The kid was a zombie. He didn't eat. He didn't sleep. He pushed food around his plate and laid down on his bunk for his cousin's sake, even made a show of tending to the ugly wound in his shoulder, though he'd never yet gotten around to seeing a doctor about it. Ian thought about that sometimes when he showered, changed the bandage. He remembered that hazy night at the inn, the fedora on Josh's knee, the story about what happened to his father, the easy camaraderie of loss that had lead to a kiss that had lead to a heart attack that had lead to his ultimate ruin. A noise of protest hoarse in his throat, the teen shook his head, tried to push the images away.

How many days had it been? Ian hadn't the first clue. One set of hours slid headlong into the next into the next, no differentiation between them. His cellphone rang, startling him from what felt like it must have been a coma, and he looked at the display. Ezra. ****, seriously? The kid showed a spark of life for the first time since then gun went off, issuing its three deadly reports. Morbidly curious, he'd answered.

And now... now his head was even more of a mess than it had been. Ideas were formulating, plans of action taking shape, but distantly so. It would be awhile yet before he could mobilize those plans, but they were there in the background, articulating a degree at a time. For the short term, there was something smaller to accomplish, a goal to focus on, a thing to do.

He waited until Mark was caught up in Camp Life things, being pulled this way and that, and then he borrowed Jenny's car. Trying not to reflect on the fact that it seemed like most every camp had a Jenny, and most of them were willing to let him take the car. He pulled the keys, driving without really seeing where he was going until he reached the dump site Ezra had told him about.

It wasn't going to be as easy as all that.

The dump was far more hollow and desolate than it promised to be. There was a lot of **** piled up there and finally, there was a box labeled "someone's ****" on it. Just like Ezra had said it would be. The box was old, a double wall cardboard box that was slouched and beat and still looked like it was expecting someone to find it. Mac had a cigarette lit and was smoking it, cursing at the sky as he watched Ian drive. Why the **** was he still here? What was the point if he couldn't even be seen?

That was the thing, though, wasn't it? What was it going to take for the kid to see him, really see him? He wanted to roll down the window and feel the wind brush through his hair but there was nothing. Nothing upon nothing. ****.

Ian was pretty sure he was losing his mind. While he drove, his phone plugged into the radio so he could listen to his music, he would almost swear he saw Josh sitting beside him in the passenger seat, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, an angry scowl on his face. But if he actually looked that way, of course, there was nothing there.

He drove. It was farther away than he'd expected, given the directions, but the kid was glad to have something to do. Alone for the first time in... well. However long it had been? He figured there was no one around to call him crazy, so he tried it. Using his knee to guide the steering wheel for a moment, he fished a cigarette out of the pack he'd tossed into the console, lit it with a black lighter, dragged fiercely and then exhaled smoke across the passenger seat as he hit the button to roll both windows down.

The cigarette scissored between two fingers, his gaze focused on the road once more. "Have I lost my **** mind or are you actually there?" He asked the empty car.

I'm here, you piece of ****. What the **** are we doing going this way, anyway? Where the **** is my Subaru?

He couldn't press the switch to roll down the window. His hand kept disappearing through the arm of the car door, which made him swear and then sink back, uneasily, into his seat. What a piece of ****. Mac staring ahead at where they were going, feeling like miles and miles of road disappeared beneath them but that he still had no clue what the destination was. At least he could change the radio station to something they wanted to listen to instead of a commercial. Twenty one pilots had a new song out so the first he flicked to played that. If he'd been out of luck he would have tried the knob until he found the oldies with some Sinatra to play. Some real ****' music that had heart.

The radio abruptly switched from playing what was on his phone to the actual radio station, rolling over once to land on a twenty one pilots song. Ian knew it already, and he caught himself throwing another suspicious glance at the passenger sheet. "Mother****," he said under his breath, shaking his head as he dragged on the cigarette again, fiercely. "It is you."

Ian sighed, lifting his free hand from the wheel again to scratch at the corner of his jaw, his fingers skating over the hole in his lip where that ring belonged, the one that was now on the ocean floor, at the docks. His turn was coming up, and he took it, angling the car hard to the right to follow the unmarked dirt road that would lead him to their ****.

