For a house full of musicians, it stayed terribly quiet these days. Chris didn't mind. He didn't have it in him to hear a single note right now. Even the most mundane of things could stop him dead in his tracks. He found himself stood completely immobilized in the kitchen, a wave of dissociation having taken him over. All he could do was stare off into nothingness for God knows how long.

Nothing felt real anymore. A part of his mind tried to cope with the trauma by convincing himself this was all a terrible nightmare or a cruel joke. That somehow, someway, he was waiting on it all to undo itself, for some miracle to come, and Ricky would magically walk through the door.

Jani, trying his damnedest to go unnoticed in the first place, took extra care to be quiet when he walked in on Chris. He wasn't in the mood to be perceived today, and certainly didn't have the energy to deal with whatever Chris was going through. With Chris' back turned to him, he tried to sneak into the pantry without a sound.

"Your father's worried about you." Chris said.

Jani jumped. "I'm fine."

Chris, now having brought himself back to reality, returned to retrieving a mug from the cabinet. "You want some tea?"

"...Sure." Jani pulled out a seat at the island.

The kettle had already been taken off the heat before Chris lost himself to his own mind. He filled up two mugs, then slid one across the counter to Jani. He took note of the two cookies he'd grabbed from the pantry. Wasn't much, but it was something. "Don't tell your dad I told you this, but, Justin's wife thinks you might be gay."

Jani's eyes widened. "Why?"

"She's always been a little... out there. But listen, if there was any family you shouldn't have an issue coming out in, it's this one, which makes me think the coming out isn't the problem."

"Kinda?" He shrugged. Jani absentmindedly played with the string on the tea bag. "I, um, I'm not really sure, is the problem. But I can tell everyone is getting frustrated with me."

"It's no one else's business."

"It is, though. Well, maybe not their business, but it affects other people. I mean, when someone says they have feelings for you, and you don't know how to reciprocate it... I just- I don't want to hurt anyone."

"People will always get hurt, no matter how much you try to do everything right. And sometimes you can do everything right, and find the perfect person, and they still have a brain aneurysm and die and leave you with insane trauma." Chris spoke very matter-of-factly. "What I'm trying to say is, don't put your own life on hold to spare someone else. You probably got that from your father, now that I'm thinking about it. Point in case." He lazy gestured to himself.

"Not like my dad can do a whole lot without the band anyways."

"He can, but that's besides the point. You should never live your life for anyone else. Your uncle and I, for as much as we loved each other, we were our own people. That's why I was so attracted to him in the first place. He had his own identity outside of me, and he was so confident in who he was and what he wanted in life. You'll learn as you get older, those things are so important to a healthy relationship. I'm sorry, I'm rambling, and you didn't even ask for advice."

"No, it's okay. It's nice to hear you talk about uncle Ricky. I miss him a lot."

Chris smiled to himself as he thought about all the time Jani and Ricky had spent together. They'd always hide it under the guise of guitar lessons, but Chris knew, it was also a therapy session. Ricky never had a good relationship with his family—Something the rest of the band couldn't relate to. When Jani started to get to that age where he understood the depth of his mother's abandonment, Ricky was the only one who knew what he was going through.

They'd sit in their home studio for hours, often times with guitars in their laps like they were going to practice but would end up talking the entire time. Chris often had to interrupt to remind them to eat. Some things never change.

"Uncle Ricky told me how he came out, but I don't think you ever did."

Chris started to laugh. "No he didn't." He kept laughing. "No the fuck he didn't. He was honest with you, but he was never that honest. I'm guessing he told you how he came out to his sister?"

"Uhm, yeah. I always figured she told his parents."

"No, she did not. You can find videos of this online—Don't look it up. And don't get any ideas. Just because he did it doesn't mean it was the best choice.

"He'd kind of talked to his parents before to see how they'd react, but he never actually came out to them. So, they came out to a show. They really didn't like our music but he was on decent terms with them at the time, and I guess his mom made some snide comments about me and our old bassist, who was extremely flamboyant.

"We were doing a cover of 'Mother' at the time, and I liked to change the lyrics in it from 'daughter' to 'son'. She didn't like it, and I'm not even gonna get into the other shit she said. Anyways, 'Dead As Fuck' was the second to last song on our setlist that night, and he asked me to, how do I put this? Pantomime some of the lyrics."

"...Oh."

Despite acting like he didn't condone any of this, Chris was smiling ear to ear as he recounted it. "Yeaaah, he had years of pent up feelings from being in the closet for so long, and it all came out that night. We played 'Devil's Night' after that and at the end of the song, I was standing on the riser in the middle of the stage. He ran up to me and kissed me." Je laughed again, "We got in trouble with the venue for our set going over."

"Were you guys dating at that point?" Jani asked.

"Oh, yeah, but I still wasn't expecting it. I wasn't complaining. It wasn't a small kiss either."

"If you weren't my uncles, I'd say it was really badass, but it's pretty gross for me to think about."

"That's completely fair." Chris paused to take a sip of his tea. "My actual coming out was nothing. I waited until after I went on my first date in high school, just to make sure I really was gay. I told my mom the next morning and she was like 'yeah, I know. Now go do the dishes'. Which, by the way, is exactly how it'd go if any of you kids came out."

"Alex is scared his mom is going to be dramatic about it."

"Oh, she will be, but in a loving way. She means well, she just... It's hard for straight people to really get it. If it helps you with figuring stuff out, I can tell you for a fact that no actual straight person on this planet has questioned their sexuality. If you're questioning, you've got something going on, but you shouldn't be in any rush to figure it out."

Jani earned a small smile. "Thanks, uncle Chris."