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It’s almost eleven at night, and there’s a soft jingle playing from a busted up speaker somewhere in the Quickstop. The melody is bittersweet and Dante can recall the tune—not the specific song, but the unmistakable grunge band. It’s Third Eye Blind, and the frontman is belting out cries for help, going on about how it feels to be alone and drowning as rhythmic guitars squeal in a reverberation that reeks of ‘97.
Dante appreciates the zen-coated trip down memory lane, but he reaches over the counter and turns the thing off with a grunt. The song is overplayed and doesn’t hold a candle to older works from their third album, which is a sweet ass album, although it hasn’t ever been considered radio worthy.
It’s quiet without Randal here, and Dante isn’t sure whether he prefers the silence or not. There’s nothing but the hum of fluorescent bulbs and cars passing outside, a dead finale to the slow night.
He saunters around the back, checks on the freezer temperatures and scribbles down some numbers on a clipboard. Organizes Marlbros on the shelf. Balances the register.
If Randal were on this shift, it’d probably take twice as long to close, cue the hindrance and selective attention span. They’d probably be listening to that hackneyed Semisonic song, Closing Time— Dante would hide a smile and mumble along with the ritual while taking inventory, shaking his head at Randal, who’d be doing a piss poor job of mopping the floors while singing eagerly.
Dante doesn’t mind the guy's blatant disregard for stability, but what’s irritating is that Randal was perfectly fine yesterday— fine enough to be in a good mood and even kill a few beers after his shift, so it was obvious he'd called in today just for the sake of blowing off work. Dante might be able to brush that off if not for the fact that he’d been left in the dark, left to work the shift alone with no memo other than: “Oh yeah, Randal called in. Said he’s come down with something. Also—delivery truck’s coming at three.” Uttered semi-directly from his boss over the phone, approximately ten hours ago.
It gets pretty old, watching over the store and playing supervisor whenever Randal makes it his goal to “dismantle the system from the inside”— which, despite his confounded ramblings, the saying means nothing in itself. It means being passive while staying reactive at the same time, prevailing as a parasite while somehow participating in a “revolution”. It’s an excuse, a twisted proverb to justify acting like a churlish savage whenever customers get involved. Which, Dante can admit, the dog and pony show is occasionally amusing and especially refreshing if said customer is deserving of that low-ball mockery.
Sometimes it’s just a pain in the neck, though. Dante isn’t a fan of taking the fall for whatever indiscreet thing Randal says or does. That’s when things get exasperating. And naturally, being a semi-decent employee might imply compliance, or submission, or some other suffocating concept that goes against everything Randal stands for and takes to heart. Subsequently, Dante gets annoyed a lot.
But he still pulls at strings, gnaws at opportunities to further entertain the guy’s convoluted theories and discursive philosophies. Because it's what he does, what he’s always done. Dante sort of misses that right now and he doesn’t mind acknowledging it. After all, Randal’s his counterpart, the foil to his woeful introspection.
The day’s been painfully boring without him, actually. Dante is rightfully pissed about that too, because maybe they could’ve spent the day watching the original Ninja Turtles with their tacky rubber suits or something equally farcical and maybe the hours would’ve passed by quicker had they been making fun of something together.
Dante figures; If Randal wants to call in sick to take a slack day, that’s fine—it's unprofessional and apathetic, but by all means, more freedom to him. But not letting Dante in on his stupid scheme? He’s inconsiderate, but calling in early to give the boss his line of horseshit, without even calling him, his best friend, the one guy who’d—
Ah, fuck it. It’s been a long night, Dante’s too tired for all that.
One half-assed sweep job later and he’s flipping off the light switches, locking the front door with a jiggle of keys. Pull the door, test. Double-check the lock, muscle memory.
He’s in the Buick Century, cruising past headlights and flickering neon signs within the sea of Leonardo’s finest attractions. Indecisive for a moment, the car stalls at a stop sign. Flipping on the blinker, he takes a left near a glowing strip joint and coasts further down Jackson Street.
It’ll be at least a little entertaining to call Randal on his bullshit. To pop in for a surprise visit and find him on the couch, probably surrounded by crumpled Burger King bags and watching Ranger Danger for the fifty-sixth time. Dante will lay into him for faking sick at his big age, and maybe he’ll fill Dante in on whatever he’s been up to all day. It’s childish, but it’s something to do.
