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Gary isn’t sure what’s weirder: the hour at which his phone is ringing, or the name flashing across the screen.
As a general rule, he doesn’t answer calls past ten o’clock at night. Who would? But even if his gut is telling him it’s probably a mistake—or Ash playing around with someone else’s phone—it has been a long time since he’s been able to deny Goh anything, let alone a simple phone call. Besides, they’re such a rare occurrence to begin with that if he failed to answer now, Goh would probably never call him again.
He’s braced for the worst as he picks up and, casually, asks, “Couldn't wait ‘til tomorrow to hear my voice?”
But instead of a huff and hang-up, Goh ignores the jibe completely.
“Are you busy?” he asks. Then, before Gary can so much as open his mouth to respond, rushes on with, “A-actually, don’t worry about it, of course you’re busy, I’ll just—”
Suddenly, he stops talking. His breathing sounds over the line heavy and unsteady; it trips an alarm in Gary’s brain, which has him slamming shut the book he’d been reading and rising to find Umbreon’s Poké Ball and recall her to it. As he does, he finds his voice again:
“I’m not busy. What’s going on?”
For a long moment, Goh doesn’t respond; but his laboured breaths are shortly followed by a new noise: retching.
Stomach twisting in on itself, Gary pulls the phone away from his ear and grabs his jacket off the chair he threw it on to earlier, then slides the hotel room key off the desk and slips it into his pocket next to Umbreon’s Ball. He’s nearly at the elevators by the time Goh speaks again, voice scratchy and tired.
“I’m fine,” he rasps. “I’m s-sorry for bothering you.”
He should have been with Ash and Chloe tonight. They had invited Gary to join them for dinner, too, but he’d declined, reasoning he would see plenty of them all tomorrow afternoon for the birthday party Chloe had been quite insistent he had to attend. Now that he’s living in Viridian City, he doesn’t really have an excuse not to visit for events like this.
She said something else, then. Something about it meaning a lot to Goh, about Goh wanting him there. As sweet a sentiment as it is, it’d be a lot less frustrating to hear from Goh himself.
He jams his finger into the button to call the elevator down and snaps, “You’re not bothering me, dumbass. I’m coming over.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Oh, shut up.”
Goh cuts off with a groan. Words follow it, but they are too muffled for Gary to make out, so instead he says, “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, so you’re gonna have to let me in.”
“I—I can’t.”
“Pretty sure we’d both feel better if I didn’t need Officer Jenny’s permission to break down your door.” He pauses a moment, then adds, “And if that’s necessary, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, calling me instead of an ambulance.”
He expects a protest, or at least an angry acquiescence. Instead, he gets sobs, immediately followed by more retching. Disgust coils up within him, but concern keeps him on the phone through it all. Luckily, Goh’s apartment is not far from Gary’s hotel. It’s probably why Goh called him instead of Ash or Chloe. While Ash might be happy to spend a few days with the Cerises, Gary opted to keep to himself. He wouldn’t have even come to Vermilion until tomorrow if not for the weather forecast. Even now, it’s snowing something fierce. As he steps outside into it, he feels his frustrations curdle into dread: if something is really wrong, it’ll take some time to get to the hospital in this weather.
But sooner than before, the retching stops and Goh’s voice returns, wobbling between the blustery wind: “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”
Gary shudders. “Just—stay where you are. Don’t hang up. I’ll be there soon.”
A meek “‘Kay” is his only response. Then, all that sounds for the rest of the walk over is Goh’s uneven breaths, the wind cutting through to carry it off into the night.
In spite of the weather, he makes good time, and he gets lucky at the door, too, when a resident of the building heading in for the night sees him rushing behind them and waits for him with the door held open, offering a smile of greeting. He tries to return the expression in gratitude, but fears what actually crosses his face is more akin to a grimace. It’s unlike him, to be so given to emotion.
They part ways quickly after that, with Gary rushing for the elevator to take him up to the eighth floor, while the resident turns the corner to go to their first-floor apartment. Why couldn’t Goh have a unit on the first floor? Gary stands and waits, foot tapping impatiently, and tells Goh on the phone, “I’m in the lobby.”
After a beat, Goh mutters, “Door’s unlocked.”
