Chapter Text
Bobby does have to admit, when he thinks about it for too long, this all feels like stereotypical rich kid dramatics.
He figures that it’s maybe not too bad—at least he’s not drunk-driving or stealing things or beating people up—even though there’s a voice in the back of his head that insists he’s being insufferable and entitled.
The voice sounds an awful lot like his dad, though, so he ignores it as much as he can.
The plan’s simple.
Stick to coffee and energy drinks and the likes for a while, but maintain his running schedule. According to the marathon health and safety video his coach made the whole track team watch two weeks ago—ostensibly because they’re all equally likely to be called up to do the painfully long runs, as though anyone but Bobby’s been sent up for anything longer than 5 miles since he joined the damn team—being too dehydrated when running longer distances should dry out the tissue in his intestines until they eventually tear, causing very minor internal bleeding. The caffeine is to act as a diuretic and actively dehydrate him, and also so he’s got something that feels hydrating so he doesn’t end up with his head under the tap in the bathroom sink, mouth open like that dog on TikTok that’s learnt to turn on taps.
A YouTube horror story had even said it wouldn’t hurt that much.
His teammates are probably gonna kill him for being down for the count for the next few meets, and coach will throw water bottles and Gatorades at his head for months, but that’s a reasonable price to pay for ten minutes of his dad fucking looking at him. It doesn’t even have to be for long. Five fucking minutes to make sure he’s not dying would be more damn attention than he’s had in months.
It’s the stereotypical problem of daddy doesn’t love him enough, and daddy hasn’t ever loved him enough, and the atypical solution of Bobby caring enough about his running career that he’s not about to do anything really stupid.
Willie would probably call it really stupid, but Willie can move on to the kids of other rich men his dad’s friends with, so Bobby tries to ignore the whisper in the back of his head reminding him of the closest thing he has to a friend.
This isn’t about Willie, it’s about Bobby, and his abysmal relationship with his dad.
The sad thing is, he doesn’t really even remember the point when things got this bad, or why he’s now hitting some kind of self destructive breaking point.
It’s not like his dad’s ever been a particularly warm or available man, but Bobby’s fairly sure he’s got some dim and distant memories of being tossed in the air and held and hugged and spun in circles.
Some nights he wonders if he made those up, to make himself feel better.
There was some point, though, when his dad stopped even fucking acknowledging his existence when he didn’t have to. When Bobby became part of the furniture, or the staff that his dad treats so awfully. He doesn’t even have the luxury of being invisible, he’s just unimportant and unworthy of recognition. His dad looks around the room for him to make sure he’s there, but his gaze doesn’t linger on him to see if he’s happy or healthy or even just fucking okay. As long as he’s there to add to Trevor’s sob story of being a single father, it doesn’t matter what he looks like.
Bobby’s tested it, too.
He showed up high one time, eyes red and blinking slow. He’d probably have been slurring his words if he’d had to speak, but décor doesn’t talk, so it hadn’t been an issue. There was the time he’d shown up dead on his feet, too, cheeks too hollow from endless hours on the track, eyes sunken from those hours continuing late into the night and starting early in the morning. He tries his best to take better care of himself now, because Willie always makes hurt noises when he finds him still running at ten at night or six in the morning, and also because letting himself waste away wasn’t getting his dad’s attention, but it was getting his teachers’, who made disapproving ‘tsch’s at his declining grades, which had never really been good enough to allow for any slipping at all.
This plan doesn’t really fit in the remit of taking care of himself, but he figures there are worse ways to hurt himself. This is a one time extreme that won’t hurt too much, that’ll look worse than it actually is, and that shouldn’t be something Trevor can brush off onto someone else or just straight up ignore.
He’s not scared about it at all, he tells himself, even if his shaking hands as he twists the lid off an iced coffee before his run say otherwise.
Six months ago, Willie never would have dreamed of climbing up the side of the Wilson mansion to ease his way through Bobby’s bedroom window.
It’s not that he and Bobby weren’t friends six months ago, because they’ve been friends pretty much their whole lives—friends who maybe practice kissing from time to time because that’s how bros help bros out, and friends who maybe eye each other up from time to time, because that’s how bros appreciate bros.
It’s more that ever since Bobby’s dad caught Bobby checking out Hugh Grant—in some crime thriller Willie knows Bobby didn’t absorb a single plot detail of—and arranged a girlfriend for him to fix that particular image problem, there’s been something different about their friendship. For starters, Willie’s dad had followed suit, forever entangled in a ridiculous pissing contest with Trevor Wilson that Willie isn’t sure Trevor even knows about.
