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Roger was doing that thing again. That thing that made Peter double take whenever he walked by because you could see in Roger’s optic something was off. How his dial didn’t jitter with excitement whenever one of Roger’s favourite topics came up, or how it took so much less time to convince Roger into just agreeing like some kind of lap dog but-
It wasn’t who Peter thought it was. Roger’s girlfriend had dumped him about a year ago now (for better, or for worse) and Roger’d been floating along fine to a steady recovery from that miserable alcoholic lifestyle and while was a bit too gullible, was always quoting Peter’s advice which… Warmed the heart, Peter thought.
But no, it wasn’t until Peter stepped up the staircase that was by now a slope with how much fire damage and trash (and emu, scuttler and possibly employee droppings though Peter refused to think of that.) were smeared along it, up to the thin wooden door with windows either side, both complete disguised by the pulled shutter blinds and all kinds of grime.
He was just coming up under the guise of ‘Dropping off papers’, though everyone knew he was just coming up to check on Roger.
He hadn’t heard from him all day, whether that be his laughing from upstairs or him coming down into the far neater office labeled by a slate on the door “Assistant Manager” to spill some new oblivious and naïve ‘company-saving’ idea onto Peter.
Instead he’d heard shuffles. Muted shuffles, as if trying too hard to be silent.
In all honesty, Peter didn’t want to drum his knuckles on that door. It made his stomach crawl up into a clenched ball inside him, as if his organs themselves were going into the fetal position. Nerves were suddenly biting at his stomach again, which was weird- Peter swore he took medication to mediate those.
He was doing his own thing again, where he imagined Roger as someone who was young, not twenty-seven years of age and working a once sought-after job title.
If Peter were unaware of the current shit-show Roger ran, he’d even want his position. Even now, he could do so much with it.
Why was he so distracted? It was just opening a door…
He hit his knuckles on it a few times, in a pattern that’d become instinct to him by now to Roger knew it was specifically him.
All was quiet.
It was suddenly stiff in the air, the kind that you can’t fill your lungs with. The kind that after just a few moments of living in it got muggy and stuffy and hot. Maybe Peter was already breaking into a sweat, just considering what Roger could possibly have been doing behind that sealed door, so he tapped his knuckles on it again, this time with more force.
He could’ve sworn his receivers picked up on some shuffling but no answer. So he tried the handle.
Locked- why would it be locked? Roger never locked the door, not even when he was getting changed, in fact it was a bad habit, you’d think with the amount of times Peter’d awkwardly caught him with belt still undone he’d learn to lock his door but clearly not.
Not until now, which made it worse.
“Rog? You in there?”
Peter tried in that awfully hoarse voice that he winced at the second he heard, since it was so croaky and portrayed that fright he felt so honestly.
“Yes, Peter.”
That little voice answered back and Peter felt his heart ease as he took a deep breath to coincide with his shoulders falling as he inhaled and exhaled.
“Bud, why’s your door locked?”
Peter called out and knew to be patient, it would inevitably take Roger a little to answer since he was probably just sat at his computer, distracted by that stupid.. File…Number whatever Gnome he had on his desktop. Peter wasn’t busy thinking about the fucking gnome, he was trying to think of Roger completely fine behind that door, just preoccupied with his desk.
He means- what could Roger be doing? He definitely hadn’t snuck anyone in, otherwise Roger would’ve gotten a bit louder by now, chatting and laughing how he always did. Sometimes even to himself.
But Roger’s reply was a bit too drawn out for anything like that to have him feeling sane.
“Just wanted a bit of.. Space, and time alone.”
“…Do you still want ‘space and time alone’ or am I allowed to come in?”
“You can if you want too.”
Roger’s murmured reply came as he leaned into the wall he sat against with his hat propped on his knees, which were pulled to his chest.
It was these times he felt so lonely, but so guilty.
Here was the pathetic excuse Roger was, hiding away from everyone who claimed to (and in some of their cases, probably did) give a shit about him, in the corner behind his fern.
The door could be opened, it wasn’t like he was being held back by his girlfriend anymore.
He was a prisoner crying to be free while the door was open, and his handcuffs were loose and undone for him without him needing to do any of the work.
Because that’s how Roger just had to function. Have it pointed out to him. ‘Useless idiot’ had once been a phrase that made Roger want to cry, because he wasn’t useless, and surely not an idiot!
But now? He definitely felt it.
