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The last thing Rolan was expecting when he opened his door was Kian Stone standing in front of him.
He almost shuts the door in his face - convinced he’s dreaming. But even his wildest imagination couldn’t come up with whatever insanely flamboyant outfit Kian’s wearing.
Sure, he’s a rockstar. But no one’s going to believe Rolan knows a rockstar. So, he quickly ushers Kian into his apartment and hopes none of his neighbours saw or heard anything. The last thing he needs is for them to start talking.
“Rolan! Dude!” Kian stumbles past him. “Man, it’s been forever!”
“What are you doing here?” Rolan demands. Perhaps more snappish than he should be considering he hasn’t seen Kian in three years, but - to be fair - it is three in the morning. “No - better question. How the fuck did you find my apartment?”
There’s been a kind of sinking dread in his stomach ever since he first heard the knocking. It’s not like he was really asleep - he’s still in work clothes even - but people rarely knock on his door as it is. So, someone knocking this late at night must’ve meant something was wrong, right?
As it turns out - kind of.
Because Kian isn’t supposed to be here. Kian’s supposed to be in Hollywood living his rockstar dream. Kian is supposed to be someone he left behind in Galloway.
Someone he writes unfinished letters to, someone he hovers by the phone working up the courage to call. Someone he promised he’d go see, but plane tickets are expensive, and he’s so busy with law school, and now the new job, and, and, and-
And now Kian’s come to him.
Ridiculously drunk.
“I, uh…” Kian sways. “What was the question, dude? I totally zoned.”
“How did you know where I lived?” Rolan repeats with a barely restrained misdirected anger as all the guilt, and regret, and dread boils to the surface.
“Oh!” Kian snaps his fingers. “I met a guy, who knew a guy, who knew you! And he said you lived somewhere around here - this building. So, I’ve just been knocking on doors for like… the past hour? I dunno, dude.”
Rolan sighs.
Of course Kian would. He has absolutely no shame.
“Did you mention my name?”
“Nah.” Kian waves a hand dismissively and sways again dangerously. “Just said wrong door when you didn’t answer. I was, like, told you lived alone, so…”
That’s good at least. Even if he feels strangely embarrassed about Kian finding out that he lives alone.
“Okay, sit down.”
Kian practically slumps onto the couch, and Rolan’s not sure what to do next.
He could never hold his alcohol back in Galloway, so he’s not unused to being around a drunk Kian. But he is unused to being around a Kian who he’s made zero effort to reconnect with out of potentially misguided anxiety.
Well, entirely misguided he’s finding out.
Because Kian’s here, isn’t he? Despite the way Rolan left him - with zero warning, barely a chance to say goodbye, and forcing him to pick up the pieces of Rand and Rolan’s biggest argument to date instead of focusing on his own feelings about the whole thing. He’s still here.
He wandered around the area for an hour on the off-chance he might find Rolan’s apartment before someone called the cops on him.
“So, uh… why are you, like… in Chicago, man?”
He’s expecting some answer to do with work. Kian’s on tour, he’s collaborating with someone, it’s for some promotional thing. Something like that.
Instead, Kian just hums softly and says, “I wanted to see you.”
“You…? Oh.”
Kian flew all the way to Chicago just to see him. And Rolan knows he couldn’t have been drunk the entire time, right? Somewhere along the line Kian was in his rational, sober mind and he still committed to this trip.
Meanwhile Rolan can’t even pick up the phone and call him because he’s worried Kian’s just going to hang up on him.
He feels kind of sick.
“Then I realised I, like, didn’t even know how to find you, dude.” Kian laughs. “So, figured I’d just hit some clubs, maybe take someone back to a hotel. Got to talking with some people, found out they knew you, and boom! The rest is history, man.”
What an insane night. Of course this would happen to him. Of course this would happen to Kian.
He can’t tell whether he’s happy about it or not.