Now there’s a level of anger bubbling under the surface for both of them, a magma hot fury that they share, that gives Willie the stupid urge to scale the drainpipe that leads to Bobby’s bedroom window at seven am, because his Caleb-mandated girlfriend wants him at her cheer meet even though it’s the same day as the half marathon Bobby’s coach talked him into, and Willie hasn’t missed one of Bobby’s home competitions in years.
At first, the fact that the room’s empty doesn’t feel like an indicator of anything.
Bobby’s not really an early riser, but he’s got wicked insomnia, and it wouldn’t be the first time Willie’s known him to do some ridiculous run at the ass-crack of dawn in an attempt to tire himself out enough so he’d sleep through the day.
The empty cans of energy drink and bottles of iced coffee in the bin are kind of weird, but only because Bobby’s one of those vegetarian, “my body is a temple”, muesli for breakfast kind of health-freak running people, and Willie’s seen him vibrate like a fucking massage chair after a single cappuccino.
Usually his mini fridge is full of caffeinated drinks, but they’re all for Willie, who’s heart doesn’t seem to want to do anything without the caffeine equivalent of an epinephrine shot. Willie’s never seen the guy drink coffee except when he’s put off a paper until the last minute. He believes the shaking from the coffee will counteract the weird things letters do when he reads, even though drinking coffee seems to make him an even slower reader, not a faster one.
It gets sort of worrying after half an hour, when the sun’s started rising and Bobby hasn’t replied to any of the seven texts Willie’s sent him. Bobby always stops running to watch the sunrise, even in the middle of self-hatred fueled marathons that seem more punishment than exercise, and they’ve been friends long enough that no reply during sunrise sends an awful cold feeling spreading through Willie’s stomach.
It takes another half an hour for Bobby to stagger in through his bedroom door, simultaneously flushed and pale in the worst sort of way. Willie would spring forward to hug him in relief if it wasn’t for how weird Bobby looks, coughing into his elbow and almost nauseous looking.
“You were out a while,” he says, instead of forcing his way into Bobby’s space. As clingy as he gets when he’s sleepy, ill Bobby would probably prefer the heat of a nuclear explosion than the warmth of another human being pressed against him, and Willie’s got no desire to make him more uncomfortable than he already looks.
Bobby shrugs, leaning against the bathroom door. Willie would tell him to sit down, but he sort of looks like being close to the bathroom is the safest bet right now. “Wanted to properly tire myself out.”
It’s a very Bobby answer. Only as many syllables as really necessary, even though he probably knows Willie’s been worrying.
Willie takes the risk and decides to push, hoping Bobby’s not hit the point of lashing out at anybody who shows a single sign of caring about him. He’d be more hurt that there’s even the possibility if he knew it wasn’t mainly a reaction of surprise anyone ever would. “You didn’t answer my texts at sunrise.”
Bobby tips his head back against the doorframe to study the ceiling, Adam’s apple bobbing too regularly, like he’s swallowing down the urge to throw up. “I wasn’t anywhere with a decent view, so I just kept going. Figured if I ended up somewhere better I’d stop there, but the route I took was kinda shit.”
It’s a piss-poor excuse, but it’s the best Willie’s gonna get. He opens his mouth to say something, probably some thinly veiled euphemism that sounds like an insult but that’s dripping with I care about you, you idiot, don’t scare me like that. Before he can get a single word out, though, Bobby’s lunging into the bathroom, and Willie slams his hands over his ears to try his best to block out what he’s sure is the sound of the energy drinks and coffee making a reappearance.
After a minute, Bobby’s head peeks out the bathroom door, pale. His eyes are wide and glassy, and he doesn’t only look ill, he looks scared.
“Willie,” he says, whispers really. “I think you should get my dad.”
Fear shoots through Willie, icy and burning and nauseating all at once. “What?”
Bobby swallows thickly. It looks like it pains him. “Um. Coach gave us this talk, about what happens if we’re too dehydrated, and uh. Throwing up blood. That can be one of the things.”
There are probably bigger things to be doing than staring at the cat hair on Bobby’s bed, but it suddenly feels like the only thing that makes sense in the whole room.
Throwing up blood.
That’s not a thing healthy people do. That’s the thing dying people do in medical dramas, when things go horribly wrong. Bobby can’t be dying. He’s sixteen, fit as a fiddle, and he’s too fucking important to die. Not important in that he’s heir to one of the most famous names in the music industry, or in that his dad is worth millions, the kind of money that has colleges salivating at the idea of being on the receiving end of that kind of donation. Important in that he makes spiced hot chocolate that’s the only thing that makes long nights feel bearable, and in that he squeezes Willie’s hand when he knows he’s scared, even in front of his dad, who hates that kind of display of affection.
