"A 3 hour sky," whispers the blue eyed man as he gazes from the bed and Bass' arms. The view was a misty, blue tinted early morning, overlooking a city and bridge over a bay. A fall day in the San Francisco city.
"I call 'im that too," Bass says as he shifts. The other man rises slightly on his elbow.
"Maybe I should head out soon."
Bass gives him an odd look.
"Isn't Treble due home?"
"You really think he'd be bothered by us?" Bass leans against his back and inhales slowly. His skin is still lightly scented with soap from their shower earlier in the night. "We have a different kinda relationship."
"If you're sure....I don't like to wedge myself into things like this."
"To be fair, I'm more of a wedge," he snickers as he pats his arm. "Lay back down, Hideki."
HIdeki sighs and lays back down. It's been a long while since he'd shared a bed with another, more so with another man. But Bass had a way of being comforting, welcoming, and the weary wanderer finds it inviting.
"Fall is coming...it's gonna be a cold one this year," he said.
"You're real good at changing the subjects real quick, aren't you."
"Perhaps. I might be leaning on you a little more than I expected if that's the case."
Bass is quiet, listening to their breathing. "You still chasin' the snake in the suit?"
Hideki chuckles a little. "Something like that. But there was something I've been chasing as well."
"Yeah?"
"Don't worry about it. You wouldn't believe me if I tried to explain it." Hideki sits up and stretches. Bass traces his gaze along the scars on his back, faint yet numerous. It reminds him of his own. Despite his enormous appetite, he still has a nicely muscled body, if a little skinnier in certain places. His arms don't reveal his actual strength; being lifted bodily and easily by the blue eyed man and held against the wall during last night's activities surprised Bass. Despite his preference for being a top, he didn't mind having Hideki play the role the way he did.
Bass rolls to his side, slides a cigarette from a bedside pack and lights up. He continues his admiration and exhales a thin trail of smoke. "Try me."
Hideki laughs, and shakes his head when offered a pull. "Where did Treble go last night, anyway?"
Bass frowns and raises an eyebrow. "Ay. You're doing that thing again."
"What thing?" HIs clear blue eyes and earnest face are so winsome, but there's a small hint of willful deception in them.
"Don't derail the convo, Hide."
"You're serious. You're nicknaming me."
"C'mon man. Throw me a bone. You always act so mysterious, it gets on my nerves."
"Bone throwing was last night." A disarming, cheerful smile.
Bas lets out a frustrated growl, though there's a hint of playfulness as he raises up and pulls Hideki down on top of him as he sets his lit cigarette onto an ashtray. Exhales his breath of smoke quickly to the side. Brings his face in closer. Puts on that deep, dark tone in his voice as he fixes his black eyes into those blue ones.
"Hideki."
He flushes and his eyes look guilty. "All right, all right." He raises himself onto his elbows gently on Bass' chest, folds his hands over one another. "I'll tell you. But you have to promise not to laugh or dismiss me, ok?" He sits up, straddling him.
Bass raises his hands in surrender. "As long as you don't go yankin' my chain, I promise."
Hideki nods. "Just follow me, I promise its going to go somewhere. Do you believe in ghosts?"
Bass can't help himself, and he bursts out laughing. Hideki's face glares in annoyance.
"You promised, Bass!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Hide...hold on." He reins in his laughter to chuckles and waves his hands. "I'm laughing because....oh man, me and ghosts gotta history.... Never thought anyone would bring me back to it."
"So you don't believe?"
"Nah, man. I do. I actually do." He slides himself out from under Hideki, and swings his legs to the side of the bed and stretches. "I think I've been around a couple in my life. Been years but...nah, yeah. I do believe."
HIdeki watches him with mild skepticism. "You're not just saying that?"
"Hey man, we both got that amnesia thing, but I swear that's a thing that I do remember."
The black haired man sighs and nods. "Fair enough."
"Ok, so I believe," Bass says, wiggling his hands and fingers amusingly on the word "believe". "So why're ghosts involved in...whatever it is you're doing in these parts?"
Hideki shuffles off of the bed and started collecting his clothing. His sling bag had a clean set he pulls out after folding his used shirt and jeans and setting them to the side. He was offered use of the apartment washing machine and drier, and planned on it for later. He slides his underwear and jeans on as he gazes out the window. The light is warming and growing, in gentle lavenders and pinks along with the misty blue.