Because he’s missed Kian. Horribly. Both him and Rand. Some days it feels like he can’t stop thinking about all the things he did wrong, and all the things he could’ve done better.
But there’s missing Kian, and then there’s being confronted with the fact that it’s been three years and they’ve barely talked. And that that’s Rolan’s fault.
“Look.” Rolan sighs. “It’s late. Do you have somewhere to stay?”
“Nah, dude. That’s how we started talking about you.” Kian leans forward and pouts. “They said I was too drunk to do anything fun, and I should, like, totally go home, you know?” He slumps back against the couch and laughs. “They were right, though, man, I’m gonna have a killer hangover tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He grimaces and tries to push away the thoughts of not having time to deal with this. Kian made an effort. Rolan can, too. “Do you want to stay here?”
“That’d be fuckin’ radical, dude.”
“Cool. Okay then. I have, uh, some clothes? That you can borrow?”
“Right on, dude.”
Kian pushes himself to his feet and stumbles. Rolan catches him before he can fall over.
But now he’s in the predicament of Kian leaning heavily against him, and clutching Rolan’s shirt tightly. Even after Rolan lets go of him.
“Mm.” Kian presses his face into Rolan’s neck, and Rolan feels his cheeks erupt in flames. “You smell nice.”
“Th-thanks.” He grabs Kian again and pushes him away. “You, uh, smell like alcohol.”
Kian stands limply in Rolan’s grasp and pouts.
“And I wore such a nice perfume tonight, dude.”
“I’m sure it smelt great.” Rolan says distractedly - more concerned about whether Kian will stay standing if he lets go of him.
He slowly lets go. Keeps his hands up ready to catch Kian. But Kian stands steady.
“Um… come with me, I guess. We’ll, uh, get you some comfortable clothes.”
Rolan leads Kian into his bedroom, and sits him down on his bed while he searches through his closet for some spare pyjamas.
It’s easy enough. Him and Kian are roughly the same size, and it’s not like Kian particularly cares about, well, being covered. It’s like he’s wearing so much right now and yet it’s barely anything at all. His whole chest is out. And he was walking around town - knocking on doors - like that.
Rolan should probably stop staring at his chest.
But in his defence, Kian had laid down on the bed. And everything that was sort of covering his chest by hanging in place due to gravity had once again succumbed to gravity by sliding off and exposing more.
Christ. Rolan’s face feels warm.
He wipes a hand down it in a futile attempt to get rid of the red that’s surely obvious. Flicks his eyes up to Kian’s and hope he wasn’t caught staring. Thankfully, Kian’s eyes are closed.
He looks peaceful like this. A lot less larger than life than he did when he first showed up, even though he’s still wearing the same outfit.
It reminds Rolan of sleepovers at Rand’s. He’s hit with a particularly strong wave of emotion at that connection. He almost doesn’t even want to give Kian the change of clothes - it’ll just complete the comparison almost uncomfortably well.
Because despite his clothes getting a lot more… ambitious - Kian still looks the same. Pretty as ever. Meanwhile Rolan’s sure the stress of everything has aged him about ten years in three.
“Kian.” He calls out softly.
Kian’s eyes flutter open.
“What?”
“I have, uh, pyjamas.”
“Mm.”
His eyes close again. Rolan sighs and steps closer to the bed, shaking him awake.
“C’mon, man, I want to sleep.”
Kian’s eyes catch on him.
“Am I dreaming?” Kian asks dazedly.
“No? Why would you be…?” Rolan shakes his head, and tries to ignore the way his stomach flipped at the question. “Never mind. Get up before you, like, fall asleep, man.”
Kian sits up. Clutches his head.
“You alright?”
“‘M dizzy.”
“Well, don’t throw up.”
Kian groans in response and then fumbles around to take off his necklaces.
“Do you want help?” Rolan asks.
“Yeah, dude.”
Kian doesn’t move. Rolan climbs onto the bed behind him. Deposits the pyjamas next to him and pushes Kian’s hair out of the way to fumble through unlatching the necklaces himself.
