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Robby always liked to tell himself that he was fine. That what he told others, after all, and he preferred to dodge questions rather than lie outright. Lies can be challenged in court.
And it wasn’t a lie, exactly. He was fine.
But tonight, in addition to being totally completely fine, he was most of the way through a fifth of bourbon and contemplating his medicine cabinet for the least terrible way to go.
Objectively speaking, Robby was not fine.
But he was drunk and feeling remarkably chipper about the whole thing.
“Too painful, the stomach cramps would be awful, I don’t want to be found in a pool of my own vomit…”
He took a long pull of Maker’s Mark straight from the bottle, having given up on pouring into a snifter hours ago. He picked up the next bottle of pills. Maybe this would be the one? The letters on the bottle were blurring and he blinked his eyes to see if that helped. Nope.
He poured out the little white pills, trying to make out the code indented onto them, but no matter how he adjusted his reading glasses and the pill in question, he couldn’t make out the code.
Dammit, he didn’t want to wind up covered in his own vomit and shit and still be alive afterwards.
He needed help. This was an important question with a very important answer.
He pulled out his phone and clicked the call icon. He had Dana and Jack on his favorites list, and his thumb wavered between the two before he checked his watch to see it was after 2AM. Dana would be asleep, but Jack was probably awake even when he wasn’t working. He didn’t like to adjust his schedule too much on off-days.
Robby’s thumb pressed Jack’s name on his screen, and Jack picked up after three rings.
“What’s going on, man?” Jack answered.
“Gotta second?”
“Sure, I just finished up at the gym.”
“A' two in tha morning?”
“Best time for it: it’s almost empty. Besides, you called me, sunshine.”
“Right. I did.” Why did he call Jack again?
“You doing OK?” The rhythmic whooshing noise from his phone told Robby Jack was walking.
“Hm? Yeah. M’good. Swell even. Having a graaaaand night.”
“You drunk?”
Robby giggled. “How could you tell?”
“Call it a doctor’s intuition.” There was a rustling coming through the phone now. Was Jack… taking off his clothes?
“I got one a them too, yaknow.”
“Intuition?”
“Got it around here somewhere.”
“I bet you do. Give me a minute.” There was the kthunk sound of a phone being set down and then Robby heard a sudden rushing noise and then distant whistling.
Was Jack… showering? Fuck.
Fuckfuckfuck. Robby didn’t need this. He didn’t need to hear the sound of Jack cleaning his naked, muscular, sweaty, freckled body after he’d just exercised. He probably had lifted weights and his muscles were bulging right now.
Jack probably had showering down to a science from his time in the military. They got what, two minutes to shower? That didn’t sound like enough time. Did Jack take longer showers when he could? Did he like to stand under the hot water, filling the stall with steam? Did his soap himself slowly, lingeringly? Did he think of Robby when he reached down and—
The shower turned off, ripping Robby from the lewd path his thoughts had wandered down. Fuck, he shouldn’t think about his best friend like this. Shouldn’t imagine how he touched himself when no one is looking. Shouldn’t objectify Jack even if he was objectively hot.
“Still with me, man?” Jack’s voice was close, right next to his ear. Robby jumped in place at how close he sounded. It took him a moment to remember he was talking to Jack on a phone.
He took a swig from the bottle. “Yeah, m’here.”
“Good.” The quiet rustling noises resumed, and Robby silently listened as Jack dried himself off and put on clothes, not imagining a thing if he could avoid it. It was torture.
“So how’s it going man? Want me to come over? I can tell you a bedtime story." Jack's tone was teasing and Robby could imagine Jack's little flirty half-smile that came with it.
“Right! I called for a reason.” Robby took another pull from the bottle and looked around. He was on the floor of his bathroom, with lots of pill bottles around him arranged in a loose crescent shape. There were a couple little white pills in his hand. “I called because…” he drifted off. Maybe calling wasn’t the best idea…
“Just say it man. I can take it."
“Well I was uhhhh trying to decide which pills in my cab’net would off someone the best. Fastest, least painful, most g’ranteed chance of dying.”
