Chapter Text
With his gaze fixed on the wood grain bar top that he knows all too well, a half empty beer in hand, he closes his eyes and feels the long-awaited buzz settling in.
He's only a few beers deep and already forgetting today, this morning's arguments with Marnie, the shame of being an inadequate caretaker to his goddaughter, the bullshit shift at JojaMart, the arguments with Morris, how he even got to the saloon to begin with.
Finally achieving a level of 'numb' close to what he intends to reach tonight, he's not concerned with how he'll get home, either.
It's one of those days for Shane and he's not drinking to cope with this 'shit situation' or his 'shit job' or this 'godforsaken town' and all of the people in it. Tonight, he's drinking to forget.
Fuck...she's gotten to me way too much. He thinks to himself, staring into the near empty glass in his hand and wondering how he wound up heartbroken in a place like Stardew Valley.
"Reilly!" Emily, the blue haired bartender greets cheerfully from behind the counter.
"Hey, Em!"
As if taking up space in his mind wasn't enough, a certain farmer he's been avoiding this last week seems to have arrived at the saloon.
Shit. He thinks to himself, not having expected her to come by the saloon today. Not expecting her to catch him drinking like this.
Shane avoids looking her way. He's not sure if it's due to the pain in his chest, the ache in his head from the day - no, week - that he's had, or the shame of her seeing him this way again. Probably all of them.
It was only a matter of time anyways.
"What's up, Sebastian?" Shane hears Emily say now.
Sebastian? Having not heard the door open following Reilly's arrival, he can't help but turn in question, seeking the unpalatable answer that he suspects.
His head turns back toward his drink, quickly, the image of Sebastian's arm around Reilly's shoulder as her and Emily catch up is already burning itself a place in the forefront of his mind.
God fucking-
Shane gulps the rest of the beer in his glass, accidentally catching eyes with Reilly as he places it back down. She averts her eyes quickly before clearing her throat then shrugging out from beneath Sebastian's arm. The farmer and the punk head toward another part of the saloon.
"Emily, another beer" He requests, matter of factly, now having yet another thing to try and forget about tonight.
Nobody knew about he and Reilly, and he can't have people finding out now over of a bit of jealousy.
Sebastian? Of all guys?
Emily places the beer in front of him, taking the newly emptied glass away, along with the other 3 empty glasses she hadn't gotten around to clearing from in front of him yet.
I mean, she was with you, 'of all guys'. He silently speaks to himself.
"You doin' okay today, Shane?" Emily asks.
He's never quite considered Emily a friend, because he doesn't consider anyone a friend, but she's probably the closest thing to it. Her and Sam. Only reason he and Sam aren't what he'd call friends is probably because Sam is best friends with 'asshole Sebastian'. That and because he wouldn't put anyone through being friends with him.
Anyways, Emily always makes sure Shane is okay, even if she knows he'll lie about how he's doing and won't go into details.
"I'm fine" he answers her, finally, after thinking over how obvious he does or doesn't look from the outside.
Did she ask because she always asks or did she ask because she can actually tell I'm miserable?
"We can talk about it if you want.." she offers.
So she can tell. Like all the other feelings he's unsure of, he's not sure if he's comforted by the fact she can sense something is wrong and that he doesn't go completely unnoticed, or if he's more ashamed of the mess he clearly is, inside AND outside.
Can't talk to her about it. He can't talk to anyone about it as far as he's concerned.
"Is it about Reilly?" Emily asks in a whisper, catching Shane's attention, "I know you guys were close and-"
"Nope." He stops her from continuing that sentence.
'I know you guys were close and now she hates you'. He finishes it himself.
That wouldn't be correct though. Reilly doesn't hate Shane and he knows that. She wasn't even the one to push him away, either, actually he pushed her away.
"Sorry! I..." Emily searches for the right words, looking at him pitifully as she wipes the counter in front of him. She takes a deep breath.
"Look, Shane..."
He does look up at her, peering over the beer he's drinking.
"I know you must have felt something for her because you don't like anyone and you definitely more than tolerated her.."
He rolls his eyes and places his elbows on the bar top, fingers running through his hair. Shane lacks the energy tonight to deny or argue or even tell her to fuck off.
"I mean, your aura used to be sooo blue.. then the two of you started being more.. friendly.. and it was pretty pink! But now it's like all... clouded.." She rambles her usual aura nonsense that he doesn't understand or believe in the slightest.
Emily tops of the beer in his hand from the pitcher she's holding.