"This is kinda...weird. But I heard of a place that lets you see ghosts. Or weird things. I dunno." He sighs and scratches the back of his head in frustration. "I can't explain it, but I went to go see something like that."
But Bass' face has gone from curious to darkly serious, and the air around him changed. Hideki immediately senses it and he turns to look at him. Bass' eyes are cast to the side, as if calculating something rather complicated. The jet black eyes flick to Hideki's.
"For real?" is all he says quietly.
He nods. "I figured this was some kind of trick, right? Seeing the dead or something isn't something that just...happens in this world, right?"
"No. It IS a trick. And a real nasty one at that."
Hideki nods, but his face is troubled. "Thing is...I went there...and there wasn't anything like that. I didn't see anything...."
Bass is quiet, then holds his hands up. "Hol' on hol' on. Wait. You went to a place like this? Where? When?"
His intensity is growing and Hideki feels like he needs to keep Bass on the rails. "It was recently.... In the last few months. July to be precise."
The blonde starts pacing, his eyes with a faraway look to them. "Where?"
"Its gone."
"That's not what I asked."
"I know. But if you want to see the place, it's gone."
"How."
"I don't know. I came back in August and it was just...gone. Fire I thought, or just a shoddy demolition. South bay."
"What did you see?" His eyes come back into focus and stare through Hideki's.
He is quiet for a bit, recalling the incident.
"Nothing. Like I said."
Bass blinks in surprise. "What? Nothing? No hallucinations? Voices?"
"Uh uh. Nothing. But--"
The blonde nods at him intensely, asking him to continue.
"But I heard..."
"Music?" he cuts off. "Slow, ambient music?"
It was Hideki's turn to look surprised. "Yeah. Yeah, real pretty, but almost inaudible music."
"There's nothing pretty about that dreck." There is a poison and hatred in Bass' voice that surprises the other man. "That's the fucking trick to it all."
"I don't...understand." Hideki looks completely confused.
Bass tips his head back slightly. "So...you've never encountered Ambi?"
He shakes his head, but the admission dawns on Bass. It was something he didn't notice until now. The way Hideki would act when listening to music. The clarity of his behavior when playing, be it on his small, dented harmonica, or other instruments like guitar or woodwinds.
"Wait. You heard the music...but didn't see or hear anything else...?" He waits for him to nod in confusion. "Hideki. Are you Lossless?"
The confusion only deepened, and that made Bass pause. He continues, "It means you don't...lose yourself in music. You just....hear music."
He says something that makes Bass' heart jump.
"Isn't that...how that's supposed to work...?"
----
Treble yawns as he answers his phone, seeing Bass' name on the caller ID. It's been a long night as he and Fade were doing research on a database breach in the local MC department. Gemini had put them up in a different hotel, though Bass holed himself in an older apartment he came into owning a few years ago. Treble assumed it was to give himself and Hideki some privacy, which he didn't mind. There was something about that wandering drifter that he didn't mind; a comforting kind of presence that felt strangely familiar. Perhaps it was just because his personality was so opposite of Quentin. Perhaps because he could sense the consideration in his quiet personality.
"Yes?"
Bass' voice comes shouting from the phone, despite the fact he hadn't put it on speaker. "TREB. HIDEKI IS LOSSLESS."
He shakes his head and gapes in annoyed confusion, unable to respond to such a sudden announcement out of context.
Bass takes the silence as him not hearing so he shouts louder, enough for Fade to open the door to the bedroom to look into the living room area, where Treble was. "HE'S LOSSLESS. HIDEKI DON'T LOSS."
"I heard you the first time, " snaps Treble loudly, pulling the phone farther away from himself. "What the fuck?"
"That's what I said!"
"Why the fuck are you even telling me this??" He glares at the phone.
"Dude, you never noticed when we played?"
"Seeing as how I'm normal, I'm busy playing and Lossing, how in the fuck would I notice? And moreover, why didn't you until now, at like 7 am in the morning?"
"Treb. He said he's been to one of Roark's houses. Those spook house traps."
"Bass, goddamn it can you fucking slow down? Throw on some chillout and lay the fuck do--wait." Treble is struggling to keep up with the rapid fire information being shot his way but that name cuts right through.
Roark. The Ambi dealer whom they'd run into twice. The one who created that house on the east coast that allowed people to see the dead...or hallucinate other, vivid visions. For a moment, Treble felt that familiar spark of shame and fury. That musician who not only once, but twice, paralyzed him with enticing hallucinations of Bass amid their run-ins. Unable to break free of his musical "gifts" as he called them.