"Talked to Ezra today," he told the ghost conversationally, and he spoke more easily now than he had to anyone else, when he was functionally talking to himself. "He says they dumped our **** up here somewhere before they headed off. Guess we should go find it."

So maybe he was being haunted and maybe he wasn't. In a way it was easier, hurt less, somehow, to imagine he wasn't alone.

I guess we should get it.

Though he wondered what Ezra had thought, finding condoms and lube and pictures of him and Dave. If Ian hadn't been a give away, had it been Dave? Were he and Ian a prolonged secret, still? If that was the case, why did Ezra still give a **** about Ian? He gripped the brim of his hat and pulled it down to his brow. What are you wasting your **** time with? What is any of this **** going to bring back?

It took a lot not to yell. Especially when that green dumpster came into view. At one time it had been blue. He could tell because the beaten up corners of it flaked away, revealing a cobalt beneath the hunter green. He sucked in a breath and exhaled. **** it. Fine. What do you think is going to be there?

"Mostly I'm just morbidly curious what's even here," said the kid, as though he had heard the question and was actually answering it instead of just rambling to himself. He slowed the car to a stop and then put it in park, turning off the engine and thus the radio.

"What they kept. What they trashed altogether. What actually made it into the box." Apparently there were things of both Josh's and Ian's in there, commingled together. "He knows about us now. He didn't, but he asked so I told him the truth. I'm pretty ****' done with subterfuge." And here, the kid cracked a lethal smile, humorless. "...For now, anyway."

Sticking the cigarette in his mouth, he unhooked the seat belt and popped the door open, letting himself out.

What's your endgame? Don't you have like... I dunno, clothes to buy at the goodwill with Mark for all the kiddies?

He disappears from the corner of Ian's gaze and it seems that he is entirely lost. No. Just relocated to the forefront, where there was a box at the dumpster he was currently unable to open. He sucked on his cigarette and looked down at the box and then to the kid. Was he hearing him, really hearing him? It felt like it. Felt like all to **** that the kid was getting a single word out of him.

Say it. Say **** Jimmy in the ****. Then I'll know.

Under the brim of his fedora he studied the glass front window of the POS Honda Ian yanked from the Barlow camp. Why wouldn't Mark just drop some dollars on real **** cars? Was just a dingy disgrace. They weren't homeless, they were gods of the road.

Ian's brows furrowed curiously as he shut the car door, killing the distance to the dumpster with that cigarette still burning between two fingers. He took a final drag and flicked it away, watching the cherry separate from the stem in a practiced arc.

The kid looked up, imagined(?) he could see Josh standing there, scrutinizing the box. The ache in his chest was palpable, a dull throb that told him he might never be whole again. His hand moved over the left side of his chest, over his heart, over that tattoo, his breath shallow for a long moment.

"...**** Jimmy," the kid mumbled, unsure why that thought had come to him so suddenly. "That **** is who ratted you out." There was sudden vehemence in the words, more emotion than he'd displayed since he finally stopped crying. "**** Jimmy in the ****. I may kill that **** if I see him again."

Slow ass mother****. He sighed and then dropped his weight into the backseat of the car and looked out the opposite window. Where were they, what alleyway and what street? Ian got into the car and when he spoke Josh realized he was being addressed. Right, Ian at the very least thought he was there, but he wasn't looking at him. His eyes weren't in the rear view mirror, making eye contact with him, and he didn't twist around to speak to him directly. He was talking to the headspace.

You think it's Dave you have to worry about? Mac reached over and through the driver's seat and keyed his middle finger into the bullet hole of his shoulder. It didn't have the power of a real touch, Josh wasn't that good. But he was that pissed off. He never wanted to see someone cringe or cry out like he did just then, while at the same time shouting at him about the other thing. Since when did you just roll over and take it? Holy ****, what sort of game did you think you were playing at with me? You think I like the idea that I was on my knees, sucking you off, when you're already ready to pack it in and call it a day?

"...Well, after I finish this other thing, anyway." The kid amended, correcting himself. At the same time, his wounded shoulder lit up in a sudden sharp explosion of pain. He had a flashback of claws and teeth from a couple of years ago, his jaw tightening, but as usual he didn't react beyond that.

