Chapter Text
It’s a random Thursday when Rose calls Shane and asks if he’ll come to a metal show with her that night. Normally, Shane would respond with abject aversion to the prospect of an event involving loud, raucous music and loud, raucous people. But in this instance, a sense of chivalric duty overtakes him instead. He can’t let Rose go to the show alone, undefended from hordes of moshing audience members and guys who will surely harass her for her number. She needs an escort. Wait – not that kind of escort… A bodyguard. Yes, exactly. A bodyguard.
So it’s with no small amount of noble solemnity that he tells her, chest puffed out just a tiny bit, “Sure, Rose. I’ll go with you. You can count on me.”
Once they’re through the venue doors and wended their way through bathroom and merch lines, the opening band has already taken the stage. It’s all screeching guitars and banshee screams, as far as Shane’s concerned. But when Rose takes a break from hopping in place and waving her arms in the air to yell in his ear, “Isn’t this great?!” he musters a smile and a “Yeah, great.” He twists his earplugs in a bit tighter, doing his best to be surreptitious about it.
While the headlining band sets up in the break, Rose leans into his side and chatters away about her recent promotion at work. Shane nods along, his smile genuine for the first time of the night. Not for the first time, he thinks how grateful he is for keeping Rose in his life even after their breakup. It’s been years now since they were high school sweethearts, but it’s mostly thanks to her encouragement that Shane has started to seriously consider trying to date men. He still isn’t quite ready, but the idea is less paralyzing than it used to be. Surely that must count for something… right?
A blast of electric guitars from the stage, and Rose leaps into the air with a loud whoop of excitement. As the headlining band tears into their set, the show progresses much as Shane expected. He stands sentry behind Rose, eyeing the undulating crowd on either side of them while Rose hoots, hollers, and yells a whole lot of appalling lyrics about blood, guts, and depression.
Despite Shane’s best attempt to broadcast an air of intimidation, an extremely tall guy to their left leans over to say something to Rose about the song currently assaulting Shane’s aural pathways, to which she excitedly responds.
Then, something happens Shane did not expect. Rose asks the hulking dude to their left: “Oh my god, will you help me crowd surf?”
“What?! Rose – it’s not safe!” Shane squawks in protest.
She just casually slaps his chest, leaning up to yell in his ear, “I’ll be back before you know it! Oh, and hold onto my phone for me so I don’t lose it?” She slips her phone into his pocket before he knows what’s happening and then, before he can manage another word of protest, Rose is summarily hoisted into the air and over the heads of the people standing in front of them. She’s promptly swept away on a sea of hands with nothing but a loud whoop of glee in her wake.
Shane is actually frozen in shock. What the hell does he do now? He can’t blend into this crowd. Everyone around him seems to be having some kind of rapturous religious experience – either that or an epileptic emergency, with the frantic way people are banging their heads and throwing their bodies around. Who the hell does this for fun? This isn’t normal – this is unsafe, that’s what it is. Borderline psychotic. Oh god, what is he supposed to do with his arms?
His internal meltdown grows like a black hole, taking his situational awareness with it. The wailing guitars break into double time, and a body suddenly plows into him from the right, nearly knocking Shane off his feet.
Nearly.
He nearly lands in an ungraceful heap of mortification and potential injury beneath trampling feet. Except, at the last second, he’s saved by a swift, strong hand at his elbow. The hand catches him, stops his fall, and then smoothly helps him back to his feet.
Shane’s head spins. Ears ringing, earplugs knocked out, it takes a moment for him to regain his footing. When he does—when he sees the person attached to this miraculous hand—his brain starts spiraling all over again, though for a wholly different reason.
He has no idea where this guy materialized from. Shane definitely would have noticed him. Around Shane’s height; blonde curls in a charming mess. And – oh, huge chest glistening with sweat and a single gold chain. Huge, bare chest… Why is he shirtless? What is happening?
Shane’s mouth feels like sandpaper, his body already miles ahead of his brain as his heart hammers in his chest with equal parts alarm and exhilaration. He manages to drag his gaze up from the frankly insane taper of this guy’s waist (why why why is he shirtless?), only to find his eyes even more perilous. Blue like the sky of Shane’s most beloved childhood memories—no, green like the ocean at high tide…
It all happens so quickly, in a single second that stretches on for miles. Long enough that Shane sees it in slow-motion, the way the guy’s eyes widen a little when Shane looks up to meet his gaze. The way something in his cocky expression shifts, his mouth parting around some whispered word, only half-spoken. It looks almost like “freckles,” but Shane is immediately too distracted by the distressing curves of this guy’s upper lip to dwell on it.
“You okay?” the guy asks, and only then, as his hand withdraws, does Shane realize the guy had kept a hold on his elbow this whole time.
“Oh – uh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” Mouth full of cotton, throat drier than Arrakis after Shane’s fifth Dune rewatch, the simple act of speaking has never been harder in his life. “Thanks.”
The guy nods easily, as if it’s no big deal. “No problem.” Oh—Oh, there’s an accent. Shane can’t quite identify it, nor can he decipher the odd little twirl his brain does at the sound.
