even be mad.
“What’d you make, Ray?” Reggie asks excitedly, making a beeline straight for the table. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s delicious!”
Trevor, already seated directly across from him, makes a sort of choked sound, and Reggie looks up from his knife and fork like he’s only just noticed him. “Oh. Hi, Bobby!”
“We’re having spaghetti, Reggie,” Ray breaks in before something disastrous can happen. “Is that all right, Trev?”
Trevor’s still staring at Reggie, so far as Ray can tell, but his voice is more or less steady when he says, “Yeah, of course. Thanks, Ray.”
Ray looks desperately to his daughter for help. Julie hastily ushers the rest of her friends to the table, says quickly, “Mr. Wilson, you know my bandmates, right? Luke, Alex, and Reggie?”
Luke opens his mouth to say something, but Julie squeezes his arm, hard, and he closes it again. Alex raises a casual peace sign. Reggie hasn’t stopped grinning.
Ray starts doling out scoops of pasta, and Trevor immediately ducks his head and starts cutting his noodles into tiny pieces, avoiding eye contact with all of them but especially the ghosts.
Ray makes eye contact with Julie, who shrugs apologetically, and they all take their seats.
“Carrie was just telling us a super cool story, Dad,” Carlos offers before awkward silence can settle. “Keep going, Carrie.”
She flips her hair over her shoulder and jumps back into a story involving Dirty Candi and some kind of embezzlement scandal, but Ray’s only half-listening. He can’t stop looking at Trevor, who looks pale and drawn and so uncomfortable sitting there picking at his dinner. He can’t stop thinking that this would be so much easier if Rose were here.
“Anything new at the label?” Ray asks Trevor about half an hour later, trying to make conversation now that the kids have run out of stories to tell.
Trevor looks up, but only after Carrie nudges him with her elbow. With those sunglasses still on, Ray can’t read his expression. “Oh. Um. No, I haven’t… haven’t renewed my contract in a few years.” The ghost boys all exchange glances, and Trevor clears his throat. “So. No new music.”
“We’ve got new music,” Reggie pipes up, desperately charming in his awkwardness. “Right, Luke? You and Julie have been writing songs like crazy lately!”
“Well, we’ve basically had to start from scratch,” Luke says flatly, “since Sunset Curve songs are off the table.”
“Luke!” Julie hisses. Alex elbows him hard in the side. Trevor ducks his head, taking a slow breath in through his nose like he’s nauseated. Ray can’t exactly blame him.
“Sooooo,” Reggie tries again, his smile tighter than the death grip he’s giving his fork and knife. “Can we still call you Bobby, or…?”
“Okay,” Alex sighs with a defeated roll of his eyes. “Real smooth, Reg.”
“Bobby’s fine,” Trevor murmurs without looking up, but the sudden embarrassed flush to his cheeks says otherwise. “Whatever you—just…” He swallows hard. “Want you boys to be comfortable.”
Luke breathes a humorless laugh, but a glare from Julie on one side of him and Alex on the other keeps him from saying anything.
“Everyone else knows him as Trevor, though,” Carrie reminds them, voice sickly sweet. “So if your goal here is for people to think you’re, you know. Normal?”
Reggie nods. “Trevor it is, then.”
They fall back into awkward silence, but Ray appreciates the kids trying.
He’s just about ready to chalk the night up as a disaster when Trevor pushes his mostly-full plate away and says, “Mind if I use your bathroom, Ray?”
“Of course,” he says a little too quickly, pointing. “You know where…”
Trevor nods, stands, and goes. The silence that follows his exit is tense enough to turn coal to diamond.
Carrie breaks it by scooting her chair back, phone in hand. “Thanks for dinner, Mr. Molina, but Nick’s here to pick me up, so…”
“Oh, tell him hi,” Julie offers, smiling politely.
“Tell him not to get possessed again,” Luke teases, and Alex elbows him again. “Ow! Stop that!”
Ray sighs. “Of course, Carrie, go ahead. Thank you for joining us, I’ll let your dad know you headed out.”
Carrie tosses them a lazy peace sign and makes her exit. Once she’s gone, Ray lets himself slump down in his chair. No point in keeping up appearances with the guests gone. “Well. At least we tried, eh?”
“Sorry, Dad,” Carlos says, obediently starting to clear the plates.
Julie circles the table to kiss his temple. “I know you really wanted it to work out.”
“We can try again, can’t we?” Reggie tries, bouncing a little in his seat. His plate of spaghetti is untouched, but he does seem to have created a smiley face out of excess sauce. “Have him over again some other time?”