The Buick parks parallel to a green bungalow and Dante steps out, switches the headlights off. It’s dark from the front but there’s a light on in the living room, a soft glow through the window.
The door’s unlocked and the house is empty, go figure. Dante fiddles with his keys a little, peering around at the posters on walls—some nostalgic, some tawdry. Randal never redecorates.
Where the hell is Randal, anyway?
The guy could benefit from a little preaching to, Dante thinks. He’ll start out by bitching about the mountain of junk mail and dirty dishes left out on display on the coffee table. The mysterious stains on the hallway carpet could be mentioned later, maybe.
Dante steps inside the bedroom with a soft knock on the doorframe, hands in his pockets. “Randal?”
“I take it the maid called in today…” He murmurs to himself as he takes in his surroundings, and they aren’t very enticing. There’s this smell of sweat and mildew, the thick tangle of dirty laundry lining the walls, the greasy takeout containers and styrofoam cups and... are those beer bottles?
“Randal,” Dante repeats, sighing. It’s dark and dank in here, and he has to step over piles of clothes just to let some light in. Squinting, he finally sees Randal's pale form beneath his comforter, curled into a fetal ball.
Randal shifts under the covers, mumbles into the pillow: “What do you want.”
Dante isn’t sure what he’s come here for. He never knows what he wants, either. But he notices that Randal hasn’t even taken the time to change out of his clothes from yesterday, which is slovenly, even for him. He’s wearing the same grubby, stained flannel and sweatpants—the same unwashed, unkempt person.
The scene is sigh-worthy, but Dante realizes, despite his assumptions, that the guy looks positively miserable. And in the spur of the moment, he's feeling bad for being so arrogant earlier, for being suspicious all day.
“Man,” Dante murmurs, almost in awe. “You look rough.”
He flips on a switch, then waits to be chewed out for turning on the lights, but Randal just gives a wet, miserable cough. He doesn't require an expert's assessment to know he's not faking, the poor bastard. As Dante draws in closer, he notes the paler-than-usual tinge to his friend’s skin and a faint sheen of clammy sweat on the back of his neck, then he’s mentally kicking himself for being so cynical because Randal’s probably been this sick all day and Dante really shouldn’t have been so presumptuous.
“I came by to see what you were up to, but,” Dante explains, giving a weak smile. “Looks like you’re out of commission.”
Wrapped in the sweaty burrito of sheets, Randal pulls his cheek from the pillow with a dazed look. “Did I call in?”
Dante stares for a moment, shakes his head. “Jeez, you really are sick.”
He sits down on the edge of the comforter, mostly because he knows he can. He isn’t sure why he’s doing it, but he has a hunch Randal won’t tell him to leave. And Randal doesn’t—his body seems to turn towards Dante’s, almost subconsciously, and the heat radiating from his body is contagious.
“Yeah, you called in before noon,” Dante confirms. “Boss sounded like he felt bad for you.”
He slides his hand over the soft lump of sheets, cordial across the dark comforter. His hand moves with its own volition, offering consolation without the words to back it up. The body beneath only sighs aggravatedly, but leans into the semblance of affection against its will. Perplexing.
“The boss?” Randal’s out of breath, his brow knitted. “Fuck that guy.”
“Yeah,” Dante chuckles. “Mutany's starting to seem pretty feasible these days.”
Randal huffs at that, sort of. It’s dry, though, like someone's taken a cheesegrater to his throat. The warmth spreads through Dante anyway; his friend has become a human radiator. There’s a different kind of warmth here too, a feeling Dante doesn’t usually pay too much attention to, but it's inevitable now, especially with the actual heat. It’s a wonder the imbecile hasn’t cooked to death in that blanket.
“What’s got you so sick, anyway? You were fine last night.”
“Gah." Randal flops an arm over his face to block the light. “I dunno. Think I have the plague.”
Despite wearing minimal clothing, he’s sweating through just about every piece of fabric stuck to his body, and Dante’s getting annoyed by it. He finds himself scooting a little closer on the bed, adjusting the blanket so he can free his friend from confinement, contagious sickness be damned.
“C’mon, you’re burning,” Dante insists, pulling the sheets back. He begins tugging on the layers, then there’s a muffled groan, and Randal moves his arm.
“What’re ya doin.”