Breathing through his nose, the boy's eyes squeezed shut a long moment before he exhaled, peeling them open again. He swallowed, his eyes narrowing as he searched the rear view mirror, because he couldn't see the shade out of the corner of his eye anymore. "...So that's you, too, huh? S'kinda **** that you can touch me and I can't even see you."

Ian shook his head, turning the engine over as he twisted the key in the ignition. When the radio came on, he touched his phone, swiping back over to the music program. He scrolled through his playlists until he found the one he wanted, the one he'd built for Mac anyway. Not dedicated to him, but to play when they were on long drives together -- one more way he'd accommodated the man at nearly every turn even while he worked against him. It was all Frank Sinatra and jazz and other things Josh listened to. "Maybe now you'll quit **** with the radio."

Jesus Christ I'm losing my mind.

I guess that's better. What's the other thing? He wasn't sure exactly how he moved or shifted. If it was his thoughts, moods, or if Ian had something to do with it. It just seemed that rather suddenly he was in the passenger seat without a cigarette, buckled in like they had started a car ride somewhere to get something. Mac swore and turned his head, looking out the window. His right elbow perched on the armrest of the car, knuckles knocking gently against the window to the beat of the Miles Davis song he liked. At least he wasn't having to tolerate **** tunes anymore.

Why couldn't Ian see him? Why was he as insubstantial as cigarette smoke with only partial moments of being substantial? What was the point in being here, in being able to do something and then nothing all at once. This is **** up. I don't understand. How... He turned and looked at Ian, his jaw flexing before he continued. How could you **** do this? You let me put Dave on the line and everything I **** worked my ass off to get, knowing your ass was just going to torch it and walk away.

Ian felt like he'd explained himself a half dozen times already, but even so he was feeling overwhelmingly compelled to do it again now. It was a weird feeling. He couldn't have said that he heard Josh, not the way you heard another person, but he had the strong sense that the thoughts and questions that appeared in his mind from time to time weren't entirely his own. He had a strong impression of animosity, that seething violence that he associated with Jay almost all the time.

He glanced sidelong at the passenger seat again, and for half a second, he could almost - almost - swear he could see the man's profile, a gossamer outline. "Jesus **** Christ," the kid muttered with a rueful shake of his head, his gaze on the road as he turned the car around to go back the way he (they?) had come. "If this weren't Rhy'Din I'd probably get committed." There was almost a dim smile at that, more an impression of a smile than the genuine article.

The kid drove in silence for awhile. The question hung between them, or at least it felt like it did, and for the moment it went unanswered. Sometimes you just never say a god damn thing. Eventually, though, he lit himself another cigarette, inhaled fiercely and began to speak.

"In the beginning, the plan was to take you down by any means necessary, it's true. I'm young and easy to discount. I've been living here three ****' years and half the people in my own camp didn't recognize me." Ian cracked the windows. "I didn't know you. All I knew was that you were threatening the one person who saved my goddamn life, and you defend family no matter what it takes."

He dragged again, his eyes narrowing. "And the closer I got to you, the more I ... " Ian's words died in his throat as it closed up on him, the heel of his hand coming down hard on the steering wheel. It jarred all the way into the injured arm and he scowled. "It doesn't matter. You aren't going to believe me and it doesn't change what happened. I just." His tone turned sad. "I wanted it. Everything I told you I wanted, I did. I still do."

It didn't matter. Maybe it did. He felt like he could have asked Ian over and over, made him explain over and over, only to be left in the same place of disbelief. Was there ever going to be a reason that was good enough? That made him think 'ah, that's reasonable.' No, not when the subject was about betraying him. Maybe there were reasons good enough to betray others but not HIM.

You put a gun on me. How am I not worth more? ****, someone saved your life, that's a debt but I offered you everything. Why is someone saving you from other bad worth more than someone offering you something good? Josh could have gone on, motioning in the air with his burning irritation, except that Ian had disarmed him. Said that he wanted it. That he still wanted it. The anger radiating from him eased only momentarily before he asked. Would you have pulled the trigger?

Ian was pensive, quiet for a time as he drove, the songs rolling one after the other as the playlist shuffled. Song after song that reminded him of Mac, of Josh, of Jay, of the heavy sense of belonging to someone else that still had his chest in a vice grip, suffocating him slowly, making it hard to breathe.