“What’s the point, Reg?” Alex glances nervously at Ray, and then away, lowers his voice like that’ll make it any harder for Ray to hear him from across the table. “Things are always gonna be awkward with him. It’s just been too much time.”
Ray knows he means for them, him and the boys, who’ve been without their fourth bandmate for twenty-five years if you think about it. But it’s true for Ray, too. Five years ago, he lost Trevor to nothing but unfortunate circumstance—he was always there, across town, on the news, at the other end of the high school parking lot, but Ray could never go to him. Not while Rose was alive, and once she was gone… it felt like a betrayal. And that will always hang over them, no matter how many awkward dinners they slog through.
Trevor still hasn’t reappeared when Luke joins Ray in the kitchen, taking up the clean dishes to dry and put away without having to be asked.
“Thank you for trying,” Ray tells him, feeling the need to reassure him he’s not to blame for the night not going well.
“Oh, sure,” Luke says with a shrug. “I could’ve done better… Just weird, you know? I don’t know how to act around him anymore.”
“Me neither.”
They work in silence for a minute or two, and then Luke says, “You know he’s got a migraine, right?”
Ray snaps his head up, and the dishes he was washing clatter into the sink as realization hits him like a ton of bricks. Trevor has a migraine. That’s why Carrie said he was sick earlier, why he was so pale and quiet tonight, why he barely touched his food and wouldn’t take his sunglasses off—not because he was drunk or hungover but because he has a migraine. That’s why tonight was such a fucking disaster, not because it was doomed from the start or because any of them hadn’t been trying hard enough, but because Trevor was literally sick and in pain and oh shit how the fuck did Ray not notice?
“I just mean,” Luke continues awkwardly, alerting Ray to the fact that he never verbally responded to Luke’s question. “It hasn’t been that long for me, since I helped Bobby through them, so… I still know the signs pretty well, I guess.”
“Yes,” Ray says, putting a soapy hand on Luke’s shoulder and trying to keep his voice calm. “Yes, of course, and I—I used to, as well, but. Like you said, it’s… been a while. Thank you, Luke, really, for saying something. Do you mind finishing up here? I should make sure he’s all right.”
Luke nods quickly. “Yeah, mm-hmm, of course.” He takes Ray’s place at the sink as Ray heads for the door, then adds over his shoulder, “Dark and cold, remember? Meds if he can keep them down?”
“Right,” Ray says with a nod, blushing a little because no, he didn’t really remember. God, it’s been so long. Too long.
He almost hesitates, halfway to the bathroom. Maybe he shouldn’t do this. Maybe Trevor won’t want him to, will shout at him to leave him be the second Ray shows his face. Maybe it’ll just be one more way Ray fails him.
But Ray has always been caring to a fault, and there was a time when he loved Trevor Wilson just as much as he loved his wife, and if there’s any chance he could get that feeling back, that comfort and understanding between them that Trevor’s mistakes tore away, then he has to take it. He grabs a washcloth from the linen closet and slowly opens the bathroom door.
“Oh, Trev,” Ray breathes from the doorway.
Trevor doesn’t look up. He’s sitting on his knees on the floor, forehead pressed to the rim of the toilet seat. He finally took his stupid shades off, so Ray can see the tight lines of pain around his squeezed-shut eyes, the green tint to his pale skin. It’s so familiar and yet so distant. Ray aches inside for the time when he would’ve known what Trevor needed long before it got this bad, when Rose was there to help him fix it.
“I’m fine,” Trevor manages, lips barely moving.
Ray flips the bathroom light off, and Trevor gives a whimper of relief that says otherwise.
“You know you could’ve told me,” Ray chides gently as he shuts the door behind him and steps all the way into the bathroom to crouch at Trevor’s side. “How bad is it?”
“Haven’t thrown up yet,” Trevor rasps, giving Ray a shaky thumbs up. At Ray’s utterly unimpressed look, he slumps back down onto the toilet seat with a pained sigh. “It’s bad. I haven’t had one in a while, but… I didn’t want to ruin your night.”
Ray tries not to let that make him feel guilty. “You didn’t ruin anything,” he promises, whether or not that’s true.
“My boys are back,” Trevor murmurs. Ray’s not sure he’s even aware of what he’s saying. “They hate me.”
“Trevor—”
“No, they do. They have every right to.” He slowly pushes himself up off the toilet seat, hands trembling, and squints his eyes open to look at Ray. “You do, too, you know. You have every right to hate me.”
