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Greg settled onto a bar stool, nodding a greeting at the bartender. He started to jerk a hand through his hair but thought better of it, far too aware that he already looked like shit, and any attempt to hide that would inevitably only make it worse.
The bartender dropped off two pints at the far end of the bar before circling back to Greg. “What can I get you?” he asked.
“Pint,” Greg said, uncharacteristically short. “And a double vodka, rocks.” He paused. “Better make it a triple, cheers.”
If the bartender had any thoughts about that order, he chose to keep it to himself. Wise man. “Anything with the vodka?” he asked instead.
Greg shook his head. Once upon a time, it would’ve been Red Bull as an accompaniment, back when Greg went out drinking to spend time with people and needed the energy boost.
Now, he drank alone, and the one thing he needed was the one thing he couldn’t get.
His eyes flicked up to the bartender, realising a beat too late that he hadn’t heard what he said. “Sorry?”
“I said, what kind of beer?”
Greg dragged his gaze over to the row of taps, not bothering to read a single one of them. “Foster’s is fine,” he said.
The beer wasn’t for him, anyway.
“You really don’t have to do this,” Alex said, hopping up onto the bar stool on Greg’s left. “I can get my own, you know.”
The bartender nodded and went to pour the drinks. Greg picked up a beer mat, turning it on its side and flicking it, watching it spin before wobbly falling down to lay flat against the bar.
With any luck, that’d be Greg in a few hours.
“Remember the last time we went drinking?” Alex asked. “You nudged me and pointed at the two old blokes across the bar and you said, ‘That’ll be us one day’.”
The bartender returned with the drinks, and Greg pushed the beer down to sit in front of the barstool to his left before taking a sip of his vodka, wincing at the taste.
“And I said, ‘Er, Greg, that’s a mirror’.”
Alex looked at Greg expectantly as if waiting for a laugh, though he didn’t look disappointed when he didn’t receive one. “I know, I know, old joke, and bad joke,” he said, offering Greg a grin.
Greg took another swig of vodka, holding the glass between his thumb and his forefinger as he swirled the clear liquid within it.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and flinched, whirling around to find Rhod Gilbert looking bemused. “Easy, mate,” Rhod said, as if calming a wild animal.
Greg blinked at him as he sat down on Greg’s right. “The fuck are you doing here?” he asked, his voice hoarse with disuse, or else the cigarettes he’d started smoking again, since there didn’t seem to be much reason not to anymore.
Rhod raised both eyebrows. “You invited me,” he said.
“Oh.” Rhod nodded at the bartender and Greg took another sip before telling him, “I don’t remember that.”
“No shit,” Rhod said. “You were so drunk I’m amazed you figured out how to answer my phone call.”
Alex leaned around Greg to give Rhod a small wave. “To be fair, it’s pretty hard to mess that up,” he said. “Only really one green button to press. You’d have to be pretty thick to get that wrong.”
He glanced at Greg, his lips twitching. “Well, you’d have to be extremely thick at least,” he corrected, automatically leaning out of range of Greg’s inevitable half-hearted cuff.
Silence stretched between them, punctuated solely by the sound of liquid being drunk and glasses returning to the bar with a thud. After a long moment, Greg looked back at Rhod. “You needn’t have come.”
“I realise that.”
“I mean—”
“Not exactly a gun to my head, was there.”
“Still,” Greg said, a little stubbornly, determined as always to have the last word.
In the silence that again followed, Alex leaned forward, his elbows on the bar. “What do you think?” he asked, glancing sideways at Greg. “Bet I can drink it without using my hands?”
He tried and failed to open his mouth wide enough to fit around the entire rim of the glass, a pointless endeavour if ever there was one, and he grinned toothily at Greg as if waiting for him to shake his head or roll his eyes or to call him, with no small amount of affection, a fucking twerp.
Rhod cleared his throat. “So,” he said, in that gruff way of his, and Greg sighed, already dreading where this was headed.
“So,” he echoed.
“What’s new with you?”
Greg jerked a shrug. “Not much,” he muttered.
“Really?”
Greg glanced at him. “If you’ve a point you’re intending on getting to, I’d appreciate if you could get there sooner rather than later.”
Rhod drummed his fingers on the bar as if debating what he wanted to say. Then he took a swig of beer before looking at Greg flatly and saying, “Alex is dead.”
Greg flinched as if he’d been slapped. “Do you think I don’t know that?”
Rhod just eyed him carefully. “Some days I wonder,” he said. “Or are you going to tell me you’ve started drinking lager as a mixer for your vodka?”
He nodded at the untouched beer on the bar, and Greg’s hand curled into a fist. “Believe me,” he said, his voice low and dangerous, “I’ve never been more acutely aware that Alex fucking Horne is dead. That his wife is a widow and his children will finish growing up without a father.”
Alex fiddled unhappily with the cuffs of his jumper. “They’ll be okay,” he said, more to himself than to Greg. “They’ve got– there are so many people who love them, who’ll take care of them, and Rachel.” He glanced up at Greg. “But who’ll take care of you, if you keep pushing away anyone who’s still willing to try?”