"K, whatever" Shane sighs out, "what's your point" he asks, almost not sounding like a question though as he has zero investment in the color of his aura of all things.
Emily looks past him momentarily at what he assumes is Reilly and 'punk-fuck' flirting it up by the pool table.
"I don't know what happened but... whatever it was, I'm sorry it did" she says, placing a gentle hand on his forearm. Shane squints his eyes at the touch.
He's sober enough to recognize that it's a nice gesture but not sober enough to know how to react to it.
If he were 21 and in the city again he'd probably have taken it as a queue to lighten up, get her number, and maybe even take her home.
But he isn't that Shane anymore.
If he was 24 and had just moved to Pelican Town, drunk off his ass and angry, he'd probably have brushed her arm away and told her off.
He's not sure if he's not that Shane anymore or if he's just given up too much to be that Shane.
Now he's 26, two years into life in the valley (again), raising a now 5 year old and still clueless about it, still drinking, still angry, and now fucking confused to top it all off.
You'd think after all this time I'd at least learn how to deal with it. He thinks to himself, then realizing that this is how he deals with it. He puts up with the struggle, pushes people away to avoid getting hurt, drinks to numb it all away, sleep and repeat.
"Whiskey. On the rocks." he says confidently, prematurely drowning out any disappointment he gets out of Emily or Marnie or Lewis or anyone else who thinks they have a place to think anything of it.
It's not the same to be an alcoholic as it is to choose to drink... Alcoholics can't help their dependency, I'm just choosing to drink.
Shane reasons with himself in just the way intoxicated Shane would. The way sober Shane will curse him for tomorrow.
Stealing a quick glance over his shoulder and contemplating leaving soon to finish his night of binging elsewhere, he suppresses the thought that Reilly would regret anything that ever happened between them if she saw him drinking himself back into his abyss again.
She regrets it all anyways. It doesn't make a difference. He thinks as he take his first gulp of the whiskey Emily brought him, deciding to stay.
The liquid burns on the way down his throat and he realizes he's missed that feeling. He's drank nothing but beer for months now. He swallows the remainder in just the second gulp, immediately ordering another one.
Jesus, that's fucking good. When was the last time I had whisk-
Then he remembers. He remembers the last time he drank whiskey. It was with her.
He remembers every time he drank whiskey with her, actually. That first night at the lake dock when they drunkenly went home together after he sheepishly spieled his feeling about his life to her.
When she confronted him at the bar a couple weeks later about avoiding her ever since, he bought her a drink to start over and apologize.
Then as they drank it out of a flask together after the jelly fish festival she dragged him out to, telling him he owed it to her.
That night after the harvest festival when he and Marnie didn't beat Pierre, again. She joined him at the dock and kept him company as they drank to their losses. He snuck her into his place so they wouldn't have to trek down to her farmhouse drunk at 2am, keeping quiet so Marnie and Jas wouldn't hear them in his bedroom.
The time he asked if he could stay at her place overnight so Marnie wouldn't smell the whiskey on him when he came home.
When she caught him drinking from a flask at JojaMart behind stacks of unstocked boxes and she begged him to quit drinking so much, and he listened.
And it wasn't easy quitting - well, "quitting". He cut cold turkey for the first few days and then decided that was going a little too hard and allowed himself to drink beer but not hard liquor.
Then, as they started spending a little more time together, it became harder for him to sneak in drinks around her, so he truly stopped, at least for a week or two before he eventually began avoiding her whenever he needed a drink.
It was like, no matter how much more he wanted to be with her than to be drinking alone in secret, he still chose to drink. Somehow, he thought he could have the best of both if he could just keep his secret long enough until he was ready to really be sober.
Now look where that got me. He grabs the third glass Emily has sat in front of him and sips slower as he begins to curse himself for falling right back into old patterns.
But then a hand on his shoulder breaks his train of thought.
He turns toward the weight on his left shoulder to see Gus, the more matured restaurant owner. He knows what that means, as long as it's been since it's happened to him.
"Probably time to call it a night, Shane." Gus says sadly.
Once upon a time, back in the city, something like that would have set Shane off just enough to likely start a fight with whoever the lucky bartender was that night. But ever since moving here he hasn't had that in him, he could never do that to Gus just for looking out for him.
That didn't stop him from getting upset about it, though.
"Yeah" Shane nods to Gus, pulling cash from his wallet and placing it in front of Emily, who smiles at him sorrowfully.