Ray’s heart shatters in his chest, not for the first time. You’d think it wouldn’t be able to come back together again with how many times it’s happened. He stares into Trevor’s pained, sick face, and tries to see the lonely boy who fell into his life twenty-five years ago, stricken by a tragedy too great to even imagine, much less believe.
It’s not as hard as he might’ve thought it’d be. Trevor has always had Bobby in him, even when he seemed so far removed from who he used to be.
“Don’t say that,” Ray whispers, and ignores his aching knees as he stands and runs the washcloth he brought under cold water. “Just close your eyes, Trev.”
He obeys, eyes fluttering shut. Ray lays the wet cloth along the base of Trevor’s skull, and the effect is almost immediate if Trevor’s relieved sigh is anything to go by.
“Do you think you’ll be sick again?” Ray asks, keeping his voice quiet, almost reverent, in the small space. “I have Excedrin, you should take some.”
“You just have migraine medication lying around, Molina?”
Ray tries to answer, but the words fail him. The truth is, no one ever uses it. He’s been buying it for five years just to have it here, replacing a full bottle once it reaches its expiration date. “Yeah, well. In case you needed it someday.”
Trevor shivers, drawing in a slow breath. “I’m okay,” he says, giving a tiny nod at the toilet to show he won’t be needing it for now. “I’d like to get off your bathroom floor, if that’s all right.”
“Of course.” Ray reaches down to help him, but his hand has barely closed around Trevor’s wrist when Trevor jerks back like he’s been burned. Ray’s heart skips a beat. “Trev? What’s wrong, are you all right?”
Trevor hums affirmatively, unconvincingly. “Sorry.” He blinks his eyes open and reaches for Ray, hands still shaking, and this time, he lets Ray pull him up by his arms. It takes him a moment to gain his footing, and he stumbles briefly into Ray’s chest before pulling away.
Ray’s heart hurts where Trevor touched him. Trevor’s eyes are wide, his pupils blown, like maybe he hurts too.
“Come on,” Ray says firmly, desperate to keep them moving before he can think too hard about the situation. “Meds, and then you should go to bed.”
“I’ll call Gerald,” Trevor starts to say, but Ray stops him with a hand on his arm, watching in wonder as another shiver runs through Trevor’s too-thin frame.
“Trev,” Ray pleads. “Stay here. Let me take care of you. Don’t run off back to that mansion when you’re in pain, I wouldn’t be able to stand it.”
Trevor stares back at him, expression hard to read. There was a time when Ray could’ve understood it anyway, could’ve seen through the mask Trevor carefully constructed to hide his emotions. He can only hope that time will come again.
“The kids…” Trevor says, but it’s a half-hearted argument at best.
“Luke will have told them you weren’t well. They’ll leave us be.”
Something flickers in his eyes. “Luke knew?”
Ray allows himself a sad smile. “Trevor, Luke had to tell me. It’s been too long since I had to help you through a migraine. It’s only been a few months for him.”
“Right,” Trevor whispers. He looks like he wants to say more, but instead he just rubs at his forehead and turns away, heading for Ray’s bedroom without needing to be directed. It makes something sharp but not necessarily unpleasant lance through Ray’s heart, but he tries to ignore it.
An hour later, Trevor’s managed to keep down some medicine and a glass of water, plus half a sleeve of plain crackers that Ray insisted on since he didn’t actually eat any of his dinner. The lights are off, the fan softly blowing cold air, and Trevor’s lying under a thin sheet on the bed that Ray and Rose shared for four years before she died. It should feel like a betrayal. Rose’s ghost should be more present in this room than the three actual ghosts living in their studio. Instead, it feels like the easiest, most right thing in the world for Ray to climb in next to him.
“How are you feeling?” he whispers into the darkness, reaching out a hand to gently stroke Trevor’s arm.
He shudders and pulls away, hissing, “Ray. Please… you can’t.”
Ray freezes. “Can’t what?”
Trevor doesn’t answer for so long that Ray worries he’s fallen asleep, but finally he says, “This is so much, so fast, Ray. I’m trying so hard to keep it together, just to be here. You can’t… touch me. Or I’ll fall apart.”
Ray’s heart pounds harder, his fingers tingling as he slowly pulls them away, situating himself so that he’s lying next to Trevor without touching a single inch of him. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For being here at all. I don’t think I could lose you again.”
It’s dark, and cold, and there’s blood rushing in Ray’s ears, but Trevor’s words come out clearer than if he’d shouted them from the rooftops. “You never lost me, Ray. You gave me up.”