“Seriously?” Dante pauses, rolls his eyes. “You’re cooking yourself, I can feel it from here.”
Randal turns his face into the pillow and mumbles something incoherent, but he lets Dante remove the blankets and doesn’t bitch about it.
It's a little funny, Dante has to admit. Randal is cold now, shuddering at the sudden lack of warmth and squirming like he can’t get comfortable. His breathing is awkward and heavy as Dante rests a cool hand on his sticky forehead, but the hand is jerked back when Randal suddenly lets out a puff of air, a strained semblance of a laugh.
“What?”
“Fag.”
It deserves an eye roll, but Dante holds no contempt for it. He doesn’t hide the snicker, just offers a bored hum and ignores the implication. Placing the hand back on Randal’s burning forehead, he notices the feeling of his own cool skin against balmy flesh.
“Damn, man,” he chuckles. “Well, you are hot.”
“Tell me about it.”
Randal’s dazed, but the smile still reaches his cheeks, vainly. Which Dante doesn’t mind, but he has to pull his hand away because, Christ, Randal is just a generator at this point. And really, it’s no wonder he called in today. Dante would’ve sent him home had he shown up.
“You take any medicine yet?” Dante asks, and he tries to sound nonchalant but it comes out sober, regardless. Maybe a little grave.
Randal shakes his head. “Feels like the floor’s moving,” His dopey grin twists into a grimace. “Fuck this, man.”
Bed creaking, Dante watches with a frown. Randal flips onto his side and groans into the pillow again. He really can’t get comfortable no matter what he does. Dante can still see his eyes screwed shut from the side. He wonders if his friend always had that little mole on the back of his neck, lower near his shoulder blade. He’s never noticed it before, is all.
Randal’s always been a looker, Dante is well aware, but he looks bizarrely attractive from this angle. Maybe it’s the way his face is nuzzled into his pillow, or the soft curve of his jaw glistening in the light, sloped in a way that makes him look so young, still boyish. It’s fucked, and he’ll never admit it, but a part of Dante enjoys seeing Randal like this—pliant and unassuming, all disheveled and knocked off that proverbial horse. Not by his own accord, but still.
“Seriously though,” Randal rasps, offering a weak warning. “You might wanna stay away if you enjoy the land of the living.”
“Eh, I’ll be fine." Dante pushes himself off the bed and makes his way around the assorted piles of clothes on the floor, picking up empty beer carcasses with an exaggerated sigh.
“Where ya goin?”
Dante smiles to himself. “Looking for something to bring you back to life. Don’t worry, I’ll be back to dote on you shortly.”
“I’m sure you’d like that, ya fuckin fruit.”
Dante snorts. Randal really does sound under the weather. Dante drops the beer bottles into a trash can in the kitchen, and he thinks, if Randal sounds that bad, he must be feeling like hell, and he might just want to be left alone. Something tells Dante that's not the case, though.
He expects the bathroom to be a grungy mess just like the rest of the house, but it’s relatively clean. There’s hardly anything in his cabinet, so Nyquil will have to do. Knowing his friend, he’s probably been too lazy to get out of bed and take the medicine himself.
“See, this kind of thing is more of a rare occurrence for me,” Dante calls out for good measure, wisely—“I take vitamins, you know.”
Randal’s croaked voice comes from the bedroom, and it hardly travels. “Believe me, I know—" another dry hack— “Wish I didn’t. You’re insufferable.”
“How perceptive.”
Dante hands over the bottle, and Randal manages to sit up in bed, wincing like it’s the most taxing effort in the world as he rests his head against the wall with a groan. And Dante thinks—of course he doesn't even have a headboard on his bed.
Randal mumbles a “thanks” and takes a freehanded swig of the bottle like it’s a pint of Jim Beam, tossing the plastic dose cup aside. There’s a Devil's Jersey crumpled in a ball near the closet and Dante’s staring at it, hands in his pockets with a frown.
“God, don’t you ever clean this place?” Dante gawks. “I can hardly see the floor. You could be hiding illegal aliens in here and nobody would have a clue.”
Randal hands the bottle back, raising an eyebrow with a tired expression. “For one,” he holds up a finger. “Must be nice having your able-bodied privilege. Your entitlement’s astounding, Dante.”
Eyeroll.
“Two—You think I’m gonna let some creepy French dude live in my closet? Like I need some guy jizzing into my tighty whities and trying to fuck my mouth while I sleep.”