Robby’s phone was loud with the sounds of rushing air, with Jack’s suddenly rapid breathing. “And you called me to ask?”
“Yah. The bottles’re blurry.”
“You’re at home?”
“Yeah.”
“OK. I’ll come over. Now tell me, why are the pill bottles blurry.” Jack's voice was rhythmic, like he was jogging.
“Been drinking.” Why did Robby call again?
Right.
Fuck.
This was a mistake. Thiswasamistakethiswasamistake—
“What’ve you been drinking?” Jack asked, his voice suddenly distant and rumbly as he spoke through his car’s radio. Robby didn’t answer. “Come on man, don’t keep it a secret. Martini? Straight vodka? G&T?”
“Bourbon. Maker’s Mark.”
“From a glass?”
“Naw. Bottle.”
Jack let out a powerful breath. “How far into that bottle are you?”
Robby held it up to the light, squinting. “Three quarters?”
“That’s pretty far. Didn’t realize you liked Maker’s that much.”
“It’s alright. Good price for qual’ty.”
“You buy that bottle tonight?”
“Naw. Had it around.”
“One moment.” There was a slight waver on the phone then Jack’s voice was loud again. “Just parked.”
“Where’d you park?”
“At your place. Door code still the same?”
“You don’t have to. It’s fine. M'fine."
“I’m already here. Not even out of my way.”
Robby’s door made a pleasant chirping noise and opened.
“Robby? Where are you?” Jack’s voice came through the phone and through his condo.
Robby hung up. “Here,” he called back.
Jack’s footsteps were loud and rapid across the laminate as he hurried his way through Robby’s living room, bedroom, and finally to the entrance of the bathroom.
“Oh Robby.” Jack sighed.
“I couldn’t read the bottle.” He held it up for Jack to see. He took it carefully.
“Good thing too. You don’t mix Vicodin with alcohol. Why do you even have these?”
“They gave them t'me after my tonsillectomy. F'got to take'm.”
“Yeah I remember. We had you rotating Ibuprofen and Tylenol for a week and a half, with those numbing lollipops for breakthrough pain.”
“Hurt like a fucker. Probably should have taken the Vicodin.”
“I remember. Well, how about we get you off the floor and drinking water.” Jack made it clear it wasn’t a question, bending down to help Robby up.
“That’s bad for your back,” Robby said automatically.
Jack scoffed. “I’m deadlifting you like someone who exercises regularly. But if you want to give me a hand…”
Between the two of them, they got Robby off the floor and bundled up in a blanket on the couch. He had a glass of Liquid IV in one hand, and there was a steaming mug of tea cooling on the coffee table. Jack sat opposite him on the couch so their feet could tangle in the center.
Robby stared at the glass in his hand, increasingly sober and aware of what exactly he’d done.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Jack started. He bounced his left foot into Robby’s. “I thought you were just calling to chat. Maybe a drunken booty call that I’d have to regretfully turn down. Not whatever this was.” Jack gestured vaguely at Robby.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t think…” Robby trailed off.
“No. You sounded so happy on the phone too, like you were having a great evening.”
“I was. I guess. I felt fine. I was having a good night.”
“Cataloguing and ranking all the ways you could kill yourself with the pills in your own home is fun?”
“Apparently drunk me thinks so.”
Jack smeared his hand across his face and groaned.
“You thought it was a drunk booty call?” Robby asked tentatively.
“Yeah. That I’d have to turn down. What with the drinking.”
“Why would you think it was a drunk booty call?”
Jack peered over his hand and quirked an eyebrow before propping his head on his fist. “Because sometimes you try to drunkenly booty call me.”
Robby covered his face with his blanket and slid down the couch. He could feel his face and chest going beet red.
He had Vicodin apparently. That seemed like a good alternative to this overwhelming feeling of embarrassment. If he could just… not exist… for a little while. That would be great.
He felt Jack rustling around and then suddenly there was a weight on top of Robby as Jack climbed over him and freed his face. “It’s fine, Robby. I know you’re not serious about it. But the pills, man?” Jack’s face hardened. “You literally called me for help on how to kill yourself. You wanted me to help you make a plan to kill yourself.”