Well, at least he figured that part out.
When the elevator arrives, Gary hastens to get into it and press the button to close the doors right away. Shortly after it starts to move, the call drops. With a heavy sigh, Gary slips his phone back into his pocket and stares at the little screen on the interior of the elevator signalling which floor it’s on. After what feels like an eternity, it arrives on the eighth floor. He jogs out and down the hall to get to Goh’s unit.
True to Goh’s word, the handle turns effortlessly under his hand. As he enters, the light from the hall floods into the entryway, illuminating the path to the bedroom. The door is open; on the unmade bed lies Grookey, looking sad and dejected. It lifts its head as Gary flicks on a light and closes the door behind him, calling out, “Goh?”
There’s no response, so Gary steps inside and peers into the kitchen. The first thing that registers is Goh, slumped at the table, head in his hands. He does not so much look up as Gary comes closer, which is when he registers the second thing: the half-full glass and the bottle of shochu beside it. For a beat, all Gary can do is stare dumbly, and then—Goh’s posture, the laboured quality of his breathing, the sounds of vomiting over the phone. It all clicks into place.
He’s drunk.
He’s drunk?
“Are you out of your mind?” Gary demands. “Hey, look—listen to me. At least tell me you’ve had something to eat.”
Goh looks up at him at last, with wet eyes, then gestures helplessly toward the bathroom. “Gone now,” he says miserably.
Feeling some complicated mixture of furious and betrayed, Gary snaps, “I thought you were hurt. I thought you— I thought—”
Goh winces. “I’m sorry,” he croaks. His tears spill over; in no time at all, he is consumed by wracking sobs. He tries to open his mouth one, two, three times, but fails to get any more words out. After a moment, he takes in another gasping breath, then stands and bolts back into the washroom. Barely three seconds later, the sounds of retching ricochet off the walls back to the hallway, to Gary.
And just like that, his anger dissipates. Under no ordinary circumstances would Goh ever want him to see him like this. He could have called Ash, or Chloe—someone he feels he can trust to not hold it over his head later. But instead, he called Gary. And didn’t Gary come here with the intention of helping him?
There’s no fun to be had in poking at an open wound. After a second of deliberation, he steps past the table and heads into the kitchen proper in search of a bowl or a bucket. The options are limited, a testament to how little Goh actually cooks—or eats at home at all, probably—but he finds a mixing bowl in a cupboard beneath the counter and decides it will have to do.
First thing, he enters Goh’s room and sets the bowl on the bedside table. Its curiosity overtaking its upset, Grookey jumps down off the bed to see what he’s doing, which gives him the opportunity to set to work tidying the sheets and blankets. He hesitates a moment before leaving the room, then digs into his pocket for Umbreon’s Ball. As she materializes, he directs her, “Keep Grookey company here, all right?”
She doesn’t so much as pause to consider the situation. Whatever urgency he conveys to her, she takes it in stride. Confident that she will keep Grookey both occupied and happy, he heads back out to the hallway and peers past the door Goh did not bother closing into the bathroom. He’s not actively throwing up anymore, but neither does he seem to be interested in standing up and walking away from the toilet anytime soon. Even as Gary approaches, he does not look up; but from the shuddering breath he releases, it is obvious he knows Gary is there.
“C’mon,” Gary mutters. He kneels down beside him and reaches a hand out to brush against his shoulder. At his touch, Goh shivers, but he does not move. Gary pushes: “You’ll feel better if you get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” Goh says vaguely, in the direction of the toilet seat. A thin line of saliva still hangs off his bottom lip; apparently, he is too exhausted to care about it.
Sighing, Gary rises again to search out a face cloth. He opens a few cupboards in the bathroom, and Goh really must be past his limit if he’s not getting on Gary’s case about looking through his things. But when Gary glances his way, he’s not even looking at him. His breathing sounds heavy within the cramped room, hitched by sobs. It shouldn’t be heart-wrenching, but it is; even with the knowledge that it’s a self-inflicted poison, that he would not feel nearly so terrible right now if he had just issued some restraint earlier on in the night. It’s not a vice Gary knows well—but he knows the same can’t be said for Goh, who is always the first to drink a little too much at a party, sometimes, even, the first to suggest they drink at all. Whether Chloe and Ash know it goes beyond that, Gary’s never thought to ask. It simply wasn’t his place.