“Is your first time at a metal show?” the guy asks, his smile somewhere between cocky and something softer. Shane doesn’t pick up anything mocking in his tone, and he doubts he could really get away with lying anyway…
Shane nods, answers a barely audible “Yeah” over the music. Mesmerized by those blue-green-hazel eyes again, he asks automatically, “You?” Only after it’s out of his mouth does he realize how very obvious the answer is. This guy looks like he’s never been more relaxed in his life, shirtless and distressingly beautiful in this crowd-turned-mosh-pit.
The guy’s smile widens in amusement. “Ah, no.”
“Really? So you actually like this music? I’m only here because a friend dragged me along.”
The guy makes a little show of looking around. “Oh? Where is friend?”
Shane doesn’t want to complain about his abandonment to a stranger, so he settles on a simple, “Crowd surfing.”
“Nice. I was dragged to my first show, too. It grows on you.”
Right on cue, Shane winces as the singer on stage lets out a particularly larynx-shredding scream. “Somehow I doubt that.”
The pit widens a few feet in response to the scream, and a burly guy suddenly comes careening in Shane’s direction. Before Shane can even think to dodge, Mr. Accent’s arm comes up and deflects the oncoming body, flinging him harmlessly back into the center of the pit.
“Jesus,” Shane breathes, after he’s processed his second rescue. “This is insane.”
The guy shrugs, unaffected. “You get used to it. Just need to stay aware.” A beat, as the guy takes a second to look Shane up and down, a thoughtful look on his face. Shane valiantly tries to fight back a blush, suddenly self-conscious of his nondescript jeans and white t-shirt.
Sneaking a look down the other guy’s body to distract himself, he didn’t know it was physically possible for someone to look so good in black track pants and nothing else. Maybe Shane did fall and take a blow to the head. Maybe he’s imagining this whole thing…
“Tell you what,” the guy says. “I stay until your friend gets back. Just because is your first show. Wouldn’t want you to have a bad time.”
Shane feels his blush intensify. The guy’s tone brooks very little argument, and the meaning between the lines is clear. He thinks Shane needs protection.
It’s a little humiliating, of course. Shane came here expecting to be the one doing the defending, but it’s barely ten minutes into the headliner’s set and Shane’s almost been body slammed twice. He can face reality: he didn’t know what he was getting into. He came here woefully unprepared. And if Mr. Accent with his cherubic curls and crazy defined pecs and mystical seafoam eyes is offering to be his bodyguard….
Well.
He’s just being practical, right?
“Okay,” Shane manages, his tongue clumsier than ever. He clears his throat, doing his best to make his voice less high-pitched. “I mean, sure. That’s fine, I guess.”
The guy smiles, with teeth this time. The force of it isn’t unlike getting body slammed. “Good.”
And just like that, the guy steps a little closer, brushing a hand across Shane’s lower back until they’re standing side-by-side facing the stage, shoulders grazing.
“You don’t know their songs?” he asks.
Shane shakes his head. “I only heard about the concert this afternoon. I didn’t have the chance to prepare.” At that, the guy gives him a long look, an amused curve to his lips, his eyes twinkling. “What?” Shane asks, smiling despite himself.
“Nothing. Is cute, is all.”
Shit. Shit. Shane’s definitely blushing again.
“You always study before concerts?”
Shane’s on his guard again, half expecting to be made fun of. But that’s not the feeling he gets from the guy’s tone. Not at all.
“I… um, I just like being prepared, that’s all. And to be honest…”
Shane cuts himself off, not wanting to be rude. This guy clearly came to see this band of his own accord, after all.
Seemingly reading his mind, the guy laughs and finishes for him: “You wouldn’t have come if you heard their music first?”
Shane blanches, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just not really my scene.” He gives a self-deprecating shrug, gesturing to himself and then vaguely to the crowd around them. “Obviously.”
“What’s obvious? You look perfect here.”
Shane double-takes, thrown by the carefree way this guy makes comments that keep zapping all the air from Shane’s lungs. Shane knows he isn’t always the best with social cues, but… this is definitely flirting.
….. Right?
Honestly, he’s struggling to keep up with everything happening to and around him right now. He’s in sensory overload hell, talking to one of the most attractive people he’s ever laid eyes on, who seems—somehow, for some reason—interested in him.
Shane tries not to dwell on the fact that talking to men in a, er, non-friendship way is also entirely new terrain. He just navigates the conversation one line at a time, mollified little by little as the guy keeps shooting him crooked smiles and lingering looks, despite how horrifically awkward Shane feels.
But as one terrible song leads into the next, Shane feels his over-taxed brain gradually slowing down; the set of his shoulders infinitesimally relaxing. In a rare occurrence, talking with this guy isn’t the stressful experience he usually expects when interacting with strangers. Somehow, despite the guy’s visible abs and the breezy confidence about him, it’s easy. It’s… nice. When a new song starts up, the guy leans closer to inform Shane, “Fuck yes, this is from their first album. For years they never play this!”
