#me this morning: what if after seb was incinerated the second time he could still go see people

[leonstamatis]

i’ll have you in between

mike townsend/sebastian telephone, post-hall stars incineration 1.7k, title from “ghost” by misterwives

(also published on AO3)

Mike has to look away when Sebastian dies.

Or. Not dies, exactly. He’s already dead, has been for months. It should be a blessing that Mike got to see him again at all, even on TV, even semi-translucent and tinted blue. He was out on the field again, playing the most important game of his entire career. Of anyone’s career.

But the unmistakable sound of a rogue umpire had ruined that. The cameras turned to catch the transformation, showed a man bursting apart at the seams and turning to a writhing mass of shadow and bone and flame. Mike had seen all that before, often up close and personal.

Then the camera cut to Seb, standing on the field with a ball in his hands.

Mike has grown a lot since the early seasons, since Jaylen was incinerated just inches away from him mid-sentence. But he’s still human. He’d seen Seb staring that ump down, and he’d turned the television off.

There’s bread dough that needs attention, Mike tells himself as he walks into the kitchen. No point beating himself up about it. Besides, it’s not like he can do anything about whatever happens in Baltimore. He should focus on keeping himself sane ahead of elections.

He grabs flour from the pantry and gets to work, pounding the dough out on the countertop. It’s hard not to think of Sebastian; his busted end table is still in sight in the living room, chipped and wobbly and covered in old mail. His coat is still on the rack where he’d left it last time he visited. Mike can practically see him, sitting on the counter and knocking his heels on the lower cabinet while Mike works.

Seb, staring down a rogue ump on the field for the second time. Seb, replaced with a column of smoke and scorched grass.

Mike shakes his head and looks down at his hands. “Stupid,” he mutters to himself. “He had to go and be a hero.”

“Well, yeah. You would too, dude.”

Sebastian is right where he’s supposed to be, on the counter next to the sink. His Hall Stars jersey is singed, still lightly smoking in some places. He’s watching Mike with three wide, bright blue eyes.

He’d had brown eyes, before.

“Seb,” Mike whispers. His chest is tight; he thinks he might be hallucinating, having some kind of episode. Maybe he fell asleep on the couch. Maybe he’s dreaming.

“Hey, Mike,” Sebastian says, offering a wry smile. “Sorry I didn’t call.”

Mike rushes forward, heart pounding. He doesn’t even notice Sebastian is frowning until he reaches out to touch him, to run a hand along his cheek. Mike’s hand passes right through, disturbs the soft blue glow emanating from Sebastian’s skin but never makes contact.

“Seb, what’s – what’s happening?” Mike asks, reaching out again. It doesn’t help; once again, he fails to make contact.

Now that he’s looking closer, Mike can see the signs: Flour is dusted over the countertop, undisturbed by Sebastian’s form. His heels knock against the cabinet but make no sound.

“Long story,” Sebastian says, but his hand comes to hover over Mike’s chest too, like he wants to touch him back. “Unfortunately, I don’t think I have a lot of time.”

“How long?” Mike asks, and there’s no way any of this is real but he’ll pretend for as long as he can.

Sebastian bites his lip, eyes flicking up to the ceiling. “My guess is, end of the game. Maybe a little longer. Pretty sure it’s still the third inning right now.”

“You died,” Mike says, goes to rest his hand on Sebastian’s knee and ends up gripping the edge of the countertop instead. “Again.”

“I was incinerated,” Sebastian corrects him. He pushes his hair out of his eyes; Mike wishes he could do it for him. “Or, more accurately, thousands of peanuts belonging to me were incinerated. And now I’m here. With you. For a limited amount of time.”

“Why?”

“I can’t help them anymore,” he says. Mike isn’t sure whether he means the Hall Stars or the Pods, or even just Jessica. He doesn’t ask. “I thought maybe I could help you, though.”

Mike knows he’s staring. He doesn’t bother feeling bad about it. It’s a struggle, though, not to keep reaching out, not to lean his head forward and try to rest his forehead against Seb’s. All those little familiar things he misses are somehow still out of his reach, even with Sebastian sitting right here.

But if he’s only got a few hours, well. Maybe it’s better to act like that’s enough.

“How can you help?” Mike mutters, and Sebastian frowns but he pushes on. “You can’t exactly knead dough like this.”

The corner of Sebastian’s mouth twitches upward, very nearly a smirk. “I can supervise,” he says.