The memory of doing this for a past girlfriend pops up in his head, reigniting the heat in his cheeks.
His hands feel shaky. It probably would’ve been quicker for Kian to do it at this point.
When Rolan’s done, he stands up as quickly as he can - eager to get out of that situation. Only to be immediately faced with Kian shrugging off everything that was covering his torso. Rolan’s eyes are drawn in by the movement. He quickly snaps them away.
He shouldn’t be acting like this. He’s aware Kian’s… queer. But he shouldn’t be. It’d be just one more unnecessary complication in the long list of unnecessary complications that is his life.
Besides, Kian’s his best friend. His best friend who he’s barely talked to since they both left Galloway. It’s a mess already.
And he’s seen Kian shirtless hundreds of times before. Hell, he used to sleep in the same bed as Kian - that tiny spare mattress on Rand’s bedroom floor.
He really shouldn’t be blushing like he was the first time he took a girl home.
Except this feels different. Which is scarier. Because back then he was embarrassed and awkward, and now he’s all that but with this underlying want. And he’s not sure what to do with it.
“Can you get my shoes?” Kian murmurs, snapping him out of his spiral.
“Sure.”
He used to do this for his ex, too. After they’d come home from going out to the club. He didn’t mind it. She was nice. And Rolan liked the little routine of making her comfortable.
She had broken up with him while tearfully explaining that she felt he didn’t love her in that way. It’s with a pit in his stomach that Rolan thinks he’s starting to understand what she meant.
He distracts himself by neatly lining the shoes up against the wall.
“Please don’t tell me you need help with your pants.” Rolan pleads.
“Well…” Kian says with a purr as he lies back against the bed, stretching out. “If you’d like to.”
He’s shameless. He’s going to strike Rolan dead. His heart’s beating fast enough that he may as well be about to have a heart attack.
“I- I said I didn’t. You can, uh, use me to help balance, though.”
“Ugh. Fine.”
Kian stands up and starts the long, awkward process of getting out of tight, leather pants. Rolan’s glad he offered to help Kian balance. He definitely would’ve fallen face first to the floor by now.
When Kian finally kicks the pants to the floor he sits down on the bed again. Rolan sighs. He gets half a step towards the pyjamas before Kian’s wrapping a hand in his tie and tugging him close.
“Your turn I think, dude.” Kian’s voice is low. Not quite that over-the-top purr from earlier but with something more to it than his normal sleepy murmur.
Rolan feels frozen.
Their faces are so close he barely look Kian in the eyes. But he can see enough to know that Kian is not looking at his eyes.
“Kian.” Rolan warns softly. “You’re drunk.”
“We don’t have to do anything too crazy, dude.”
Kian punctuates the sentence with an upwards tilt of his chin. Rolan’s face feels like it’s on fire. Which is an interesting contrast to the pit in his stomach.
Rolan straightens. Kian lets him. The sound of his tie slipping through Kian’s hand is painfully loud in the otherwise quiet of the room.
“We shouldn’t be doing anything at all.” Rolan insists. “Just… Let’s just go to bed, man.”
“I mean, we could, like, pretend I’m a chick if you’re more into that, dude. Like, I am kind of a chick anyway.” And before Rolan can ask what that means, Kian clears his throat. When he speaks again he sounds a lot more feminine. “What d’you think, babe?”
His heart skips about five beats with its quickened rhythm. Kian’s going to be the death of him.
“I think, uh, those people you talked to were right. You’re very drunk.” Rolan grabs the pyjamas and shoves them into Kian’s arms. “And you should- you should put these on. I’m going to go brush my teeth.”
He escapes to the bathroom before he can hear Kian’s response.
With the door safely locked, he takes a second to breathe, and tries to get his heart under control. Splashes his face with cool water in an attempt to get rid of the heat in his cheeks.
God, he’s a mess. He’s run through so many scenarios of meeting up with Kian and Rand again but he never could’ve come up with this.
