Chapter Text
Your name is BOJACK HORSEMAN and your ass is starting to hurt from sitting on this couch so long. You wish you were lying. You also wish that he knew the word for when your ass hurts... it's a real issue, people. But enough of this silly business, and enough of this whimsical script- it's time to fall back into the good-old THIRD PERSON.
Bojack sloppily turned onto his side, where a snoring Todd layed. And honestly, the view wasn’t as ugly as laying on his left facing the window. Bojack always hated the look of Hollywoo, especially from a distance, which wasn’t aided by a memory of one Mister Peanutbutter, who he hadn’t spoken to in months.
Forgetting was an easy task for Bojack- fuck, he maybe retained two memories from childhood maximum. But the memories of that night with him kept resurfacing, like the empty milk jug that was floating in his pool. He had tried to drown the milk jug in a drunken rage- what business did it have in HIS goddamn pool? But whenever he walked away, the milk jug crept back up to the surface at a stronger force than before.
This horrid cycle of drowning-floating-drowning turned Bojack to the bottle, which inevitably made it worse- alcohol really only washes away the unimportant memories. The memory he’s trying to wash away having been kissing Mister Peanutbutter- but he didn’t want the readers to remember that either.
While Bojack had been brewing in his own misery for the last few months, Mister Peanutbutter had been… what had he been doing? Well, he had been in that spacious house all alone. Diane took off two nights after the kiss without a reason. Her cell wouldn’t pick up, she hadn’t left an address, and even seven carrier pigeons sent by her husband couldn’t track her down.
This certainly catered to the thirsty Hollywoo commoners, who were desperate for a new story. Marriage scandals were among the news outlets’ favorite reports. And as far as Bojack goes, Mister Peanutbutter tried not to think about it. The thought of him felt like sour milk in his gut.
His phone rang out with a song, Mister Peanutbutter’s House. He waited for a few rings to listen to it, swaying side-to-side with the bassline. His ears perked up slightly and he closed his eyes.
He answered the call. “Peanutbutter speaking.”
A shrill voice greeted him through the telephone. “Mister Peanutbutter, how the hell are you?”
He sighed. “I’ve been better.”
“Well, cheer up mister, I’ve landed you a side part on Secretariat with your old buddy Bojack!”
Princess Carolyn knew what she was doing when she made this call. Was she putting two of her closest friends in an incredibly uncomfortable setting whilst being watched like hawks by the public eye? Yes. Did she feel guilt or hesitation? Absolutely not.
Mister Peanutbutter’s jaw fell at the mention of his name. He knew that they kissed (it was more than that, Peanutbutter), technically, but he saw that more as something in the public consciousness than something real. The edges of the memory were fuzzy and the lines were blurred. Where did he begin and Bojack ended? And why didn’t he call?
“PC, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he frowned. And he might’ve been right, too. Princess Carolyn didn’t care about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, she cared about money- she meant, her friends!
Which is why she pressed on.
“PB, I’m gonna have to ask you to cut the shit for a second. You and Bojack have great chemistry that would really pop onscreen. Besides, I know you miss him.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you know that I haven’t seen him?”
She playfully shrugged, noting “Bojack and I talk.”
Bojack would’ve never talked, of course, except for when Princess Carolyn showed up at his house with three bottles of bourbon ‘as a gift’.
In all honesty, she might’ve been doing this for Bojack. She couldn't bear to see him so heartbroken. She was also doing this as a lover of drama; she couldn’t help but tug the strings of the marionette. Even more honestly, her reasons didn’t matter. All she wanted was to hear a yes through the harsh phone speaker.
“Listen, Peanutbutter, can I at least get a maybe?” she smiled.
He hesitated. “Maybe.”
Carolyn cheered through the telephone wires. “That’s the dog I know and love! Bye, PB.”
The last noise he heard over the phone was a frustrated grunt from Princess Carolyn who couldn’t figure out where the button to hang up was. Her phone was always putting it in a goddamned new spot.