Is it his place now? He’s here. It’s nearly midnight. Outside, snow coats the city in impermeable cold. It’s not as if Gary can just go back to his hotel room and wake up tomorrow morning like nothing ever happened.
But even still, he wets the cloth he finds, and kneels down next to Goh to coax his gaze his way. When their eyes meet, something sharp drives down beneath Gary’s breast, but he swallows back the pain and gently reaches forward, instead, to clean the vomit off his face. As the cloth brushes against Goh’s skin, his eyes flutter shut. Another tear slips down his cheek.
Satisfied, Gary pulls back and asks, “Better?”
Rather than respond, Goh leans back, away from the toilet, and bows his head. He looks so—young, suddenly, and all at once Gary feels again out of his depth. They can’t have a conversation like this, but even if they could, what could he possibly say?
“Goh,” he says, instead, and Goh shakes his head, lets out a sound akin to a sob.
“I’m sorry,” he rasps.
“Pretty sure you’ve said that part already,” Gary responds, carefully. As measured as he can be.
In contrast, Goh is anything but. His breathing is ragged and unsteady, and suddenly picks up in pace. After three, four cycles of erratic inhale-exhale, he manages to choke out, “Dizzy. Feel like—I’m dying.”
Gary leans closer, puts a hand under his chin to lift it. His eyes are glassy, but not concerningly unfocussed; the pallor of his skin is only as bad as one would expect after how ill he has been tonight. But the tremble of his lip catches Gary’s attention, and holds it hostage for a good, long moment, while he tries and fails to think of something more reassuring to say than, “You’re not dying.”
“Wish I were,” Goh gasps back, and Gary’s heart clenches.
“Don’t be an idiot,” he mutters. “Come on, let’s get you into bed.”
With no small effort, Gary hoists him up to his feet. He staggers against him, clinging to his shirt as if to a lifeline, apparently unaware of just how much weight he is throwing on to Gary. It’s unlike him to be so accepting of help, especially when it involves physical contact like this; another reminder, then, that Gary needs to tread carefully here.
“C’mon,” he coaxes. “Still nauseous?”
“I…dunno.” Against his side, Goh shudders, then says again, uselessly, “’M sorry.”
Rather than waste his energy responding, Gary focusses on dragging Goh out of the bathroom, to the bedroom. Umbreon and Grookey are on the other side of the room, passing back and forth a plastic ball, but Grookey perks up at the sight of its Trainer and makes to bound over. Just in time, Umbreon steps in front of it and corrals it back to the corner of the bedroom, distracting it with the toy again. For his part, Goh doesn’t seem to notice at all. In fact, he doesn’t seem to notice anything, at least until Gary drops him down on the bed and makes to step back.
At once, the hands gripping his shirt tighten into shaking fists. “Please,” he says. “Stay. I’m scared.”
“You’re scared?” Gary repeats, incredulous.
“What if I—” He stops, looking queasy. It is easy enough to hear what it is he can’t bring himself to say, but it doesn’t exactly cohere with everything else he’s said since they were in the bathroom together.
“You’re not gonna die,” Gary tells him again. “Just—lie down already and try to sleep. You’ll be fine in the morning.”
His eyes well with tears again, even as his grip on Gary loosens and falls away. But the trembling in his hands only seems to grow more pronounced.
It’s not like him. To sit here and beg and cry for someone to stay. The unseemliness of it coils something in Gary’s gut, compels him to just do something. Turn around and leave, fold and sit down beside him and reach for his hands and tell him that everything will be okay, that he won’t go anywhere. Tell him what a dumbass he’s being; tell him he loves him and he’s glad he called, at the very least so he’ll stop looking so devastated.
In the end, though, he’s not one to run from a challenge. Goh called him. Whatever his intention, it doesn’t matter, because that means Gary is the one who is here now. That Gary is the person he thought could help him.
Cautiously, he settles down on the bed beside Goh. When Goh doesn’t so much as shift, he reaches over to gently grab hold of one of his hands, giving it a squeeze.