He brushes his teeth. Feeling calmer, he heads back to the bedroom.
Kian’s sitting on the edge of his bed in his pyjamas. He looks a little miserable. Rolan’s tries not to mimic the expression as a pang lances through his heart at seeing Kian in his clothes.
He was right. It's much too similar to being back in Galloway.
“Sorry, dude.” Kian says when he notices Rolan’s back. “Didn’t mean to, you know, freak you out.”
“It’s fine.”
“Just figured I may as well go for it.” He sighs. “Not like I can ruin our relationship more than I already have.”
Is that what he thinks? That Rolan not calling is his fault?
God, he feels ill.
“It’s- it’s not you-“
“Dude. Are you seriously it’s not you, it’s me -ing me right now?”
“It’s the truth, though.” Rolan gingerly sits next to him. “I should’ve called more.”
“You know, Rand doesn’t call me as much anymore, either.” Kian murmurs. With all the raw emotion only a drunken confession could drag out of him. “Or my parents. And I haven’t heard from Becky since she left. And you… well, I’m the thing in common, aren’t I, dude?”
“Maybe they’ve just been busy.” Rolan defends weakly.
He doesn’t have anything to say for himself. Because he’s been busy, sure, but not busy enough that he couldn’t call. Not busy enough that he couldn’t give Kian his new phone number so Kian could call.
He was just scared. And he never thought about how it’d look from Kian’s point of view. Was sure that Kian would be too caught up in his fame to even care.
“You can, uh, sleep in my bed with me if you want.” The words are stiff and awkward in his mouth. He wouldn’t even be saying them if it wasn’t for everything earlier giving him a bit of courage. “You know, like, um- like old times.”
Kian doesn’t look at him. Then he stands.
“I think I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Wait!” He grabs Kian’s wrist. Kian stops moving. “Please. I’d- I’d really like it if you… I mean, you are really drunk, man, I’m not just using that as an excuse.”
“I’m not that drunk.” Kian protests.
Rolan internally cheers a little at the fact Kian doesn’t sound as sad anymore.
“Drunk enough.”
“Fine, dude.” Kian sits down on the bed again. Leans his head against Rolan’s shoulder. “Can we at least cuddle?”
He probably shouldn’t say yes. Because he thinks he’ll like it too much. But he wants to give Kian something and cuddling isn’t that bad.
“Sure, man.”
“Radical.”
“Just let me get changed.” He gently nudges Kian off of him. “Go brush your teeth. I have a spare in there somewhere.”
Kian stumbles a little as he walks to the bathroom, but he doesn’t seem in danger of falling. Rolan changes into his pyjamas as quickly as possible.
When Kian stumbles back into the room, Rolan’s already settled into bed. Kian flicks the light off. Climbs in next to him.
And he knows he said yes to cuddling, but he’s not really sure how to initiate it.
Turns out, he’s worrying for nothing. Kian throws an arm over his waist and presses in close.
“G’night, man.”
He’s pretty sure Kian’s out before he even finishes speaking.
“Goodnight.”
Rolan, however, is not so lucky.
Eventually exhaustion drags him into sleep. But for the most part, he’s stuck in a spiral of thoughts that he really, really doesn’t want to think about.
A replay of tonight’s events. Guilt, and regret, and the dread of new feelings prompted by his best friend of all people.
Rolan wakes up to find Kian still passed out. Still cuddling him. He was kind of hoping it was all a very bizarre dream.
He’s lying at least a little bit when he thinks that, though.
Rolan gives himself a second to enjoy Kian’s presence. Then he extracts himself carefully. He probably didn’t need to put as much effort into it as he did, though. Kian seems dead to the world.
Right. Kian’s probably going to wake up to a really awful hangover. He’s lucky it’s a weekend and Rolan doesn’t have work.
He deposits a full glass of water and some painkillers on the bedside table closest to Kian. Then busies himself with making breakfast and looking over some paperwork for a case.