There’s something pure and infectious about the excitement in his voice, how he whoops and starts bobbing his head, bouncing on his feet. By the time the second chorus hits, Shane is shocked to discover his own head nodding along to the drum line.
Maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t hate this band entirely.
As the band tear into the bridge, the mosh pit off to their right abruptly explodes. Though they’re far enough away for the moment not to get swept up in it, the guy hurriedly tells him, “Be right back.”
Shane watches as the guy makes it just in time to grab a slim woman by the shoulders, just before she would have been knocked to the floor in the crush of bodies. He makes space for her a safe distance away from the pit, pats her shoulder once as she thanks him, then makes his way through the crowd straight back to Shane.
Shane tries not to look as in awe as he feels. Surely it’s stupid to feel… proud? He just met this guy. It’s not like they’re… together or anything. Shane doesn’t even know his name. Wait, how does he not know his name?
Before Shane can open his mouth to get a single word out, he’s robbed of speech entirely when the guy nonchalantly comes to stand just behind him this time, hands resting lightly on Shane’s hips.
“Is okay?” the guy asks, casual as could be.
Shane feels like he might combust. He spots a few people looking at them – eyes that followed the guy back from his rescue mission. He sees the looks cast their way: admiring, envious. And Shane shocks even himself when he replies, remarkably even, “Yeah, it’s good.”
“Good,” the guy repeats, smile audible in his voice. He gives Shane a light squeeze as a new song starts up, bassline rollicking out from the speakers. Mere inches from Shane’s ear, the guy tells him, “Is my favorite, this song.” Another gentle squeeze to Shane’s hip as he adds, “Maybe this whole night.”
Shane can hardly believe what’s happening. He’s in the middle of the loudest, most raucous crowd he’s ever witnessed; he’s talking to and being touched by someone who was a stranger all of an hour ago. Any other day, this would be his worst nightmare.
Tonight, it feels like a dream so perfect, not even his own hyperactive mind could concoct something like this. He feels blissfully, blessedly outside his body – his usual anxieties and self-doubt drifting farther away by the second. Somehow, it all comes naturally, as he leans back ever so slightly into the guy’s chest and replies, “Yeah, I’m having a much better time than I expected.”
“Told you – it grows on you.”
Shane chuckles, not even bothering to deny it. “I guess.” Though if he ever actually listens to this band again after tonight, it won’t be for the lyrics or the music itself. It’ll be to relive the way he feels right now – swaying to the beat with this guy’s warm hands guiding him so he doesn’t have to overthink a thing. How he’s hardly even worried about the crowd anymore, after the guy briefly lifts a hand to deflect another wayward mosher from hitting Shane, before he puts that hand right back on Shane’s waist.
Shane would never have thought it possible to dance to music like this. But he doesn’t mind being proven wrong, as the next song slows the tempo and then the two of them are swaying together, Shane’s own hands coming to cover the guy’s hands on his hips before he can talk himself out of it, fingers knitting together in a messy, perfect tangle.
The music softens, a hush moving through the crowd. Shane feels the warm body at his back shift slightly closer, a shiver blooming through him as the guy’s mouth brushes feather-soft, barely there against Shane’s ear. And the guy asks, quiet and a touch timid for the first time of the night:
“Can I kiss you?”
Shane’s brain stutters out completely, an engine taxed to its limit. And yet something in his chest responds immediately, instinctively. Yes. Yes, please. I might die if you don’t. He feels himself about to move, to turn straight into the guy’s arms and seek the kiss he suddenly needs like air. But his body responds so slowly, overwhelmed ten times over. And in that extra moment of delay…
Rose barrels into him, her desperate hug dislodging Shane from the guy’s hands. “Oh my god, I thought I’d never find you again! I’m so, so sorry, Shane, this crowd is so much bigger than I realized…”
Disoriented, it takes Shane a good five seconds to recover enough to manage a response. “It’s fine, Rose. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
“No, it’s not fine!” she insists, hugging him tighter and pressing herself to his chest. She leans up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek for good measure. “I didn’t mean to abandon you alone for so long! And I didn’t even have my phone to text you. I’m so so so sorry.”
Somewhat frantically, Shane looks up to find the guy. The guy he’d just been pressed up against, ready to kiss only seconds ago. There’s several feet of distance between them now, and Shane looks at his face just in time to see his composure wholly disturbed, displaced by a wash of confusion, followed by something that looks almost like embarrassment. It looks so out of place on his face.
Shane’s mouth is already half open to explain, a hand partly outstretched to stop him moving any farther away. But he merely blinks and suddenly the guy is gone, swallowed up completely by the crowd. Like he was never really there at all.
Rose follows his gaze. “Shane? Are you okay?” She looks up at him in concern, trying to parse the suddenly bereft expression on her best friend’s face. “Did you know that guy?”
Shane swallows, focusing on one deep breath after another. He wills his eyes to stop prickling, his chest to stop crushing in against his heart. This is insane, stop being so foolish, how could you be so slow, so stupid as to let this happen…
He clears his throat, gives himself a hard shake. He forces a smile as he looks back at Rose, ignoring how much it stings.
“No, I… I didn’t. I didn’t even know his name.”