Robby fought Jack for the corner of the blanket, and Jack let him have it, but not without his own piece of revenge. Instead, Jack draped himself over Robby like a second blanket. Robby adjusted his legs so knees weren’t stabbing uncomfortably and that tangled them together a bit. It was... nice.
“You regretfully turned down those booty calls?” Robby bounced back to the other conversation, giving himself a moment.
How was this the safer topic?
“Every single one. But only a bit of regret, though. I’d rather turn you down than wake up next to you and you don’t remember what happened. It’d be wrong, yaknow?”
“What if I was sober, next time I asked?” Robby asked cautiously. Jesus Christ, what was he saying.
Jack took a deep breath on top of him, his belly pressing into Robby’s comfortingly.
“You’re not sober right now.”
“But if I was next time I asked.”
“You’ve never asked while you’re sober.” Jack’s voice brokered no argument. “I’m really not going to think about this like it’ll happen.”
“Maybe it will. One day.”
“Then when that day comes, I’ll figure out what I’ll do. Now can we please get back to the topic at hand, and why I’m here right now? Because, as I may remind you, this was not a booty call.”
Robby adjusted his legs as best he could with the solid weight of Jack on top of him. His face was getting hot and his breath was trapped by the blanket and smelled terrible. He peeled the blanket corner away for blissful cool fresh air.
Jack’s face was right there. He was so close that Robby could count his eyebrow hairs if he wanted to.
“M’sorry. My breath probably smells bad,” Robby said.
Jack nuzzled Robby’s shoulder with his nose before perching his chin up so he could look at Robby. “It’s fine. Talk to me about the pills?”
Robby swallowed. “Dunno what to say. I was just going through the bottles’n I couldn’t read one. Figured I’d call you and then I’d take a picture of it, and you’d tell me wha’ it said’n then I’d put it in the ‘propriate pile.”
“That’s… really dumb.”
“I know." Robby paused. "Didn’t seem dumb.”
“Once you had organized your pills into their viability piles, what then?”
“I don’t know.”
“You weren’t going to take a killing dose?”
“I… hadn’t thought that far.” But Robby had the sneaking suspicion that that’s what he’d do. He’d been so happy after all. Why else would he be that happy?
“I really don’t want you to kill yourself, Robby,” Jack whispered, his voice catching.
“I know.” Robby untangled his hands from the blanket to wrap them around Jack. He squeezed him as best he could, with arms and legs.
Jack’s shoulders began to shake, and he pressed his face deep into the blanket against Robby’s neck. He sobbed once, and then it was like the clouds had opened.
“Hey. Hey no. Don’t do that.” Robby rubbed Jack’s back and sides. Jack was crying, but Jack never cried. It made no sense. Why would he cry? “It’s OK, Jack. S’fine.”
“It almost wasn’t!” Jack sobbed. "You could've been gone!" He burrowed deeper into Robby’s body. Robby wished there wasn’t a blanket between them anymore. That way he could hold Jack better.
“But it’s fine now. I’m here. Still alive. Still here.” Robby tried to speak soothingly to calm Jack down.
“God, could you imagine? If I found you,” Jack got out between sobs.
Robby couldn’t, but he could imagine very vividly how he would feel if he found Jack.
It’d be too much. Too much sadness in a world without Jack in it. Robby didn’t think he’d feel like that for very long. He’d cut it short any way he could.
“You didn’t. I’m here now.” Robby struggled to get the words out. He squeezed Jack harder and found that he was crying too.
They laid like that for awhile, gripping each other like two shipwrecked survivors afloat in a vast stormy ocean. They created their own saltwater and somehow didn’t drown.
After, they hiccuped a bit and Jack had to roll off him so Robby could track down the Kleenex. He brought a small trash can, two more cups of water, and a fresh blanket, the previous one damp with snot and tears. They cleaned up their faces, drank the Liquid IV and the tea.
After, Robby laid down on the couch, and Jack climbed on top of him without asking. They finagled the fresh blanket atop them both, and their mixed breathing slowed and steadied.
After, Robby heard himself say, “Thanks for coming over, Jack.”
And after, Robby heard Jack say, “Course I came. You called.”