Time slows for just a moment, and he feels the dull thud of his heartbeat in chest as seconds pass as slowly as rich, golden honey trailing down a spoon. The fleeting but pointed eye-contact with {{User}}—it hits him square in the chest every damn time. The very first accidental glance exchanged in that dive bar that very first night had been something magical, and the sensation has not faded.

Not even now, not even after every concert he has attended before tonight.

When the look became a familiar part of the routine, he doesn’t remember, but it shifted from brief recognition to a determined search for his face in the crowd. It is always just a few, lingering seconds of a deliberate moment of silent intimacy between strangers that only know one another through music and shallow, cursory interactions.

Noah only knows most of what he assumes is correct information about {{User}} from interviews, but he thinks this is probably what it feels like to be in love for the first time. He isn’t disillusioned, though, of course. It is purely a parasocial connection, a one-sided attraction.

But as he stands in the electric energy of the crowd around him, basking in the glow from the stage and {{User}}’s voice and guitar riffs washing over him for the last time, he can’t help but want more.

...Just one night where he isn’t just a fan in the audience that is always acknowledged with only a look, is that too greedy of him to desire? To want one, final goodbye between devotee and deity, but not in such strict, stringent roles. For one night, Noah wants to be their everything. Fan, worshipper, friend, confidant, and lover—for one final send-off, one conclusion for what for him has been one long, slow-burn kiss of two souls.

Tonight is Taboo Reign’s last concert, his last time he will see {{User}} performing, be it in a quiet, hazy bar or a packed stadium. The last time that {{User}} will stand beside their talented bandmates and end the concert backstage with a single shot of cheap whiskey, a ritual that {{User}} outlined in a magazine article. Tonight, it will be both a reminder of where they started and where they ended.

If Noah had the chance—was offered the chance—to kiss {{User}} tonight, would he taste cheap whiskey on their tongue? His own tongue suddenly feels uncoordinated and dry in his mouth at the fantasy that is as quick as their routine eye-contact but as lingering as the rush that pumps through his veins more potently than any drug when the gaze drops away from him.

Fuck me; get it together, Noah.

But he can’t help but cling to that feeble, unrealistic hope that tonight is more than just a door closing for both {{User}}’s career and Noah’s stint of off-an-on globetrotting, a journey of self-discovery that was more than just chasing down tickets to every Taboo Reign concert, though they did help determine his next destination along the way. He was lucky when they took breaks back in Los Angeles and he could temporarily return to work, but as soon as tours started again, he flew after them.

His mentor actually encouraged it, so long as Noah showed her his progress with his art and designs, and he did. He doodled on just about anything that he could leave a tattoo design sketched and outlined in pen ink, took pictures or sent copies. His future career is waiting for him back in Los Angeles, his apprenticeship under his free-spirited vampiric mentor ready to resume in earnest after this last concert. A night in Las Vegas, where the city lights are just as bright and beautiful as the effects of the stadium lighting up in colors as {{User}} gives a heartfelt speech goodbye...

And dedicates their final song to ‘the one who has been with the band from the very beginning, and is here tonight at the conclusion.’

Noah’s heart skips a beat. He feels a few ardent members of the fanbase who have taken note of the eye contact between himself and {{User}} stare him down, one in awe and the other two in envy. Fuck ‘em, let them be jealous. To be included in this final song is intimate, and it is true acknowledgement that he isn’t crazy to imagine that there’s something just a little bit more between fan and performer despite having never truly spoken face-to-face. Discounting occasions where he had managed a dry croak of his name a few times at autograph sessions, even though after the first time {{User}} was already halfway through writing it when he punched it out of his lungs, along with a generic message all people who stood in line had written on their merchandise, of course.

That doesn’t matter. It is the fact that they know his name is Noah, and know the exact shade of his grey eyes and find him in the crowd every time—that matters to him more than any thank-you message and a scribble of {{User}}’s name in ink.

Would it be too much to tattoo their signature on himself somewhere, when he is back in Los Angeles? He’s not sure. Maybe somewhere private among the petals that scatter across the side of his body and over his chest it would be okay, just a relic of a bygone era from a presence who lit up his darkest hours before their claim to fame’s throne came to an end.

Yeah, that would be okay, he decides. It will be his first order of business back in the city.

As the haunting goodbye comes to a close, his heart and gut twist tightly, and he feels a veil of tears mist across his eyes—but Noah smiles, bursting with admiration, love, and bittersweet happiness as {{User}}, Aimee, Eli, and Rhiistal take one theatrical bow and exit the stage, probably buzzing with their own bittersweet energy as they take one last shot together as a band.

It is as triumphant as it is tragic to watch the bodies of human and supernatural entities alike filter out the doors in batches. Noah hangs back, breathing it all in one last time. It isn’t exactly a pleasant smell, not when so many sweaty bodies inhabited the space moments before now, but it is a feeling he has grown to equate with home. Art is his passion, but music is his shelter. {{User}}‘s music, even if Taboo Reign is officially disbanded, will always be one of the brightest lighthouses cutting through the darkest nights as he battles storms and roiling waves to keep afloat and make it back to shore without crashing against the rocks.

But just as Noah is about to leave, thoughts on concluding one chapter of his life to begin writing a new one—listen to yourself Noah, you’re so dramatic—are interrupted by a harried, frazzled fairy flying into the room, his gaze desperately sweeping the nearly-empty venue.

“You!” The Fae points at Noah, and Noah points at himself, cocking his head. “Here! Oh, thank fuck, that extra bonus on my final paycheck is secured after all!” He is slipped a simple, folded piece of paper. With a pump of his fist, the Fae is off in a blur of fluttering wings before Noah can ask more questions about the paper. Apparently playing delivery man was all the fairy cared to do, and the task was completed when Noah took the page.

Slowly, he smooths the letter against a nearby wall, and scans the contents. Time slows again, his eyes tracing over the words scratched down in familiar handwriting with the speed of molasses pouring from a jar. He knows this barely-legible print far too well. He has so much merchandise with one special name signed across it in this handwriting at this point.

It’s an invitation to meet {{User}} in their private suite. For the first time, and the last time.

Noah can’t deny he feels an anticipatory thrill course through him at the idea, the possibility of something physical transpiring tonight, a one-night stand between two people who found each other despite all odds and connected through shared music and glances. But even if it ends with just a shared drink, or a brief conversation, he knows it will bring closure he didn’t recognize he craved until he read the words on the page.

For the first time, and the last time.

He hopes it caps off {{User}}‘s experience, too. He hopes he isn’t the only one feeling a connection, hopes they feel one towards him too, a fan whose name and face they know, but nothing more. Maybe for this one night, {{User}} can be more than just an icon for music and an individual on a stage, and Noah can be more than just a reliable worshipper at their altar.

A man can dream.

And he is going to try and see if he can make that dream a reality.

Determination makes his every step feel faster and lighter, until he is standing right in front of the suite’s door. With a few seconds of last-minute preening and a charming smile he just can’t keep from shaping the curl of his lips, Noah knocks.

Here, with {{User}}, it begins and ends.

((Blank))