Rhod didn’t quake under Greg’s glare. “And yet you’re still pretending like he’s not. Or are you going to tell me that you’ve finally answered Avalon’s calls and emails about moving forward with Taskmaster, or the BBC about the next series of The Cleaner? Your tour’s still listed as on hiatus, for fuck’s sake. I know the world feels like it’s stopped, but it hasn’t.”
“You want me to move on?” Greg asked sharply. “To, what, to forget—”
“No.” Rhod shook his head, and there was something gentle – or at least, as gentle as Rhod ever got – in his voice as he told Greg, “There’s no forgetting, mate. Not now, not ever.” He hesitated before adding, “But you still have to live.”
Greg snorted. “The fuck do you think I’m trying to do?”
Rhod shrugged. “I don’t know. I truly don’t know, except to say that it’s not living.”
“I hate to admit it, but he has a point,” Alex said, with the air of someone who knew he was going to be ignored.
“Yeah, well,” Greg said, taking another swig of vodka, “it’s as good as you’re going to fucking get.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Greg glared at him. “Fuck off, Rhodri,” he spat. “Maybe you should’ve fucking died instead of him, just so I wouldn’t have to listen to you.”
Rhod flinched at the words, and Greg was forcibly reminded that Rhod was still gaunt and tired-looking from his own brush with mortality. But then he leaned forward, his eyes dark. “Maybe I should’ve,” he shot back, “so I didn’t have to watch you drink yourself to death.”
Greg shook his head and looked away. “Like you said, there’s no gun to your head. The door’s right there.”
He jerked his chin toward the door, but Rhod’s glare didn’t flicker. “Oh yeah, you’d love that, you prick. You always did love wallowing in your own misery and pretending like the whole fucking world was out to get you.”
“Who said I’m pretending?”
The look Rhod gave him was pitying, and Greg felt something he refused to name coil shamefully in his gut. “You have so many people who love you, and who are worried about you, and you’re too much of a fat, miserable cunt to even see it.”
Greg took too large of a swig of vodka, almost choking on it. “I don’t care,” he rasped.
“Yeah, no shit.”
Greg swallowed, trying to tamp down the whirlwind of emotions that threatened to bubble up, to tear through his chest and consume him if he didn’t numb it with vodka and self-loathing. “You don’t– you have no idea—”
Rhod arched an eyebrow. “Haven’t I?”
“No,” Greg told him, his anger getting the best of him. “Because when you leave here, you get to go home to your fucking wife, to the love of your fucking life. The love of my life is six feet under.”
Alex hummed. “Two feet over, I’d say,” he said, hurrying to add when he saw the look on Greg’s face, “Or not.”
Even though Greg had spit the words like a challenge, Rhod met his glare evenly, and it took Greg’s booze-soaked brain a moment to realise he’d never actually called Alex that. Not to Rhod, at least. “Yeah, he is,” Rhod agreed quietly, and if he was surprised by the revelation, he didn’t show it. “He’s dead, and none of this will change that.” He leaned forward. “But unless you’re hoping to join him sooner rather than later—”
“Maybe I am.”
Alex went very still, looking up at Greg with wide, sad eyes. “Please don’t say that,” he said softly. “Greg—”
For the first time, Rhod looked taken aback, and the hand he raised to scrub across his mouth trembled, just slightly. “Christ, at this point, I’m tempted to let you,” he muttered.
“Then why don’t you?” Greg shot back.
Rhod’s eyes met his, and Greg swallowed and looked away. “Because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did,” Rhod told him. “Because despite you being the world’s biggest prick, I love you.”
“So do I,” Alex added.
Greg just shrugged. “Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t.”
Rhod jerked a nod. “So that’s that, then.”
“That’s that,” Greg said with a conviction he didn’t feel, and he took a gulp of vodka to avoid having to look at Rhod. “You want to sit here in silence while I finish this, be my guest. But I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
Alex frowned at him before looking past him to tell Rhod plaintively, “He doesn’t mean it, Rhod. Believe me.” He hesitated, worrying his lower lip with his gapped teeth before adding, “Don’t give up on him. Please.”
Rhod set his half-finished pint on the bar and stood, and Greg finally looked over at him. “Throwing in the towel so soon?” he asked, the words not as triumphant as he’d hoped they’d be.
“I’m not going to get anywhere tonight,” Rhod told him. “But we’re not done.”
“Maybe you aren’t. But I am.”
Rhod just shook his head. “Yeah, we’ll see about that,” he muttered, grabbing his wallet and leaving a fiver on the bar. He grabbed his jacket but didn’t put it on, instead twisting it in his hands before asking Greg dryly, “I’ll tell your mum you’re still alive, shall I?”
That hit Greg where it hurt, and he forced himself to laugh, humourless and pained though it was. “Tell Roisin while you’re at it, maybe she’ll stop phoning every bloody day.”
Rhod snorted what may have been a laugh, or at least an attempt at one. “Yeah, mate, I’m sure filling Rois in on this whole conversation will definitely stop her worrying.”
He shook his head and tugged his jacket on, turning to leave, but he stopped when Greg said, his voice soft and as pained as his laugh, “Rhod—”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
Rhod glanced back at him. “Are you?”