The boy ashed his cigarette by tapping it against the top edge of the open window, swallowed, took another drag. After a moment he shook his head. "...No." He remembered that moment, saw it again every time he tried to close his eyes. Chest to chest with guns aimed at each other. His jaw worked reflexively, his eyes on the road but distant even then. "I told myself that I would, that I could if I had to, but... there's just no **** way."

A sudden thought brought another one of those bitter smiles to his lips, a rictus of dark humor. He shook his head. "**** Christ. You told me once that a break up would be hell. But I guess we're not exactly broken up, huh? I belong to a goddamn ghost."

I'm a lot more substantial than most of the mother**** around you. It was the first time he cracked a smile, and it threatened to become a dry, bitter laugh, but it never quite did. His right hand eased away from the glass of the passenger seat, rubbing against his lips. How the **** was it that a ghost could be haunted by the living? Why was he here, and not some other place? It felt like Ian had some inexplicable leash on him, keeping him tied to the the kid and not permitting much in the way of wandering. He knew better than that, though. The kid was hurting when he was around, but he couldn't let up, couldn't let him breathe but... he didn't want him to die.

Everytime he thought he was calm, his anger hit him like an unmoving wall. He frowned and threw his hat on the floor of the car. It was supposed to be you and me. It was supposed to be us dealing with my **** uncle and carving out our own empire in Rhy'Din and it's all **** dead and gone now. It was supposed to be us. He wanted to kick his foot at the dash of the car but when he did, his leg slipped right through. Then, before he could explain it, or know what happened, he wasn't there for a little while. Dispersed, unfocused, as if someone had put him in time out for losing his temper.

If Ian belonged to a ghost then that ghost also belonged to him, did it not? It had been one of the last vows exchanged between them, that mutual admission, and maybe that's what had damned them to this half-life state. Tied together indefinitely, locked onto one another with no way of breaking that grip.

He threw the cigarette out the open window, sucking a final drag from its stem in advance. It was awkward, reaching across his body with his right hand, but he'd begun to adjust, could adjust to virtually anything.

There was what felt like a fireball beside him, the temperature of the car seeming to alter radically, and then... nothing. Brows furrowing, Ian chanced a quick glance at the passenger seat, scanned the back seat again. "...Jay?"

There was ****-all he could do or say at that moment, in a place so strange and removed that acknowledging himself felt far off, near impossible. Ian's voice couldn't quite focus him back into that seat next to him. He needed some time, he needed to recharge or something. Then he needed to... wanted to... he didn't know what. Wait, there was something. All he had to do was get a word out, one word and Ian would know, he'd connect the dots and maybe, just maybe, something else could be done about this.

Focus. Focus hard as ****. Hold it together and think of the word over and over. Rotate it, taste it and then say it. This **** could hear some things. He heard about Jimmie, he had to **** hear this. Josh screamed, imagining his hands were at his mouth and he was forty yards away.

Saila.

She'd seen him and heard him when he hadn't even tried for her to. Get Saila, go to her. ****, connect the goddamn dots. You weren't my second because you were a **** idiot who had a tight ass. Josh couldn't get himself to develop into the image of his own body anymore. It'd come back he just... he needed to rest. To shut his eyes. Ian would wake him up when he was ready. Falling asleep was scary as ****, but he was past the point where he could avoid it.

He had to draw his eyes back to the road, swerved to avoid a curb he'd very nearly driven into. Jerking the wheel and then stabilizing the car, his brows furrowed. The absence of the shade was somehow even more distressing than its presence, especially now that he'd acknowledged what it was.

And then.. nothing. It was gone. Had he been talking to himself? Had he imagined the whole thing? Ian thought about pulling over, trying to just breathe through this and determine whether or not he was having a psychotic break. He wondered dully how you knew whether you were having a psychotic break, anyway; was it a thing you could feel, that you were actually aware of, or did someone else have to tell you?

Just when he was pretty sure he must be delusional, an image of Quinn's purple haired sister daughter thing swam up in his mind's eye. Saila. Saila? Why the **** was he thinking about Saila? The kid racked his brain, trying to figure out what had triggered that particular image, and as he did a memory scrap played back to him, that night at Johnny's funeral when he'd warned Mac that they didn't know anything about the girl, had no idea what all she could do.

"Saila? ...Okay. I guess I'll ... find Saila."