Chapter Text
Nate has one simple rule for interacting with Finn Reid online. Simple enough that even he can’t manage to fuck it up.
Just don’t. Not ever. Not one comment, or even so much as a like, no matter how heavy his latest track is, or relatable his latest post is, or how fucking hot he looks in his latest video, whether he’s all soft, soulful-eyed, and angsty; wrapped up and wreathed in cigarette smoke and attitude; practically half-naked and showing off his gym-chiselled body to perfection.
For thirteen years, ever since Finn first set up his Youtube channel, Nate – or, rather, Nate’s sock – has been a ghost on Finn’s socials, seeing everything, hearing everything, but leaving no trace of his existence behind. Insta, Facebook, fucking Twitter back in the day – even though Twitter fucked with Nate’s head and led him to make some extremely questionable life choices before he finally gave in, gave up, and pulled the plug on that particular fucking time sink – he’s followed Finn on all of them, at one time or another.
He doesn’t think of it as creeping (though, strictly speaking, it probably is) because what it isn’t, first and foremost anyhow, is anything to do with Finn as a person. First and foremost, Nate is a fan, just like the hundreds of thousands of other people who follow Finn in the exact same way. And Nate has been a fan for longer than any of them, from all the way back to when he was fourteen and first saw a seventeen-year-old Finn busking.
Nate’s one simple rule has always served to keep him on the right track – he may well have been seriously tempted at times, but he’s never attempted to ingratiate himself, capitalising on that ancient thread of connection they share, stretched out so thin it's almost to the point of transparency, surely, fifteen years on. Never attempted to coattail on Finn’s stratospheric rise in fame and popularity, even though Finn probably would have been happy to extend that helping hand, because he gives every appearance of being the same generous, thoughtful, thoroughly fucking good guy he was when they were both teenagers and it was all the more remarkable because just about everyone else they hung out with was self-absorbed to the point of solipsism. Nate himself very much included, most likely.
He can’t pretend it’s been easy, because he could really, really do with that helping hand, now more than ever. His own music career, such as it is, is floundering, and he’s not much further ahead than he’d been over a decade ago when he first decided to commit himself to it wholeheartedly. Even with the four albums he’s self-produced and -released since then under his belt, he’s still kept afloat, head just about cresting the water, by selling merch to his microscopically small but dedicated fanbase and through the unbelievable kindness of his few friends, who are far better than he deserves and he will doubtless never, ever be able to repay.
On the other hand, it hasn’t been especially hard to keep himself from reaching out, either. Because it would be embarrassing if, as Nate fears is the case, Finn doesn’t remember him (it’s not as if they’re long-lost best mates or anything; they’d barely even classified as acquaintances, at best). Or, worse still, it’d mortifying if he does remember, but thought Nate was a dickhead, way back when (fair assessment, perhaps even bordering generous; in retrospect, Nate was a bit of an annoying prick thirteen through, Jesus, twenty-one, if he was brutally honest).
Worst yet, Nate might get past all that excruciating reminiscent small talk and chit-chat unscathed, finally get to share his music with Finn, and Finn could hate it (horrifyingly probable; judging by the numbers it does, public opinion seems to suggest that’s the popular verdict).
That would be fucking heart-breaking, given how much of himself Nate pours into his tracks.
So, Nate reminds himself of that whenever he finds himself drifting off into daydreams where everything goes exactly, implausibly to plan, Finn becomes his biggest fan, begs to work with him, and the two of them create the next great independent album together or some such ridiculous shit. It’s like a dash of cold water to the soul every time, and over the years, repeated submersion has worked as a sort of aversion therapy, dulling the misguided urge to ‘reconnect’ to such an extent that it scarcely ever crosses his mind anymore.
It works, and it keeps on working right up until ten seconds into the premier of Finn’s latest video, whereupon the camera pans out to reveal that he’s busking in front of a horribly familiar backdrop.
“Looks like Finn’s moved back to Manchester,” Nate’s big brother, Josh, says at the tail end of their latest call.
The offhand remark shocks Nate out of the stupor he’d been lulled into over the past half-hour of Josh monologuing about the trials and tribulations of both his career as an accountant and his newer role as a first-time parent, both equally taxing in their own way, seemingly.
(Nate’s own contribution to what passed as their conversation took less than two minutes right at the start of it: ‘Yes, I’m fine. No, really, I’m fine. I’m still making music. I’m still getting out. I’m still seeing my friends. No need to worry. Pass the message on to Mum and Dad, and Jake, and Dan and Emily so they don’t have to bother calling me themselves.’ It’s the exact script he follows every fortnight, the recitation polished to perfection over seven years of this same routine.)
“Really?” he says, aiming for just as casual a delivery as his brother but, to his own ears, missing by a hairsbreadth. Not that Josh seems to notice.
“Didn’t you watch his video? The one filmed in Piccadilly Gardens?”
Only about twenty times, at a conservative estimate. “Yeah, but he performs all over the place. He was busking in Bristol last month; doesn’t mean that he’s going to live there or anything.”
“He confirmed it himself, on Twitter,” Josh insists.
Fucking Twitter, blindsiding Nate and fucking him over even when he avoids the place like the plague. Fucking him over because he avoids it. Shit, he was in Manchester city centre just that morning and had risked running into Finn at any moment, apparently, unwitting and completely unprepared.
“You should get in touch,” Josh continues – blithely, like that’s the easiest thing in the world. “See if he wants to catch up over a pint or something.”
“Be a bit awkward. We’ve got nothing to catch up about. He was more your friend than mine.”
It’s as much a truth as it is an excuse, but Josh doesn’t seem convinced by it, regardless, brushing Nate off with: “I’ll ask him, then. You can see if any of the others can make it, Chris and Dean and the rest of the lads. Have ourselves a bit of a reunion. Been ages since I’ve been back to the old stomping grounds.”
Nearly two years, by Nate’s count, which keeps him from worrying overmuch about the prospect. Josh talks a good talk, full of plans and promises, but they rarely come to fruition. Doubtless this one will be like all the others, and he’ll have forgotten it by tomorrow and never follow through.
He can, therefore, say, “Sounds great; you do that, man,” with confidence, meaning every word.
After the call ends, after Nate’s thrown something approximating a meal together then thrown it down his throat, and after he’s laid down the guitar for the track he’s currently in the midst of recording, he allows himself a small break and the guilty indulgence of watching Finn’s video for the twenty-first – or thirty-first, or, hell, even the forty-first; he knows better by now than to keep count – time.
It’s a frankly quite haunting rendition of that old busking mainstay, ‘Let it Be’ – an unusually staid choice for Finn, but rendered fresh and surprising again by the arrangement, which is, as ever for him, full of unexpected shifts and flourishes in the timeworn melody. His voice has a hint of gravel on the low notes, perfectly imperfect, soaring into aching clarity on the high, and the guitar is, also as ever, sublime.
It feels surreal to see him sitting in the same spot he did so often when they were younger, playing the same sort of music as he did then, but with more than a decade of age, experience, and alteration etched into his singing and playing, and, god, his body and his face.
If pressed when they were teenagers, the most Nate would ever have admitted to – because he was, it transpired, fucking clueless about even more than he’d ever realised back then – was that Finn was ‘not bad looking’, but nowadays, never mind the music, fuck the obvious talent and charisma the man oozes even through the thoroughly inadequate medium of a tiny phone screen, he makes Nate’s throat run dry just to look at him.
He’s going to have to avoid Piccadilly Gardens like the plague from now on, too, otherwise he’s afraid he might end up doing something very, very stupid.