Mike closes his eyes and takes a breath, lets it out as a heavy sigh. And then he steps away and returns to the bread, abandoned in a shapeless lump on the counter. He dusts some more flour over the surface and gets to work.

“Written any new songs lately?” Sebastian asks.

Mike shakes his head. “Nothing special. The band is doing another collab with a bunch of people, they don’t need anything from me.”

“Aw, bummer,” Sebastian says, and it almost feels like a normal night together so long as Mike doesn’t look in his direction. “I was hoping you’d sing to me.”

Mike snorts. “You don’t want to hear any of the new stuff. It’s all emo and boring as hell.”

The oiled mixing bowl is on the counter near Sebastian. Mike gets as far as stretching a hand out for Sebastian to pass it over before he realizes he’ll have to get it himself. The bread is a brioche, still on the first proof; even if Sebastian were really here, there’d be no opportunity for him to snatch up bits of filling like he used to, not until tomorrow.

“What, are you writing about busy signals and voicemails?” Sebastian teases. “Memorializing the great Sebastian Telephone? Legally, you have to tell me.”

Mike hesitates, hands pausing in their work. But they’re on the clock, he supposes; might as well make the time worthwhile.

“Feels like running out of quarters at the payphone, waking in a bed where I’m all alone,” he sings, barely loud enough for Sebastian to hear. “Wish I had a third eye to show me where we went wrong.”

“Oh,” Sebastian says.

Mike shrugs. “You asked.”

Sebastian stays mostly quiet after that. Mike finds himself glancing over every few minutes just to make sure he’s still there, to make sure he’s not alone again. When they were together, the apartment had felt cramped and very nearly too small; now Mike frequently finds himself thinking it’s cavernous and hollow.

“I’m sorry,” Sebastian says.

It’s not as sad as Mike thought it would be. “I’m sorry too.”

He tucks the dough into the bowl and covers it, turns to put it in the oven to prove overnight. He can see Sebastian watching him out of the corner of his eye. Mike starts rinsing off the dishes in the sink if only to distract himself from trying, impossibly, to touch him again.

“What inning do you think it is now?” Mike asks. Sebastian has migrated into the living room and is looking around sort of absently, casting everything in that watery blue light.

“You kept the end table,” he says back, which isn’t an answer.

Mike closes the dishwasher and makes his way out of the kitchen, wiping his hands dry on his jeans. “Of course I did.”

“They’re probably in the fifth or sixth inning by now,” Seb says.

He wanted to know. He asked the question. Somehow, knowing it doesn’t make Mike feel any better.

“Did you know you snore?” Mike asks. “It’s annoying as hell. Even more annoying now that I can’t fall asleep without it.”

Sebastian laughs, caught off guard. Mike misses that, too.

“I swear I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep since you left,” he presses on, and he doesn’t know where the words are coming from or why but he can hardly stop now. “It sucks, Seb. I don’t know what to do. Some days I think that fucking end table is the most valuable thing I own.”

“That’s not true,” Sebastian says, and he’s smiling but his voice is shaky. He steps closer into Mike’s space, not that it actually matters. “You still have half my clothes here, you could make thousands off those after tonight.”

“Finally made a name for yourself after all this time, huh?” Mike asks, and reaches out to run a hand over Seb’s arm before he can catch himself. “All you had to do was die.”

“Twice,” Sebastian says.

“Twice,” Mike repeats.

Making a name for themselves was never the point, exactly. They got to know each other specifically because they’d never been in the spotlight. Things are a little different now; Mike’s got an entire album written in his honor, practically, and Sebastian was brought back from the Hall of Flame. Those things don’t happen to just anybody.

Mike would give anything to go back to being nobody if it meant Sebastian would be nobody with him.

Sebastian tilts his head to the side, eyes running over Mike’s face. “You look tired, Mike.” One of his hands comes up to rest against Mike’s cheek; he tries his best to lean into it. “You need to rest.”

“If I go to sleep, you’ll disappear,” Mike says, and he knows it’s neither logical nor fair.

“I’m going to disappear anyway.”

“I know.”

And that’s it, really. Mike allows Sebastian to lead him to the bedroom, lies down on top of the covers and pretends he can feel Sebastian’s arms around him. He doesn’t sleep; they both know that. But Sebastian is still and quiet the entire time, running a hand along Mike’s arm and holding him as best he can.

In an hour or two, Sebastian will push up off the bed and walk out of the room. He’ll vanish into thin air, like he was never here. A few hours after that, Mike will get up and force himself to finish the bread he started, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do.

For now, they have this. It’s not enough; Mike will pretend it is.