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John laid on the floor, high out of his mind. His lanky limbs were splayed out awkwardly. The only parts of him not touching the floor were his head and shoulders which rested in Dave’s lap.
Dave had appointed himself trip-sitter, and took his solemn duty seriously, restricting even the amount of times he called John an idiot. (Though he placed no limits on how often he thought it.)
The job consisted mainly of sitting still and making sure John didn’t die or completely freak out. At times, he’d work his fingers through his hair, idly playing with stray blonde curls. He did this to comfort and ground him but also to amuse himself. He was getting fidgety as he felt his legs fall asleep. There was a wet spot on his thigh from where he thinks John had either been tearing up or drooling, which he tried to ignore.
John, for his part, lolled his head around with wide eyes and a dumbstruck smiling expression.
“What’re you seeing right now?” It wasn’t a question he often asked, because he didn’t always like the answer. It depended a lot on what John took, what unholy concoction of substances he’d decided to try at one time. Some hallucinations were more vivid than others, more out-there and inventive in their imagery. But at the moment,
“Everything is colorful, and everything is melting.” John giggled, actually giggled, and resumed looking around, as if in the center of an art gallery, if either of them understood or appreciated the sort of works that end up in galleries and not just spray-painted on closed down storefronts or scrawled on men’s room stalls. “It’s beautiful. God, it’s so fucking pretty.”
He reached up and grabbed Dave’s shirt collar, tugging him down closer to him. When he was within range, he dropped the shirt and brought both hands up to rest on Dave’s face, pulling him even closer until he was bent at a slightly odd angle to make it work. Dave could tell then that John was well and truly out of it, because for all his general assholery, he was good about not touching Dave in ways he wasn’t certain he would like or were necessary. (John’s definition of necessary, of course, differs from most of the populace’s definition of necessary. Announcing “punch buggy” was, for example, necessary). This was intimate, and he’d just gone ahead and done it, and Dave thought John was very lucky that he was okay with it at the moment, because if he wasn’t, he would have just said some shit like “there’s bugs in your skin, and the cops are outside,” and left him to suffer. But he was alright, and tolerated the touch. John’s hands were a little clammy, but otherwise stable.
It was almost nice, almost sort of romantic, the way John looked at him, lips curled in this wiggly smile like something out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. Whatever pretty things he was seeing in the room around them, he must have been seeing in Dave too, the way he grinned with this dazed look of adoration. After a few moments, though without letting go, his face relaxed into a more neutral expression, quizzical even, like he’d remembered something, or maybe that he remembered that he forgot something.
John studied him intently for a long while, his eyes somehow equal parts vacant and focused, like he was rereading the same paragraph in a textbook over and over the night before a test and not retaining any of it.
Eventually, he seemed to find what he was looking for, and narrowed his eyes for barely half a second before they shot open with something like fear, and he turned over, burying his face in his hands and shuddering. He mumble-moaned something that sounded like “oh, fuck.”
It wasn’t exactly abnormal for John to freak out a little during one of these little mini-benders. It’s the main reason why Dave took on the guard dog position. He was all but used to John suddenly, and seemingly randomly, spasming and seizing up. This was often accompanied by sweating and whimpering. It never scared Dave any less, though he considered himself an expert in how to deal with it. First, he’d cup a hand under John’s head, cradling him there, which was comforting touch, but also mainly for the purpose that if he felt him gag or dry heave even once, he’d shove him so he was sitting upright and thus wouldn’t choke on his own vomit. John, naturally, would complain about it mostly wordlessly, through a series of strung together noises. His protestations wouldn’t earn him the right to lay back down until Dave was certain he wouldn’t either lose his friend or gain the responsibility of cleaning up puke. (John had joked once, “if that’s how I’m gonna go, I say let me, baby.” To which Dave had replied “Don’t ever say that shit to me again or I’ll key your car. I’ll key every car you ever own for the rest of your life.”)
The other method was to get gentle, which was, in many ways, a feat for Dave, but he managed. This was the time when the presence of hands in hair really mattered, as a method of soothing. He might also put his hand softly on a cheek, enough pressure to be felt, but delicate enough to not be alarming. He’d use his thumb to swipe away tears when they slipped out. The default thing to say was just “shh,” as one says to any wild animal or upset child. It’s some evolutionary human instinct. A librarian gene.
He’d bring his voice, deep and raspy, to as sweet-sounding as he could, and try to talk John back to reality. “You’re here.” “I’m here.” “It’s alright.” His best, favorite, and most reliable method was simply to firmly state that whatever he was seeing wasn’t real.
Regardless of whether or not that was true.
This, Dave could tell, was different. His friend wasn’t convulsing, flailing his limbs like he was trying to run away without realizing that he was still stuck on his back like a turtle. He didn’t look sick either, like he was having some kind of real reaction and would soon start retching or getting feverish or bleeding from the eyes.
John just looked scared, and a little sad, shivering and still covering his face.
Dave, as gently as possible, forcibly dragged John’s hands away from his face. They brought skin with them as they went, dragging his lower eyelids and under-eye bags into an elongated droop before they were released, which only made him look more tired and pathetic. Like a basset hound.
“What happened?”
“I saw the other thing that you are.”
His voice was a whisper. There was a measure of awe in it too, in the old bible sense, back when the word meant something more like “fear.”
“Did you take the sauce?” It was a stupid question, and Dave knew it as soon as it left his mouth. For one, you couldn’t exactly casually take the soy sauce. It was only there when it was the right time. For two, John was a lot of different kinds of stupid, but not stupid enough to do something like that.