Kian doesn’t get up until midday.
Rolan watches as he cautiously pokes his head out of the bedroom - assessing. The way his eyes light up and a grin spreads across his face when he sees Rolan.
It’s endearing. He shouldn’t be thinking that.
“So, it wasn’t a dream!” Kian exclaims as he bounces over to sit on the couch next to Rolan. “Dude, I thought, like, for sure I ended up in some random’s bed.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
“Oh, yeah, man.” Kian sends him a grin and a wink. “Rockstar life’s kinda crazy.”
“I can believe that.” Rolan gets up and heads to the kitchen. “Anything specific for breakfast?”
“Nah, dude, anything you wanna make is fine.”
He makes bacon and eggs on toast. Easy, simple, with a little effort put into it. A good breakfast to make as a host.
Kian practically devours it.
“I missed your cooking, dude.” Kian says with a sigh. “And you, of course. But… you know…”
“Yeah, yeah.” He nudges Kian playfully. “We both know the real reason you flew over here was for my famous bacon and eggs on toast.”
“Caught dead in the act, man!” Kian sets his plate down gently, a seriousness falling over him. “I don’t really, uh, remember much from last night, dude.”
Oh. So much about their relationship shifted and Kian potentially doesn’t even know.
“Sorry if I was, like, a pain in the ass.” Kian continues.
“You were fine.” Rolan says with a shrug. “Pretty much went to sleep straight away.”
Rolan thinks he preferred haven’t seen each other in three years drunk Kian to haven’t seen each other in three years sober Kian. Because now the silence between them feels palpable. Not the easy, content silence of good friends, but the awkward silence of people who don’t know how to click anymore.
“So, you, uh, don’t remember anything?” Rolan asks.
“It’s hazy.” Kian sends him another grin. “The best nights always are, dude!”
“But anything specific?”
Kian eyes him critically. His gaze sweeping over Rolan’s face, his body language.
“Did something important happen?”
So, he doesn’t remember. Rolan feels something in his chest sink.
“No, no.” He waves his hand dismissively. Something in the back of his mind screams at him for lying instead of trying to talk it out. But he couldn’t bring himself to. He ran from Galloway, of course he’d run from this. “We just talked a bit. I don’t want to repeat myself if you remember, that’s all.”
Kian shrugs helplessly.
“Yeah, words are, like, totally gone, dude.”
“That’s fine.”
Maybe it is fine. Maybe it’s for the better.
“So!” Kian claps his shoulder. “You should take me for the Chicago grand tour!”
“Oh. Uh, yeah, okay.”
“You’re not, like, busy, right?”
“I mean…” He looks down at the paperwork. He’s always a little busy. "Nothing that can't wait."
"Right on, dude!”
He gets Kian another change of clothes.
The concept of Kian in his clothes isn’t strange - Kian must have stolen hundreds of his and Rand’s clothes over the years. But it is strange to see him in Rolan’s current clothes. Not even his casual shirts really scream Kian.
Kian doesn’t seem to mind, though. He insists on wearing Rolan’s old jacket from track.
And then spends a good ten minutes styling himself in the mirror as best as he can.
It’s endearing. He needs to stop thinking that.
All things considered, they have a nice day. Despite some of the conversation being stilted at first, they eventually manage to click again.
He missed this.
The closer the sun gets to setting, the more that thought swirls around in his mind. He tries not to let it dampen his mood.
Kian’s standing in his doorway now. Wearing his own clothes, although a bit more modestly dressed than he was originally.
He’s got a plane to catch. Neither of them want to say goodbye.
Rolan has the ridiculous urge to pull Kian back into his apartment. To ask him to stay. To kiss him, and run his hands through his hair, and ask him to stay, please, even if it’s just for one more week.
But Kian has to get back to work.
So, instead, Rolan promises to call more. And as his apartment is abruptly thrown into silence after the shutting door, he tries to push away the voice in his head that tells him he’s lying.