“He is,” Alex told Rhod, giving Greg a look. “More than he can possibly say.”
Greg said nothing and Rhod jerked a nod. “Right.” He took a deep breath as if he had more to say, but in the end, all he said was, “Can you make it home?”
“I’ve always been able to before.”
Rhod’s expression didn’t shift. “There’s a lot you were always able to do before.”
Alex cleared his throat. “And lots you weren’t,” he reminded Greg in that wide-eyed, faux obsequious way that used to make him laugh.
“I’ll be fine,” Greg told him.
A ghost of a smile flit across Rhod’s face. “Liar.” He shook his head before telling him, “I’ll phone you tomorrow, make sure you haven’t actually died.”
“Great,” Greg muttered. “Something to look forward to.”
“My phone call, or death?”
“Both.”
Rhod exhaled sharply. “Please take care of yourself, Greg,” he said tiredly.
Greg just stared down at the melting ice in his glass. “Give me a reason why I should.”
“Because Alex would be so fucking disappointed if he could see you like this.”
The words felt like a blow to Greg’s stomach, and he closed his eyes. “I’m sure he would,” he said, his voice cracking. Then he reached for his glass and lifted it in a mock toast. “But the one nice thing about him being dead is that he can do fuck all about it.”
Rhod nodded as if he hadn’t expected anything different. “Yeah. And I bet that’d disappoint him most of all.” He didn’t wait for Greg’s reply. “Goodnight, Greg.”
Alex and Greg both watched him go before Alex sighed heavily, his shoulders slumped. “For what it’s worth, he’s right,” he said, a little tentatively. “More about me being disappointed that I can’t do more for you than anything. But still, that doesn’t mean you should—”
Greg stood, digging his wallet out and pulling out a wad of cash, tossing a few bills down on the bar without looking at them. “Leaving already?” the bartender asked, sounding a little surprised
Greg nodded. “Yeah,” he said, draining the last of his vodka.
“Sorry your friend didn’t make it.”
Greg’s eyes snapped to his. “Sorry?”
The bartender nodded at the full beer still on the bar. “The friend you bought that for,” he said.
“Oh,” Greg said. “Right.”
He didn’t offer any alternate explanation, drifting outside and already patting his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter. He lit a fag and inhaled deeply, feeling it burn in his lungs and wishing for not the first time that the fire might consume him from the inside out.
“Planning on leaving me behind, were you?” Alex asked, arms crossed in front of his chest. “I realise I haven’t a leg to stand on, really, considering everything. In both the physical and metaphorical sense.”
Greg squeezed his eyes closed, the persistent, empty ache in his chest gaping so wide that he thought it might swallow him whole. “I miss you,” he whispered, the fog of his breath or maybe his cigarette smoke hanging in the night air the only evidence that he’d spoken. “This- this isn’t helping.”
“No,” Alex agreed quietly. He hesitated. “I can leave. If that’d help.”
Greg huffed a noise that might have been a laugh, if one was being overly generous with the definition of laugh. “Nothing helps, is the trouble.” He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know how—”
He broke off and Alex nodded slowly. “I don’t either, for what it’s worth.”
“I haven’t the first idea how I’m supposed to just- just go back to my life as if nothing’s different. How I’m supposed to go back to making people laugh when I’ve never wanted to laugh less.”
“I’m somewhat of an expert at making you laugh when you don’t want to,” Alex said gently. “If that’d help at all.”
“You’re not here.”
“Not in the way I wish I could be.”
“I don’t know how to do this without you.”
Alex hummed. “Neither do I,” he admitted. “Why do you think I’m still here?”
Greg took another drag from his cigarette before dropping it on the ground, crushing it beneath his brightly coloured trainers, the ones he’d bought because they reminded him of Alex, back when that sort of thought amused him, back when he could text him a photo of his shoes and receive an incomprehensible string of emojis in response.
Back when everything didn’t remind him of Alex.
Back when that thought didn’t make him want to collapse on his floor and sob until he passed out.
“Fuck,” he huffed, raising his hands to his face and pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes. “Fuck you for leaving me here.”
“Yes, Greg,” Alex said softly.
“Fuck you for not giving me a chance to say goodbye.”
Alex sighed heavily. “Would it help?” he asked, almost rhetorically. “I’m happy to let you say it now, if it would.”
“Fuck you for skipping out on the life we almost had together.”
“Ten years,” Alex reminded him. “We did have a life together, Greg, and it was an amazing one. I know it wasn’t long enough, and I know it wasn’t everything we wanted it to be, but at least we had that. And that’s more than some can say.”
Greg shook his head, and reached in his pocket for another cigarette before he seemed to think otherwise, instead shoving both his hands in his pockets and ducking his head as he turned to slowly plod down the pavement back to his lonely flat, which these days felt almost haunted.
Alex watched him go, tucking his hands in his own pockets, his shoulders slumped as he watched him walk away.
Greg paused, and glanced over his shoulder. “Well?” he said, with a bite of impatience. “Are you coming?”
“Yes, Greg,” Alex said, hurrying to follow him.
Back to his flat, and it was harder than ever to say who it was haunted by more.