Reaper's Lullaby

Gus: The Risk of Sleeping

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."
- Stephen King

Something woke Gus out of his deep sleep. When he opened his eyes he realized he was not at the ranch where he'd gone to bed. Instead he was in the first of the old buildings that had served as a home for him and his friends back in Chicago. He was reliving one of his memories.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he realized what had woken him up. Someone was crying. No, Adam was crying. Gus reached for him instinctively, but Adam was not beside him. He had moved away, closer to Hex, and a surge of jealousy shot through Gus's body at the realization. These fleeting, confusing feelings for Adam were more bewildering than ever. He didn't understand any of them. At first he'd assumed it was Hex he wanted, and that's why he felt the twisting in his stomach and the stirring in his body when he looked at the two of them. But when he thought about himself with Hex, Adam was always there too in his fantasies.

In the quiet Gus could hear Adam stifling the sound of his sobs, and Hex was saying, "I know, I know, baby." And Adam said, "God make it stop!"

Gus reached his hand as far as it could go until it touched the edge of Adam's twisted sleeping bag. Adam was too distraught to feel the pressure of his touch though.

"I can't make it stop," Hex said gently but firmly. She was not maternal like Ember, though she had a soft side that only Adam saw.

Until this moment Gus had never witnessed Adam upset. Sometimes he got pissed off, sure. But nothing like this. The despair in his voice was palpable. It cut right through Gus.

"Don't let me go back to sleep," Adam whispered.

"Baby, you have to sleep. You've been up for two days straight."

"This is what happens when I do! Hex, don't let me sleep. Please I'm begging you."

"Okay, okay, I won't. We can smoke some."

"Don't tell the others. I'll get more in the morning," Adam said.

Gus shut his eyes as Adam rolled over and reached for his backpack. He never even knew Gus was awake.

It wasn't long before Gus began to experience his own dark nights. It was when they slept that they were not safe, not protected, and soon he was smoking Crystal with Adam just to avoid drifting off into some nightmare. The two of them would be up for days at a time listening to the ghost on the floor above them, watching sunrise turn to sunset, the manic city outlined in pink neon, throbbing with noise. It was the chaos rather than the calm that brought them peace. The chaos provided insulation between them and their darkest secrets. It was a padded wall in an insane asylum.

When Gus had his night terrors, always without fail he woke up in Adam's arms. Though Adam and Hex were still together, Adam became more physical with Gus once they started turning tricks together, and Hex didn't seem to notice or mind. Gus didn't mind either, because waking up in Adam's arms gave him instant relief from his fears. If Crystal was his amp-up drug, Adam was his serene comedown.

"I know how it is," Adam would whisper as he drew a string of soft kisses across Gus's sweaty forehead.

He never asked what the dreams were about, and Gus never asked about his either. It wasn't about the fear. It was about the safety they found in each other upon waking.

The nightmares were always worse when they were coming down off the high. Gus remembered that too late, and as the memory dream dissolved into the dark horror movie of his past traumas, the fear enveloped him. The terror could manifest in any of his five senses. Tonight it was the sense of touch, the feeling of thousands of unseen hands crawling all over his body, pinning him to the bed like an insect trapped in a spider web. He began to flail around to get free, eventually throwing himself out of the twin bed.

The hard cold floor at the ranch smacked Gus awake, and he laid there gasping in confusion for a few minutes. The dark room was empty, but the door was open to the hallway since it was required, and soft light streamed in across his face. Every now and then hall monitors looked in on them to make sure they were sleeping.

Remembering this, Gus scrambled to his feet.

"You okay?" someone asked.

It was a male voice, and some crazy part of him thought it had to be Adam, and Gus spun around to look for the glowing apparition. But Adam wasn't there. In his place was one of the hall monitors.

"I-I'm fine," Gus stammered. "Going to the bathroom. I just tripped."

"Okay. Goodnight then," said the young man at the door.

"Goodnight," Gus said hurriedly.

He put on the socks with the sticky bottoms that they had given him earlier today and crept to the bathroom. He didn't turn on the light, and when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror he realized there was a dark shadow standing beside him. Gus gasped and flipped the switch on. Nothing was there.

Jeff had told him he might hallucinate, but the first night? He'd gone much longer without drugs before, and he'd never seen anything that wasn't there unless he was in the thick of withdrawal. He was in for a rough ride and he knew it.

———————

"Do you believe in ghosts?" Gus asked Jeff in their first session the next day.

Gina, just like she'd promised, sat in Jeff's office with him, and she raised her eyebrows at the question.

"Ghosts?" Jeff repeated uncertainly, like he wasn't sure he'd heard the question right.

"Yeah."

"Why do you ask?"

Gus squirmed in his chair. "I just wanna know."

Jeff leaned back and chuckled. "Usually I'm the one asking the questions, but if this is how you want to start out I'll go for it. Ghosts. Hm... I guess anything is possible. What about you, Gus? Do you believe in ghosts?"

Gus nodded. "Yeah. I definitely do."

"Did you see or hear something that made you think of this?"

Gus thought about the shadow in the bathroom mirror. "I don't think this ranch is haunted," he said.

"Well I'm glad to hear that," Jeff said, amused.

"I don't think places are haunted. I think people are haunted," Gus said. "I think I'm haunted."

"You know meth can make you see and hear things that aren't really there. Did you know that?" Jeff asked.

"I know that," Gus said dismissively.

"So who's haunting you?"

"Someone I loved. No, someone I still love."

"What's their name?"

"No names. Not yet."

"Okay, that's fair. Tell me about this person."

"They were like me. A lot like me, but better. Smarter, funnier, stronger, just better. Like the best version of me," Gus said softly. "Everything I couldn't be. And now they're dead. I want to help this person go to The Light. They said they couldn't go 'till I found someone else and they knew I'd be okay. But the thing is, I did find someone else for awhile, but they died too. And now I don't wanna find anybody else. I don't wanna love nobody. I wanna know how to not love."

Jeff sighed. "What you're talking about, Gus, is shutting your heart down. It's possible. You can do it. You can never love anyone ever again."

"Can you teach me how?" Gus asked hopefully. "If we have to talk anyway, and you already know I ain't quittin' drugs, at least it won't be a waste of time."

Jeff looked at him thoughtfully for a few minutes before answering.

"Here's what I can do. Give me a few sessions to talk to you about the people you've loved. Then, if you still want to, I'll tell you how to shut it down. Is it a deal?"

Gus sighed, figuring it was the best offer he was going to get. "Okay. I guess. But I won't change my mind."