This ghost they had been chasing for months since their last encounter.
"Get over here. I want to talk to him."
----
Hideki is sitting on a couch, head bowed slightly as if chastised, hands on his lap. He has no clue what is going on, but he felt he wasn't the only one in the room in the same boat.
Bass and Treble are talking at and over one another, explaining what 1) a Lossless Hideki means, and 2) that Roark was this close to them, without them looking or knowing. Fade, giving up in trying to sort out their "conversation", set about getting a pot of coffee going and making some breakfast from the kitchenette. When she had a small plate of toast, hard boiled eggs, and a cup of coffee ready, she brought them to him and set herself across from him with a similar plate and cup of breakfast. She smiles sheepishly and motions for him to start which he does after a grateful nod.
As he tucks in, she signs, So. Bass tells me you're Lossless.
He watches her hands flutter in sign language and waits for her to finish before answering, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. "Apparently, this isn't exactly a normal occurrence..."
It's an exceedingly rare condition, yes.
"So I'm realizing. But I surely can't be the only one ever."
Bass is Lossless.
He looks over at the blonde as he and Treble continue their discussion. "I guess that makes a lot of sense."
Treble, in exhasperation, finally disengages with Bass and turns to the wanderer. "Hideki. Is it true you visited a house with Ambi?"
"Bass gave me a sample of what that is...and I would say yes, but it was much quieter, and fuller. More instruments and samples. But super quiet. I had to strain to listen."
"How did you find the place?"
He is quiet, and very obviously considering what to say or how to say it. The raven-haired musician sighs and nods at him.
"Its ok. You can tell us."
"Someone...told me to visit to see what I thought. But I didn't understand what was supposed to happen, so I ended up just asking around. Tried to do research but it's hard to get a straight story. In the end, I just decided to stick around in the city. That was months ago."
"And this someone?"
He fidgets a little, fiddling his fingers and dipping his head a bit lower. Bass decides he thinks he knows why. "The snake in the suit."
His silence didn't confirm or deny.
"Snake in the suit?" asks Treble, confused, but Bass waves him off.
"Ok ok, don't worry about it."
"Djura...doesn't always get his hands dirty getting involved with things he shouldn't," Hideki says after a long pause. "But something about this event made me wonder. I don't know his game, but he plays them often. If he thought I would see ghosts or something, maybe that's one thing, but...both of us are...Lossless, I guess. So what was the point?"
Treble looks at Bass, but he's lost in thought. "His name is Djura?"
Hideki nods. But he doesn't seem willing to elaborate. So Treble changes tracks. "You said the house was gone now. Fire or something?"
He nods again. "I told Bass the rough estimate of the address...."
Fade glances at Bass, and he's already texting her tablet, which she pulls out and starts checking on satellite maps. She's pulling up news reports of the fire in minutes, and Bass and she read over the documents as Treble presses Hideki.
"Did you search the house to find the source of the music?"
"I found a few speakers but I didn't want to poke around too much. It was trespassing, of course, but the place wasn't very structurally sound so I didn't want to get hurt."
"I have to admit, you're a lot more responsible than most urban explorers these days."
"I try. It's no fun breaking a leg in a place no one will hear you yell."
Treble gives a rueful work. "Speaking from experience, I see."
Hideki chuckles but then stops and gently pops his right fist into the palm of his left hand. "Oh! I remember one thing though." When the three looked at him, he continues. "Djura. When he came to see me, there was something different about him."
"Oh?" asks Bass.
"He had a tattoo. He doesn't usually have body markings, like me. We just have piercings. it was of--"
"A plane and a letter D?" asks all three, though Fade signs hers.
He blinks. "Yeah. Actually, it was a spaceship, but that's mostly the same. How did you know??"
Treble and Bass glance at each other.
"I take it this is relevant information."
"You've no clue," Bass replies. He leans against the couch and hums to himself.
"Looks like this is getting more and more twisted. Your friend appears to be playing with forces he shouldn't be." Treble's deep blue eyes grow cold.
"Part for course for Djura." Hideki's eyes also grow a touch colder, that familiar iciness Bass remembered from their first meeting. "I have one question about something."
Treble nods.
"What kind of uniform has a patch on the blazer and an armband? They have numbers on them."
--Dio (10/28/22)