On Air

Title: On Air
Author: nieded
Fandom; Pairing: American Idol S2; Clay Aiken/Ryan Seacrest
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with these characters.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Character death.
Author's Notes: It's been a long time since I've written AI slash, and a long time since anyone's read this pairing. This takes place sometime in the near future; established relationship. This is maaaay be the sappiest, romantic thing I've ever written.
Summary: The world ends and Clay stops singing.


Clay dips his hands into the soapy dishwater, blowing at the red wisps of hair drifting over his glasses. He listens to the faint music from the radio that fills the silence in his house, wringing out the sponge before scrubbing at a bowl. He enjoys washing dishes despite his fancy dishwasher, likes knowing each spec of food and soap has been washed and dried away from his blue Formica by his careful hands, enjoys the strange texture of his prune-like fingertips after soaking his skin in the murky water for a quarter of an hour. To his left, the radio buzzes, static washing over the warbling melodies. Clay glances at it, frowning as he shakes one hand dry and begins to fiddle with the tuner, and then the antenna. The soft ringing of ride cymbals fades in and out. His breath hitches.

To his astonishment, the dial begins to turn on its own, slowly surfing the radio stations as clips of country and rock surface and succumb to the surrounding static buzz. He feels his pulse quicken as he glances behind him and then out the kitchen window, silently struggling to recollect how many pills he took this morning. Then he slowly backs away from the radio, fumbling towards the kitchen sink. The dial continues to turn, and suddenly the snatches of music become familiar. They’re his songs.

“I can’t live if living is without you…”

Bzzzzz…

“Solitaaaaaiiiire…”

More static; slowly receding back in time.

“…if hearts were unbreakable…”

Shzzzz…

“If you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind…”

The dial continues to rotate, achingly slow until it lands on 102.7, and an all-too familiar voice washes through the room. In alarm, Clay slams back into the counter.

“Hey! Thanks for tuning into KIIS FM; this is Ryan Seacrest,” the cheerful voice announces on the radio.

Clay’s chest tightens, knuckles clenching around the sleek marble countertop. It sounds so real, so authentic: the way Ryan accents the wrong words with such enthusiasm.

“We’re going to play an oldie from my buddy Clay Aiken: ‘This is the Night.’”

It sounds too real, but Clay knows. He was there. Ryan’s dead.

Behind him something splashes in the soapy water, and he spins around, his head twisting faster than his body can keep up with. It’s a hand connected to an arm connected to a shoulder, reaching into the sink for the sponge. Another warm hand rests on the small of his back and he can hear and feel the hot breath against his neck.

“Hey,” Ryan says smiling. He dons a black t-shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, his hair artfully tousled because it was the first thing he did the morning he had died.

Clay shifts awkwardly around until he’s facing the ghost, Ryan’s hand now pressed gently against his chest. It’s been three years since he’s seen him, but God does he look real. He feels warm, alive. “You’re…” he mumbles. “You’re not… here. This is –”

“It’s whatever you think it is,” Ryan says, smiling gently. It’s a real smile – not one that’s patented pure smarm for television. This smile is softer around the edges of his eyes where crow’s feet gather, where his lips split because they’re chapped and the skin stretching across arching cheekbones are smattered with the beginnings of a beard. Clay reaches out, strokes the scratchy texture of his face with uncertainty, drawing his fingers down the outline of Ryan’s mouth before settling on the cool skin of his throat. He can’t find a pulse, no fluttering or solid rhythm. Behind him the twinkling piano of his song goes silent and the radio turns to static.

In his head, Clay calculates the three years he’s been on a cocktail of antidepressants. Two pills a day times 356 times 3 means 2,136 pills up until this moment, at least. He won’t count the few days he slipped and took four or maybe six to try and erase the tightening, aching sensation in his chest. He ignores the nights he took one too many sleeping pills that helped him erase more than half the day away. Instead, Clay concentrates on what his therapist encouraged him to do. Face the facts. Understand he isn’t coming back and that it’s time to move on. “You’re not real,” he states matter-of-factly, exhaling a slow unsteady breath. He swallows as Ryan’s face falls. “This is just a dream,” he rationalizes, closing his eyes tightly, “and when I open my eyes you’ll be gone.”

“Then never open your eyes,” Ryan commands as he lifts onto the tips of his toes, dragging his hand up Clay’s thin torso to cup his jaw. Warm droplets of soap and water trickle down the curve of Clay’s neck as he brings his other hand to curl around the soft tufts of red hair. Their lips brush against each other’s as if yesterday was Tuesday and tonight was Wednesday where Ryan would head to FOX Studios to announce the elimination of another superstar-hopeful – as if tonight is not Thursday, nearly two years, eleven months, twenty-nine days and twenty-three hours since he had died.