Still, drugged out beyond the capacity for anything but immediate honesty, he shook his head and made a little “mm-mm” noise, before adding “the side effects are just forever.”
Dave knew what he meant. The immediate effects last however long they do, and the rest of the residual little superpowers hung around for a few hours, but the rest of it, the connection to infinite fucked up shit, the knowledge that infinite fucked up shit is out there, that never goes away.
“If you’re like that, and you open up your mind, you’ll start seeing some shit. Sometimes shit you don’t wanna see.” He let out a breathy sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a cough. “I forget you’re not you. Or not the first you. I forget you’re something else.”
He wanted to push back on that, but knew it was true of himself too. It was easier to forget. The material reality, the little pi symbol on the bottom of his foot, that didn’t change any of his life’s circumstances. Didn’t change that he needed money to live, didn’t change the memories and connections he had. The things he wanted. The things he feared. The anger inside of him. Sometimes he didn’t know if things he felt were from first Dave or were new to him, but he figured it wasn't really up to him to question that. It’s not like first Dave would ever come back to tell him he was living his life wrong.
Still, it’s hard to know that you’re not entirely human. He resented the way John looked at him now, a little wary and uneasy. He tried to blame it on the drugs fucking with his brain, but couldn’t shake the thought that maybe John looked at him like that every time his back was turned.
"You're sure that's what you saw?"
"I'm not sure of anything right now. I cracked my brain open like an egg, and it's frying into an omelet, and I'm adding onions and mushrooms and crap like that."
Dave groaned. “What’d you even take?”
“A whole bunch of shit. Started with weed and thought why not take it further? Really get the party started? And I had some... well, let’s not say meth, exactly, that sounds awful, but yeah, basically meth. And these pills that, I don’t know what they do, but I like the colors they come in so I take them, like, five at a clip. And then some, you know, party shit. Feel good shit. And LSD. And Acid.”
Dave didn’t know where to start with tackling that whole list, and so said, helpfully, “Acid and LSD are the same thing.”
“Well, huh.”
“Why do you do this? What were you even trying to do?”
John looked up at him with a goofy face and raised his eyebrows, as if to say “Isn’t it obvious?”
It wasn’t.
Like many things with John, the appeal of not questioning was greater than the appeal of understanding. He let it go with a loud sigh. “I guess I’m sorry. That you saw that.”
“Why be sorry? It’s not your fault. Didn’t ask to be made the way you are. I didn’t ask to be born with a dick this big, but that’s my cross to bear. You don’t see me apologizing for it.”
Dave tried to think of a time when John apologized for anything sincerely, his fault or otherwise. Unsatisfied with the extremely short list of memories conjured, he swatted the idea out of the air like a fly and directed his focus back to the present.
“But how do you live with it? Why do you just accept it?”
"My dick or...?"
"What I am."
“You’re my only Dave.”
He rolled himself so that he was mostly on his side, facing David. Lazily, he brought his arms up so he was partially holding onto him, face nuzzled against his belly.
"I wouldn't make it without my Dave. I know that."
"So, what, you'll take what you can get?"
"Makes it sound bad. Like I'm settling for you or something. You're my best friend."
"I'm the guy who replaced your best friend. Killed and replaced him."
"No," he said, with some new resolve, "You're my best friend. Nothing changed. It's not even picking up where we left off. It never even paused." His voice was off slightly, weak with fog and confusion. His tone was steeled, but the words seemed to come out a half-second after he intended to speak them. "You're human enough. You're the same enough. And all the rest is… all the rest. It doesn’t matter. I didn't mean to look. I didn't mean to see it. It was just there, overlapping you. I try not to see it, because it doesn't change anything, no matter what you technically are. You're the only one. You're my only one. I'm not letting you go. So don't try to make me. As evidenced by the hold I have you in right now, it'd be futile."
"This isn't a hug?"
“It’s a body scissors hold. WWE style.”
“Body scissors uses the legs, dumbfuck.”
“Spin me around then. I’ll fucking get ya.” As if to punctuate his point, he kicked his legs in what Dave assumed was supposed to look badass, but was really just him awkwardly shuffling the gangly limbs against the floor.
Dave laughed then, and John could feel it rumble. Sensory seeking, he only cuddled in closer. “You take good care of me.”
“I do my best. You don’t make it easy.” His memories are the same as first Dave’s memories; he knows he’s done this for John for a long time, knows he perfected the technique years ago, knows he did this before the… events, and will, after, for as long as he needs to.
“You’re just good like that.”
Dave’s hand, of its accord, had found its way back into John’s hair, twirling strands around one finger and then letting them go and bounce back into their corkscrew shape.
“I should keep you talking. You’re honest like this. Or maybe just nicer. And I bet you won’t even remember what you said when all this shit wears off.”
“You can, if you want, but I’m tired.”
He looked up at Dave with heavy-lidded eyes and immense amounts of trust.
John was right. (One of Dave’s least favorite three-word phrases, right up there with “court ordered counseling,” “get over it,” and “stepped in shit.”) None of the rest really mattered. The only direction was forward, and the only place he was was here. It was a line of thought so calm for him that he wondered if maybe he was picking up a contact high.
John was on the precipice of passing out and sleeping it off, and Dave decided to let him. He looked around and liked the way he didn’t see whatever John saw. Liked the way nothing melted.
For a moment, everything stayed still.
His legs were cramping, and he couldn’t get up. But it was still.