He can’t die, not because he’s Robert Wilson, but because he’s Bobby, and he’s Willie’s best friend.
“Willie?” Bobby asks, voice weak.
Willie blinks, forces himself to look back at Bobby. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My dad,” Bobby says, closing his eyes. “I need you to get my dad.”
Waking up in a hospital bed, Bobby realizes he may have taken it a little far.
Looking around to see Willie asleep curled up in a shitty plastic chair, his dad nowhere to be found, he also realizes that it was all for fucking nothing anyway.
His limbs feel like lead, but he forces his arm to move until he can stroke Willie’s hair, twisting the strands around his fingers in the way that always gets a happy sigh out of Willie when he’s awake. His stomach is a crucible of crushing guilt and intense loathing, and the tiny weak whisper that insists that he should’ve fucking seen this coming.
“Bobby?” Willie sounds like he’s been crying. Bobby would hate himself for causing it if he wasn’t so damn grateful for the proof someone cares.
Scratch that, he hates himself for not hating himself anyway.
“Hi, sunshine.” Bobby sounds like hell, voice gritty and thick with disuse, which suggests he’s slept longer than he has in years.
“Don’t—don’t you dare,” Willie hisses, rubbed-red eyes blazing with a kind of anger Bobby’s only ever seen directed at his dad. “The doctor said this dehydration must’ve built up for days or even weeks, and you knew immediately what happened—I… I know you knew what you were doing, but Christ, Bobby, did you even fucking think about how much you’d scare me?”
“You weren’t supposed to be home,” Bobby protests weakly, because despite how shocking the excuse is, it’s the only thing he can think of. He hadn’t considered Willie at all with this. It didn't even occur to him at any point that Willie would even care.
They’re friends, sure, but Bobby’s had friends through his dad before. Just because his fingers always itch to play with Willie’s hair, and the one photo in a locked album on Bobby’s phone—one of Willie grinning in the early part of sunset, wreathed in sunlight and dandelions—makes him feel physically sick, it doesn’t mean he means anything to Willie.
That’s always how it works.
There was Joe who made Bobby’s stomach hurt, and Phoebe who was so pretty Bobby wanted to break something, and even Millie, the girl Bobby has to take out once a week to keep his allowance, is the kind of girl that belongs in magazines.
He’s figured out by now that he falls easy, at the slightest quirk lips and the smallest act of kindness, and he’s learned by now that just because his veins feel on fire doesn’t mean anything except that he’s a hopeless romantic.
Joe made Bobby’s stomach hurt, but he also taught Bobby the true meaning of shame, and Phoebe was so pretty Bobby wanted to break some something, but she was also cruel in the subtlest of ways, and Millie belongs in magazines but she won’t ever get in one, because she’s a vicious bitch, and her first words to Bobby were an insult to Willie.
He’s learned not to trust the fire in his veins, and more the reservation in his head, and now look where it’s got him: with Willie glaring at him, cheeks marred by tear tracks.
He didn't think Willie would care, and now that it turns out that he does, he’s not entirely sure what to do with it.
“You don’t think that’s worse?” Willie asks, scrubbing at his eyes like he’s about to start crying again. “That I was supposed to find out that you’d put yourself in the damn hospital through fucking… I don't know, Snapchat?”
“I’m sorry,” Bobby whispers, because there’s nothing else he can say to make it any better. “Thank you, for staying. You didn't have to.”
Something in Willie’s expression crumples, and he shuffles up until his head’s on Bobby’s chest instead of the mattress next to his hip, slinging his leg over Bobby’s. “Of course I stayed, you fucking idiot. I needed to know the second you were okay. I needed to make sure you had someone to wake up to. I needed to—I wanted to be here.”
“Oh.” Bobby leans up as much as he can, despite the awkward angle, so he can kiss the crown of Willie’s head. He still doesn’t trust the fire in his veins at every point Willie’s touching him, but he reckons maybe he can trust the steady echo of Willie’s heartbeat coinciding with his own. “I’m, uh, glad. That you came. That you wanted to stay with me. I’d trade a million of my dads if it meant you wanted to stay with me.”
It’s not even remotely subtle in its double meaning, but Bobby can’t find the energy to care. He’s sure he’ll regret it later, when there isn’t a hydration drip hooked up to his arm, and he’s not comfy in the groove he’s worn into a hospital bed, but for now, it feels like the only thing he could’ve possibly said.
“You don’t have to trade anything for that,” Willie says, and Bobby loves him so much he can’t feel any pain at all. “Okay? You’ll never have to give up anything for me.”