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Lister had gone one week without drinking, and it shows. This wasn’t his first attempt to get sober but this time he was sure it was going to stick. This time he had Jimmy and Rowan to help him. Just last week they’d all gathered in the kitchen and poured each bottle of alcohol straight down the drain. His friends' support made this feel like a win.
Now that he’s been laying in bed for the better half of the day he feels significantly less motivated. He thinks about getting up and maybe taking a shower but his body refuses. The ceiling fan isn’t very entertaining, it’s spinning too slow to properly cool him down. He should get up and turn it up— he doesn’t. He just lays there atop his sheets thinking.
He really wants a drink but he doesn’t even think he could get up to get one— not like there’s anything in their flat. He’s just sick of being constantly tired. That and the fucking headaches. His new therapist made sure he was informed of the symptoms before starting all this but actually experiencing it was even more difficult than it sounded on paper.
There was a firm knock at the door, “Lister! Are you up?” Rowan calls.
Lister doesn’t answer, talking is too much work.
A minute goes by and he swore that he heard Rowan walk away. Only for his door to fly open with Rowan holding a glass of ice water on the other side.
“Oh you’re awake,” Rowan walked into the room setting the water on Lister’s bedside table. “It’s almost three, Jimmy wanted to throw water on you.”
“Wow I have such great friends,” Lister’s voice was raspy and his throat was dry.
“You sound like shit, drink some water.” To anyone else Rowan’s stern tone would have left no room for argument. To Lister, even while exhausted, this was a challenge.
“Can’t, moving’s too hard,” a small smile played on his lips.
“Oh my god you’re like half dead and you still wanna be difficult,” Rowan had decided to take matters into his own hands, attempting to prop Lister up against his headboard.
“Okay, okay, I’m moving,” Lister pushed himself upright. Rowan grabbed the glass of water, waiting for him to sit up before handing it to him. The water was cold and helped wake him up.
“Do you feel any better today?” Rowan moved to sit on the bed.
“Not really, I’m still dead tired. Headache’s not so bad though,” Lister put the almost empty glass back on his bedside table. Now that he had sat up Lister could really see how messy his room was— even for him.
“Hm that’s good,” Rowan studied Lister’s face. Rowan cared more about his friends than he was willing to admit out loud. Good thing that “reluctantly” helping them out and his sarcastic comments got that message across to Jimmy and Lister.
“Damn my room is kinda messy.”
“Kind of? I’ve been telling you that for the past month, I don’t know how you live like this,” Rowan let out a huff of annoyance.
“Okay in my defense, I’ve never had to look at this room sober,” he laughed through his words.
“Yeah no, way too soon for that,” Rowan buried his face in his hands. “Okay how about this, if you take a shower then I will help you clean your room.”
On one hand, Lister really didn’t want to get up; on the other, Rowan would likely never offer to do this again.
“Deal.”
“Good because you actually reek.”
After some minor nagging from Rowan, Lister got up to take a shower and in the meantime Rowan worked on cleaning the room. First he stripped the bed sheets and put them in the wash before making multiple trips to the kitchen with cups and glasses that had “gone missing.” On his second trip he bumped into Jimmy.
“Why are you carrying so many glasses?” Jimmy asked.
“I told Lister if he showered I’d clean his room.”
“That is a horrible deal, you went in there right? You can’t see the floor,” Jimmy was rummaging through the fridge, looking for leftovers from the night before.
“I know it’s bad but he needed to get out of bed and shower. You didn’t have to smell him,” Rowan gently placed the glasses in the kitchen sink.
“Fair point,” he agreed as he put his food into the microwave. “Want some help? It’ll be a whole lot quicker.”
“Yeah, the help would be nice.”
And so Jimmy ended up sitting on Lister’s office chair sorting clothes while Rowan cleared up Lister’s desk. Rowan had managed to organize the messy room. The clean clothes that were on the office chair were now on the bed, the dirty clothes on the floor had been sorted into darks and lights (courtesy of Jimmy), and now all that was left was to declutter the bedside table and desk.
“Okay this is the third Rubix Cube I’ve found,” Rowan says in disbelief.
Jimmy laughs, gasping for air. “Maybe he’s collecting them?” he says, out of breath.
“But they’re all the same one! The second one looked a little bit older but it was still the same kind of Rubix Cube,” Rowan said, confused.
Before Jimmy could respond, Lister walked into his room, hair still wet from the shower. He had changed into a comfortable t-shirt and sweatpants.
“Wait, I thought I was helping too?” Lister asked Rowan.
“You are, I put your clean clothes on your bed for you to fold since you’re tired.”
“I feel a bit better now, I can help you over here,” Lister felt bad for needing his friends to clean his room, a task he should be on top of.
“Okay, I just need one thing. Can you lift one end of the desk while I lift the other so we can move it to the side? I want to sweep behind it in case anything is stuck back there.”
“I can do that.”
Jimmy moved backwards while Rowan and Lister each picked a side of the desk. They both managed to lift it fairly easily and moved it away from the wall towards the center of the room.
“Okay, move to the left and we can set it down,” Rowan said.
Lister hummed in acknowledgement and began to move.
“No, no, no— your other left!” He yelled, the desk almost slipping out of his grip.
Jimmy was laughing uncontrollably at the dysfunctional scene playing out in front of him.
“Whoops,” Lister chuckled, moving in the correct direction this time.
Rowan didn’t breathe until that desk was back on the ground, “I’m never letting you help again.”
Seemingly out of nowhere Jimmy had started laughing again.
“Oh no, what happened?” Rowan asked.
He kept laughing through his words hysterically. After a second he pointed at the pile of things that had fallen behind Lister’s desk, “There’s another one!” he said out of breath.
Then Rowan locked his eyes on a fourth Rubix Cube. “Lister, why do you have so many damn Rubix Cubes! No sane person needs more than one!”
“I just think they’re fun!” Lister insisted, “One of them is from like when we were in school so it doesn’t turn as good, I had to buy another one.”
“But we found four of them, that is an insane amount of Rubix Cubes! And none of them are even solved!”
Jimmy smiled as his two best friends argued. He always found these stupid arguments hilarious. They would always get deep into their arguments only to make up later because they realized how pointless it was. But God forbid you bring up the argument later, because they will hold their original positions just as strongly as they did the first time.
After Jimmy eventually broke up the arguing, the three of them worked to finish cleaning Lister’s room. Jimmy was decluttering the bedside table in between loads of laundry, Lister was folding his clothes and putting them away, and Rowan was sweeping the floor. Once they’d all finished, Rowan and Lister put the desk back, and for the first time in months, Lister’s room was clean.
In celebration, Jimmy and Rowan brought extra blankets and pillows to Lister’s room so they could all lay in bed and watch Brooklyn 99. Under normal circumstances Lister would have wanted to put on a different show. But after everyone got comfortable, he turned on Rowan’s favorite show.
“I really love you guys,” Lister murmured, already half asleep, “I don’t say that enough.”
Rowan let out an amused huff, “We love you too, dumbass.”
Jimmy lightly jabbed Rowan’s shoulder, “Yeah, I love both of you too. There’s no one else’s room I’d rather clean.”
“What about your room?”
“I would much rather clean your room than mine—”
“Wait shush I love this part!”