They kiss fiercely, Clay wrenching his eyes shut as his hands shakily lift to rest on the slight ledge of Ryan’s hips, fisting around the plain black t-shirt. He drags one barefoot over Ryan’s, enjoying the soft brush of hair beneath the pads of his feet and the low contented hum he draws from him as they press their bodies together. When they pull apart, Clay drags the tip of his nose along the ridges of Ryan’s ear, burying his face in the heated crook of his neck. He smells like expensive melon and cucumber soap, hibiscus and chamomile. It’s the same smell that Clay would wake to at seven when Ryan had left for the station already at five, rolling over in a tangle of sheets to bury his face in Ryan’s pillow while praying for a few extra minutes of sleep.

Ryan realigns their mouths together and kisses him slowly. It’s a kiss better reserved for lazy afternoons sitting a safe distance from the ledge of the pool; not the desperate kind of kiss he wants to share after wading through three years of depression and pills, hunger and need. Clay wants to smash into him, wants their teeth to click together and their lips to bleed. Clay wants to crush him, but Ryan’s hands wiggle between them to rest on his chest, preventing him from inching closer. Clay’s long skinny arms reach around to pull him closer, bruising fingers pressing into the groove of Ryan’s hipbones and the small of his back, almost tugging at the smaller body, but still Ryan resists with his slow determined kisses, a mix of heat and sighs and promises that maybe this time he will stay.

When they pull apart, he whispers to Clay, “Don’t open your eyes, not yet,” while reaching upwards to nip at his neck, to wrap his arms around those slight, rigid shoulders and underweight frame. Clay rubs his lips against Ryan’s sandpapery shadow of a beard, hums into his ear some nameless melody in a way he hasn’t sang in years while recollecting that they would sometimes do this. They would pull each other close at the end of a long day just to know that someone was there who would not ask questions, accuse them, or ridicule them. He hums quietly, and soon they rock back and forth, sashaying to the beat that Clay pats on the small of Ryan’s back. Ryan is his microphone and his band; his audience as the soapy dishwater cools and they rest against each other.

“You should start singing again,” Ryan murmurs in his ear. “You’re really very good.”

Clay’s breathing hitches. He sighs more than laughs as he remembers being voted off from the Top 64 so many years ago on American Idol. Ryan had shook his hand and told him to keep trying, that he’d be back. Clay laughed, perhaps squeezing his hand too tightly when he replied, “Really very good isn’t good enough.”

“It’s good enough for me.”

Clay doesn’t remember the last time he really sang. Sometimes he catches himself murmuring snatches of song underneath his breath and stops himself, glancing around his empty home as if some ghost or shadow may have heard him. He doesn’t want to sing again.

“You really should,” Ryan persuades as they sway back and forth, kissing the line of his jaw. “Sing me something?”

“I can’t,” Clay protests. It’s been too long, and his throat feels like a desert coated and layered with sand. No matter how hard he tries to sweep it all away, some ashes will always remain.

“Sing for me and this time I’ll stay?”

Clay knows it’s a lie. “You’re dead,” he sighs, almost resigned to the fact years later. “This isn’t even real.”

Ryan nods in agreement and begins to hum the same tune where Clay had stopped. He pulls away slowly, disentangling their limbs as Clay continues to squeeze his eyes shut. “I love you,” he says, as if today was Friday and tomorrow they would see each other again after Ryan's return from the radio station.

“I miss you,” Clay whispers. The cool air conditioning fills the space between them as he clutches tightly to Ryan’s forearms. He doesn’t understand how Ryan can act so coolly, pretend that not a single day has passed between them.

Ryan loosens his grip, squeezing Clay’s fingers gently as he sighs, “I know.” He reaches up and touches Clay’s mouth, his sharp cheekbones and the soft, closed eyelids. Then he lets go.

Clay stumbles and reaches out to close the distance but only grasps handfuls of air. He opens his eyes to an empty room, listening to his shaky breaths and thudding pulse ringing in his ears, chest tightening and eyes welling as he fights off the emptiness. His fingers tighten around the edge of the kitchen sink, and behind him the radio whirs to life.

Bzzzz… Today on KIIS 102.7 FM we remember the death of our morning show host, Ryan Seacrest. Three years ago today…

He dips his fingers into the lukewarm water and searches for the sponge, removing his glasses with a soapy hand to wipe away with his sleeve the threatening tears. With a shaky breath he inhales and quietly begins to sing.

xfin

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x-posted to nieded, idolslash