“I’m not leaving,” he says. “But you can barely string two passable words together right now. The last thing we should be doing is having a conversation about this.”
“You must hate me,” Goh whispers.
“I don’t usually go around holding hands with people I don’t like, believe it or not.”
“Still. I’m sorry.”
“Save it ‘til you’ve had some rest.” Gary runs his thumb over the back of Goh’s hand, then, slowly, separates them. “Tell ya what. I’ll stay right here while you sleep. The whole time. And then you can tell me how sorry you are.”
“R-really?”
“Yeah.” There’s no point in mentioning that he wouldn’t have any hope of leaving in this weather, anyway. “C’mon, lie down. I’ll look after ya.”
Finally, finally, Goh does as he asked. His breathing is still stilted and heavy, but when his head hits the pillow, he closes his eyes in a clear attempt at sleeping. All Gary can really do is climb over him and sit back against the headboard on the other side of the bed. Across the room, Grookey and Umbreon have settled down, too. Grookey is fast asleep; Umbreon watches Gary with a piercing, but decidedly nonjudgemental, gaze.
After some time has passed and he thinks Goh has dozed off, he carefully makes to get out of bed to find a glass of water in the kitchen. But he has barely swung one leg off the side of the mattress before a hand is gripping his wrist, pulling him back.
“Stay,” Goh’s scratchy voice pleads.
He can’t bring himself to fight back. As he returns to his place on the bed, Goh’s hold on him loosens again. The whole time, his eyes have remained closed, his face pinched in pain and disorientation.
With a sigh, Gary leans over him to brush a strand of hair glued to his cheek by a mix of sweat and tears. His fingers linger against skin as the touch seems to ease something in Goh, so slight it is nigh imperceptible. And yet, doubtlessly, it is there: the smallest of tension drained from his frame, allowing his chest to rise and fall a little more deeply.
All he can do is stay near him, and hope that is enough to get them through the night.
At some point, Gary must have drifted off, too. When he wakes again, it is to see Goh curled on his side, back to him. Something about his posture suggests he is uncomfortable; his pain becomes evident when Gary shifts to get out of bed and he turns his head, eyes squinting to see him against the slant of light cutting in through the blinds.
Gary pauses, looking him over. Heavy bags under his eyes, pallid skin. But before his eyes can meet Gary’s, he drops his head down against the pillow again with a groan.
“Didn’t know you were awake,” Gary says after a moment.
“Yeah,” he mumbles.
“Water?”
“Guess so.”
“Great. I’ll be back.”
This time, Goh doesn’t try to hold him back. He doesn’t even glance back to see as he leaves the room. He’s not sure why it should leave his heart aching so terribly, when clingy is the last thing that will help either of them right now.
As he enters the hall, footsteps pattering behind him alert him to Grookey’s presence. It squeezes past him, then turns to look over its shoulder, as if in impatience. It becomes clear why when they enter the kitchen and it immediately bounds toward a cabinet on the side of the room, banging its stick insistently until Gary comes over and opens it up.
Within, he finds an assortment of medications, Pokémon and human ones alike. The over the counter painkillers are easily located, but all Gary can think as he tips two of them out of the container is how depressing Grookey’s awareness of the situation is. This is far from the first time this has happened, then.
That done, Grookey is content to leave him well enough alone as he locates a glass and fills it with water from the tap. By the time they return to Goh’s bedroom, Goh hasn’t moved an inch, and he doesn’t move when Gary sets the glass and painkillers down on the bedside table, either.
“You’ve gotta at least try to help yourself,” Gary tells him, “or there’s no point in me being here.”
“Go, then,” Goh mutters. “I shouldn’t have asked you to come in the first place.”
“You barely did.”
“Whatever.”
“Just take the pills, would you?”
Finally, with clear effort, he sits up. But halfway to reaching for the glass, a new expression crosses his face. He changes course for the bowl Gary set there last night instead, and promptly throws up again. As if on autopilot, Gary leans over to hold his hair back while he vomits. He trembles under his touch with each interval between heaves, as weak and fragile as he felt the night before.
Finally, it stops. He sets the bowl at his feet and goes for the pills and water instead, silent as Gary steps back to give him some space. Even after he has downed the pills, he cradles the glass close to him with two hands, sipping occasionally, but does not say a word. Not even when Gary sits down beside him on the bed.
