Chapter Text
Rain was born to play the bass. It feels right in his hands, strapped to his body. He likes the way the heavy, wire-wound strings feel pressed under his fingers.
Dewdrop was born to play the bass too, Rain is told. He was a bassist, once. But he’s the band’s lead guitarist now.
Rain knows how to play the guitar. It’s like a bass, he supposes, but smaller in every way. The lighter strings feel razor sharp. Every time he practices playing it, as part of his own musical education, mandated by the clergy, he has to override his muscle memory to adjust to the narrow frets.
When they start practicing as a band, set up together with all their equipment in one of the large chapels, Rain is surprised how natural Dew sounds. He’s seen Dew practicing alone, heard him, muffled, through the soundproofed doors of various practice rooms in the crypt. He spends long spans of time there, several hours all in a row, running through drills and solos.
The more Rain listens, though, the more he hears small things.
The other ghouls, the older ones, mostly, who have known Dew longer, Aether and Mountain, comment that he’s “stressed.” Rain would be stressed too, if he had to learn a new instrument like that, one he wasn’t summoned to play, so he lets this explain those small things at first. As time goes on, he’s less convinced that it makes sense.
Dew makes mistakes while playing. They all do. This early on in the rehearsal process, the upcoming tour so far in the future, it’s expected. They fumble, pause, and join back in as soon as they can. Most of the time, the song doesn’t stop.
Dew will sometimes just stop playing. Without making a mistake he just fades out, no longer present. Usually he jumps back in later as if nothing happened.
On occasion, he has repeated a single part in a loop, some short one-measure phrase, which usually manages to derail the whole band. After Copia stops them all, Dew doesn’t seem to have an explanation for what happened, so they just start back up again at the top of the verse or wherever they left off.
During one practice, Dew helps Rain through a line he’s been stumbling over repeatedly. Dew knows the bass parts for all the old songs, of course, so he offers to run through the part with him after practice, which eventually evolves into sitting in on some of his individual practice sessions to give tips and pointers.
It’s the most one-on-one time Rain has ever spent with Dew. It’s the most time he’s spent with Dew ever, actually, outside of band practice, since Dew seems to generally spend his free time alone. As Rain gets to know him, he begins to notice that Dew’s odd habits while playing — the sudden stopping, the occasional repetition — extend to his speech as well.
It’s eerie how similar the pattern is. Sometimes, while talking, Dew will just stop. He will end a phrase somewhere in the middle, and not acknowledge that he did that. Then he picks up again after a pause, either restarting what he was saying, or just changing the topic completely, as if that’s completely normal.
He does the repeating thing too, every once in a while. During one of their practice sessions, Dew is explaining Rain through an ambiguous run of notes.
“I did it like this.” he shows a hand position on the fretboard of one of the clergy’s collection of basses, balanced in his lap.
Rain copies the gesture, looking between his hand and Dew’s.
“First finger here,” Dew instructs, tapping his finger against the string.
“Second finger here,” he continues.
“Second finger here,” he continues.
“Second finger here,” he continues.
Every time he repeats it, he taps his finger on the string, and the practice amp by his feet emits a low thump. Rain stops looking between their hands and looks up at Dew. His face is entirely neutral.
“And fourth finger here. Then it’s easier to reach back to the third fret with your second finger.”
“I don’t think I have enough fingers. Or frets.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
Rain thinks maybe Dew is just an odd guy, has some weird quirks, and this is how he behaves. But one day at practice Aether ribs him, very gently, for being “so spaced out lately,” which makes it seem like this, or at least some of this, is new for him.
And Rain thinks, maybe, he isn’t sure, but maybe it’s getting worse over time. It’s hard to tell, since they’ve grown so much closer over time as well, and are spending more time together. So maybe it’s a kind of statistical error. But Rain feels like it’s happening more often.
He notices something new, too, or at least something that only recently became prominent. Dew will change the subject to something unrelated. It’s like when he stops talking in that he doesn’t really acknowledge it or seem to realize it’s strange at all. The naturalness in which he does this makes Rain question his own social awareness. Or maybe it’s his knowledge of the topics; maybe they actually are related somehow and he just doesn’t see the connection that Dew does.
They’re lounging on Dew’s bed one afternoon, listening to music Rain has never heard before but Dew insists is foundational to their genre. He knows of the band, but has never heard this particular song.
Dew provides his commentary, pointing out the elements he finds salient.
“And listen to the chord right... here. Like seeing a crow on a Friday.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Really? Hold on, let me play that part again.” Dew pats his hand on the bed blindly, searching for his phone.
“No, I mean, what do crows have to do with it? Or Fridays?”
“Oh.” His hand stills. “Well, it’s just what the shape of the notes sounds like. You don’t hear it? The F and the fifth?”
“No?”
“Today is Thursday,” Dew observes.
“Sometimes I think your mind is just operating on another level.”
Dew hums. “I guess everyone else needs to catch up.”
Dew rolls over on top of him, pressing their torsos together. Dew is wiry, narrow but sort of dense, a little heavier than he looks. Still, the pressure is comfortable, just right. He can feel Dew’s chest expanding and contracting with each breath.
Rain cranes his neck up to kiss him, but his face just barely out of reach. Rain’s lips brush against Dew’s and drift away again. For a moment, Dew is frozen, not withdrawn but completely absent. His body is relaxed, his breathing even, but he doesn’t respond.
The strange moment is suspended in time, infinitely long, before Dew dips his head down to press their lips together completely.