Dante’s laughing and shaking his head because for some reason, he’s picturing that. Randal’s snickering at his own hypothesis and Dante wants to jokingly ask if that’s his secret foreign fantasy, but Randal’s attempt at a laugh breaks off into a hacking fit, a string of crackled coughs he’s trying to muffle into his elbow. The sound is terrible, a wheezy, grating rasp that rattles out from deep in his chest and Dante just stands there, gawking.
“Jesus.”
Dante stares for a moment, waiting for the guy to clear what sounds like thirty-two years worth of phlegm out of his throat. Randal can only offer a pathetic “yeah” in response, closing his eyes when he can finally breathe again and looking so pitiful and tired that Dante doesn’t know what to do.
He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, standing at the foot of the bed and jiggling the keys in his pockets. “Uh… Y’know, I should get outta your hair, let you get some rest...”
Blearily, Randal opens his eyes at that. He has this look on his face like he’s going to say something but can’t, or just flat out won't, and Dante’s confused for a second, but then he smiles a little coyly as Randal closes his eyes again, annoyed.
“Don’t make me say it, man.”
The smile wins, and Dante reckons he feels a little warm himself. Not from Randal’s inferno this time, but because he feels oddly sentimental—and needed, or something. He nods because he gets it, understands why Randal doesn’t want to be alone right now—why he won’t outright say it, either.
Dante takes off his jacket, heading to the kitchen as he tells Randal he’s going to have to steal a few beers from the fridge if he’s gonna stay, which the latter doesn’t complain about, or more likely, doesn’t have the capacity to complain about. And it’s funny, Dante’s been dreading going home tonight, but now he has an excuse, a substitute for what would be an otherwise boring night.
He instinctively grabs two beers from the fridge, pauses, puts one back, then fills up a glass of water from the sink instead. Sifting through Randal’s endless DVD collection in the living room, he silently chuckles to himself as he picks out a copy of The Mummy. He figures his life must be pretty uneventful if the prospect of staying up for a while and watching old movies with Randal is enough to keep his spirits up, and man, things really haven’t changed. He doesn’t mind it, either.
Dante saunters back into the bedroom, setting the glass down on the nightstand. Randal watches drowsily, eyes heavy with Nyquil and malaise. He seems to notice the DVD in Dante’s hand and clears his throat, making up for the solid minute he hasn’t been able to talk shit for.
“Alright, what Academy Award-winning film did you pick this time?”
“You’ll see.”
There’s a TV on the wall across the bed and he slides the disc in the player, flips the lights off and switches on the remote. He tentatively plucks some shirts and a pair of socks off an old recliner in the corner, making himself comfortable as he cracks the beer open. Ancient Egyptian music fills the room as the movie starts playing, and Dante scoffs softly as a thought occurs to him.
“You know,” Dante ruminates, glancing over at the bed. “In light of everything, I kinda feel like an asshole.”
“Why’s that?”
Colors from the TV dance on Randal’s pasty face in the dark; he’s propped himself up a little with a pillow to help with his breathing, although there’s still a soft, wheezing sound when he inhales. Which would bother Dante in any other instance, but the exception is earnest. He just hopes that the Nyquil will knock Randal out. He can’t feel like shit if he’s asleep.
There's a twinge of amusement in Dante's voice as he muses over the situation. "...The whole day, I thought you were faking. I was miffed at work.”
Randal scoffs, it’s a dry sound— “Some faith you have.” It’s sarcastic, but there’s a smiley residue there. “So, you believe me now?”
“Without a fucking doubt," Dante laughs.
The movie carries on and one beer turns into two. Two beers turn into four. Dante’s pretty tired by the time the credits are rolling, his head growing heavy and joints aching the way they always do when he needs sleep. His eyes droop and his head lulls on the recliner, breath falling into sync with the wheezes (which don’t sound so grated anymore).
In the bed, Randal has wrapped himself up in the thin linen sheet like a mummy. There’s a quiet, stifled cough before he turns toward the recliner and mumbles, “Dante.”
“Yeah?”
“You know you’re gonna get sick too, right? I'm probly contagious.”
Dante yawns, shakes his head. But he thinks about it for a moment, and Randal’s words might not be too far from the truth.
“Maybe,” he murmurs, dozing. "I'll just get you to take my shift..."