“Happy birthday, by the way,” he says after a long moment, and Goh laughs. It’s not a pleasant or mirthful sound in the slightest.
“Why are you still here?” he asks. “This can’t possibly be worth your time.”
Gary’s breath catches. With some effort, he bites back a snarky retort about how it’s not worth his time and instead points out, “I came to Vermilion in the first place for you, didn’t I?”
“Not like this, though.”
That bitter tone is familiar, and makes Gary pause.
“Did you not want me to come?”
“I didn’t say that,” Goh mutters.
“Well, you didn’t not say it.” Maybe it’s not the time to bring this up, but the words are out faster than he can think to hold them back: “It’s kinda hard to tell what you want when you refuse to tell me yourself. Chloe saying you wanted me here doesn’t prove anything about how you feel.”
“What I want,” Goh echoes, and then lets out a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “I called you when I thought I was gonna die of alcohol poisoning, didn’t I? That must mean something.”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Look,” Goh says, then stops, lifting a hand to wipe at his eyes. “This is stupid. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t— I guess, in the moment, I wanted you there because I knew you would tell me it was.”
“Was what?”
“Stupid.”
Gary opens his mouth, then closes it again, flabbergasted. He scoffs. “You really think that badly of me?”
“It’s what I deserved to hear.”
“Oh, spare me,” Gary says icily. “I’m not gonna sit here and tell you you’re a pathetic waste of space or anything like that no matter how bad you want me to. If I thought that, why the hell would I have come running when you called? What you did was stupid, sure, but I’m sure you had a reason for it.”
Goh’s quiet a moment, fiddling with the edge of his sheet. Finally, he mutters, “The storm.”
“What?”
“When I saw the forecast, I just—kept thinking about it. And then I started seeing all these outage reports, and I…” His voice grows smaller, suddenly. “I knew that they’d be so busy today they would forget to tell me happy birthday. I just wanted to stop thinking about them.”
“Your parents,” Gary realizes, and he nods.
“I should be used to it. As a kid, it never used to bother me so much, but I just…” He winces, ducking his head as fresh tears slip down his cheeks. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Damn him. Damn the way his misery tugs at Gary’s heartstrings, makes him feel sorry when he wants to be angry—angry at the role Goh has cast him in, angry at this situation, at Goh, at his parents for making him think needing someone to pull his hair back and hold his hand when he’s sick is some kind of weakness. He won’t say it, but he’s laid out his feelings clear as day: an overflowing fount of pain, blood he has tried for years to stopper from a wound that only knows how to dig itself deeper.
With a sigh, Gary scoots closer, until their legs are pressed together in perfect alignment. “C’mere,” he mutters, and wraps an arm around him to pull him against his side. Without the alcohol to lower his inhibitions, he hesitates; but when Gary does not move, he eventually allows himself to fall against him, burying his face in Gary’s chest as he tries to steady his breathing again.
“I’m sorry,” he says, muffled by Gary’s shirt.
“Didn’t you have dinner with Ash and Chloe? You could have said something. They would’ve stayed with you.”
Goh sniffles. “I—I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I thought—just a drink or two, and I’d feel better. But I didn’t, so I kept going.”
“This has happened before, hasn’t it?”
“I wish it didn’t.”
Pensively, Gary reaches up to stroke his hair. As he does, Goh seems to melt into him, his tears soaking through his shirt all the way down into his heart.
Finally, he brings himself to say, “Next time, can you at least call before you open the shochu?”
“W-what?”
“Call me,” Gary clarifies. “Before you get so drunk you can’t function. I’ll talk to you. I’ll come in from Viridian, if I have to. But anything’s gotta be better than doing this to yourself all alone.”
For a long moment, the only sounds are those of Goh’s unsteady breathing. And then, tremulous: “I’m sorry Chloe was the one to tell you I wanted you here today. I’m really glad you came.”
Something in Gary’s chest loosens, allows him to lean down and press a chaste kiss to the top of Goh’s head. He glances up finally, blinking in surprise, and Gary offers him a soft smile.
“I’m glad I came too,” he says. “Now, whaddya say about getting up and having some breakfast?”