Diane was laying in bed in that moment.
Not in the bed she and Mister Peanutbutter had shared, but a stiff mattress laying on the floor of a shitty Queens apartment. She felt an overwhelming loneliness lying there, but the mice kept her company.
She didn’t mean to leave so abruptly, of course. But everything seemed so much easier without Peanutbutter there. Even though she smoked more than ever before, New York was a breath of fresh air.
She didn’t think anything of Bojack and him kissing; she knew neither of them were gay. She just had to get away from him. From both of them, for that matter.
She pulled open her laptop to a dimly-lit corner of Wikipedia she had gotten stuck on. Her boss said that she needed a real story if she was going to make it as a journalist, but everything she was researching seemed to only pertain to her interests or be superficial.
She got offered this job about two weeks prior to her departure from LA. The email had sat in her inbox, turning stale. She had opened and read it within seconds of receiving it, but the natural conflict of her will versus her responsibilities prevented her from responding. The night she decided it was over, she called Sewsworth News, packed a single suitcase, and caught the soonest flight from LAX.
She felt spiteful of her past self for not bothering to bring a goddamn laptop charger, but she had not had a single pang of regret in her time there thus far regarding leaving.
Bojack ended up missing her the most.
And he had a weird relationship with the longing, too; some part of him was relieved she was gone. She didn’t have to see him fuck up any more than he already had.
His romantic feelings for her had essentially dissolved, of course. He wasn’t sure if they were ever there in the first place. He knew she was just his Dr. Melfi, a woman who listened to him bitch and moan and didn’t complain about it. That was part of why he felt so much guilt about kissing Peanutbutter, and again, and again after that. He knew it would kill her.
His head swam in an odd combination of hangover, dehydration, and the usual web of guilt and self-hatred. Half of his body was hanging off of the couch. He was a living corpse.
“Hey Bojack, where are the fucking Wheaties?” yelled a strained Todd from the kitchen.
Bojack grumbled. “In the dishwasher.”
Todd paused. “Why would they be in the dishwasher?”
He snorted again. “No room.”
There was an odd understanding between the two of them. They had both set aside their incompatibility and begrudgingly got along. It worked fairly well; it kept Todd happy. He wouldn’t be angry that the Wheaties were in the dishwasher. He understood it was in Bojack’s nature. He wasn’t angry at Bojack for having hidden from the world for the last nine months either. He was happy to sit on the couch and watch Horsin’ Around (and The Devil Wears Prada on Fridays). It was useless to try to budge him. Bojack was an immovable object.
Todd knew about Mister Peanutbutter. At least, about how Bojack felt about him. He was pretty sure he had talked about making out with him while he and Bojack were high. He had listened to Bojack whine about Peanutbutter, how much he hated him for years. When you have a sworn enemy to someone (at least in the case of Bojack), the line between hate and love was nonexistent. They were soulmates, in a way. Doomed to hate each other forever.
Bojack opened his phone and stared at Diane’s contact. Should he call her? Well, the answer was obviously no. However, he wanted to and no logical pleading could stop him. He thought she might be able to sort out his shit for him. Diane… cell phone or home phone? She rarely picked up her cell.
Mister Peanutbutter jumped at the loud cry of the landline. Jesus, he hadn’t used this thing in years. Who would bother to call the home phone that the data company forgot to charge him for? (Fuck, is it Diane) He had an awkward habit of allowing the phone to ring several times before answering; he feared he came across as desperate. He picked up the receiver.
“Hello? Peanutbutter residence.”
And Bojack heard that god-awful voice. When Peanutbutter was really broken down, when he stepped out of that stage persona- he stopped sounding like Ryan Seacrest with a cold. His voice became vulnerable and soft; like turning on the engine of an old car. He awkwardly fumbled to hang up the phone, but made a few errrs and uhhhs in the process.
Mister Peanutbutter would recognize that voice anywhere.