Jesus, fuck. He thinks as he stands from the bar, but doesn't show it. He doesn't have the tolerance he did months ago, feeling slightly wobbly and having to steady himself before he leaves.
One last hesitant glance to the left informs him that the pool table is empty, which only means one thing; while he was drowning out the night with whiskey, Sebastian was taking her home.
Fucking piece of shit.. he thinks as he steps carefully through the doorway of the saloon, knowing what it all means.
I shouldn't be so surprised. We were just hooking up, of course she's moved on already.
Were they just hooking up though? The small optimistic part of Shane's brain knows that might not be true, but the majority part is convinced that he was just convenient for her. That there's no way she would want anything serious to do with someone like him, the 'town drunk'.
Why didn't she just hookup with Sebastian from the get go? Why waste time on me?
His heart aches just thinking about her being with someone else.
Perfectly timed, as if he was imagining it, the distinct smell of cigarettes breezes by him from around the corner of the saloon as he slowly begins making his way home.
That couldn't be... He looks around the corner to see Sebastian leaned against the wall, a cigarette in between his fingers. No Reilly.
So, if she's not with him..
He instantly feels guilty for assuming she'd move onto the next guy so quickly, let alone take him home on the first date. Then feels even guiltier for binge drinking so heavily for nothing. Well, not for nothing, but a large part of it was to numb the idea that she wasn't his anymore.
She was never mine. Shane reminds himself, inhaling deep and then exhaling, focusing his barely stable steps to lead him in the direction of his house.
As he walks, he thinks of how their relationship had grown since they first met. No matter how hard he pushed her away, she just kept showing up. It's almost like she liked the challenge.
His mind wanders back to one night in particular. She'd come up to him at the bar again, he hadn't had enough drinks to be mentally prepared for social interaction so he tried to push her away then too.
"Having a bad day?" She asked, to which he replied "it's complicated."
He was expecting her to stop coming around him if he kept up his lack of communication skills, but instead she said "I like complicated", and took the seat next to him.
At the time, he hadn't seen it this way but now that he knows her better, he wonders if she was actually flirting with him way back then. If his nerves weren't in the way, he might have noticed it and maybe things would have gone differently.
Differently like the time at the lake dock. Sure, he spilled a bit too much about his dark and depressing thoughts, but he eventually made up for it as the night went on. He got more comfortable and more buzzed and started unintentionally hitting on her. One thing led to another and next thing he knew he was waking up beside her.
He wonders if he had stayed until the morning, would it have turned out differently then, too?
But if he stayed, would she have talked to him again after? She wouldn't have had a reason to confront him at the saloon about it and he would have probably never taken a chance and bought her a drink. Maybe if it hadn't gone exactly how it did, none of it would have happened at all.
Probably would have been better that way.
That's not truly Shane speaking though. He doesn't have any regrets about Reilly. That's his insecurity speaking, assuming her regrets about him.
What if I'd never gone to the lake dock that night?
He was so close to going straight home, but at the last second decided against it. A decision that summed up to a lot more than he ever thought it would have.
Shane, coming close to his house now, ponders the what ifs. He decides if he hadn't made that one decision to go to the lake dock that night, he could have possibly never done anything more than shrug her off and push her away. She may have never attempted to talk to him again.
Reilly means too much to him now for him to be at all okay with that storyline, even if things turned out the way they did, for once he doesn't regret all of the decisions he has made. For once, taking a chance turned out pretty alright.
She's a chance worth taking.
Maybe it's the liquor talking, Shane knows that. But maybe it's more than that. Maybe, in some fucked up way, his drinking which led him to that lake dock, gave him the courage to flirt with her, gave him the reason to buy her a drink, and led to them growing so close, is something to be grateful for.
It's fucked up, and it almost doesn't make any sense. But as his buzz settles in more and more, and he comes just steps from his doorway, Shane decides that he needs to take another chance.
He turns from the door of his house, his unsteady feet headed straight to her. He doesn't allow himself to question what happens next. He doesn't prepare anything to say. In fact, he barely makes it there, stumbling over rocks and uneven terrain and nearly falling in her pond.
Finally, he takes the few steps up her porch to the door. His heart beating out of his chest and his head slightly spinning from intoxication, he knocks.
It feels like the longest minute of his life, he turns back around and steps back off the porch, doubt creeping up on him.
Then, stopping himself, he closes his eyes and inhales a deep breath.
Take a fucking chance.
"Shane?"