He used to be so smart, he got passing grades and praise for being so polite from teachers though, even they had informed back then he’d been a little ‘distracted’.
Where had Roger let all that go, and for what? A lady who let him ogle and swoon over her in public but dare he look at her with love in his eyes when they were home.
Roger didn’t deserve a luxury like that. But there were other luxuries he could afford and, for whatever reason, his girlfriend let him have.
There was a new lady in town and her smell left Roger swooning, aching for more and missing her like a hound at the door when she was gone. She went by many names, and by God Roger couldn’t remember a single one of them, but to him she always tasted beautiful. Roger couldn’t let her go for a second. Even when his head thumped as much as his heart did when he was offered her, he couldn’t let go if he wanted too.
It was shocking that the bartender found a way to not call Roger an alchie to his face.
Roger wasn’t there. Not entirely, at least.
His feet were planted still and shaking and his signature hat was, despite all his thinking, still on his knees— But Roger wasn’t really there. Which was weird for him to think about, Roger knew he was there in his corner and Peter was there too!
But oh no, his mind was captured elsewhere. He was thinking about his lady, and how somehow, after scrounging for cash so desperately, which Roger assumed the emus had ate and he’d need to scold them for and train them out of it at some point, he’d managed to buy her heart back again.
He found she no longer burnt on his throat, instead soothed it with her kisses. Had he really been that stressed this week? He did suppose she’d been the only thing on his mind. Now that she was here he felt awfully calm, tucked away in his lap between his legs in her curved shape, lips glistening under his flickering office lights. But he’d continued his drinking, gotten the liquid inside to the label and felt like he was sinking ever deeper into that abyss because— this wasn’t making him feel any better. Sure, he felt looser and shit was he feeling a fuckton calmer, but he wasn’t happier now that she was here. He felt the same- no, worse maybe. Because all it did was remind him of his waste-of-time sobriety.
He paused, mid mouthful to consider before his optical sensor scrunched. He tried another once he’d swallowed and that same gut-wrenching feeling locked itself deep in his ribs.
Peter had told him she would hold him captive, but Roger found it more like alcohol was hugging him tightly and promising nice things, and back then he didn’t mind in the slightest. Back then he liked her company, enjoyed her rouge. But now it felt like a punch to the ribs, a recoil making him slide to the ground by his fern. He couldn’t decipher what he felt, because he couldn’t put it down now that the cold brown glass was in his lap. He needed to finish it, his mind yelled.
So what they’d been apart for a few months or so? Roger hadn’t been counting. Who cared.
“I can’t really come in when it’s locked, Rog.”
Peter’s voice rang through his still room and reminded him of the presence of the one man who seemingly gave a shit.
Peter’d been the one counting. Peter had been right next to him day in and day out, cheering him on in such a loving way whenever he felt down and like he needed a sip again. Peter had always cared and Roger had just failed him, like he’d failed him last time and the time before that but—
This time, this time Roger felt unwell. Peter’s face, he was so nervous to see it drop, so scared to watch the man go from tense from all the work he’d done to rigid with that tone Roger couldn’t split apart from anger or terror or overwhelming anguish and misery.
Roger shifted to burrow a home for his head in his hands and prepared to never leave, until Peter assumed Roger’d gotten locked in his office again and called the fire department.
Only this time maybe Roger’d hung himself with his tie out of shame before they would get to him.
Was there really any point? He’d never make it. He’d slump back until he was back on his couch six beers deep while he cried, uselessly begging his girlfriend to stop yelling at him while she smoked and gestured her lit lighter at him. She’d never burnt Roger, but he always thought she would. Terrified of her iron gaze and learnt to respond to her steps. She oddly stepped lighter when she was mad, and he assumed she did it because she liked to scare Roger. Torment him with that damn lit flame and cigarettes just a fraction too close to skin, enough to singe armhair. Torture him with her words day in, day out.
She would’ve done a lot of things she threatened if Roger hadn’t drunkenly told Peter after pre-gaming his own work-day, crying into the man’s shirt and being held by him until his tears dried up in the blue button up and all that was left was Peter stroking Roger’s handset while he whimpered his sobs away, shaking at the knees, which always led to Peter having a ‘word’ with her which usually ended in both of them losing their voices and coming out of Roger’s apartment fuming and silent.
The silence scared Roger the most. Which is why he hated the gap in speech now as Roger searched for any excuse to not let Peter in.
He glanced around and to the bottle in his lap. However many months for what. He could’ve just drank his sodas. The special ones Peter brought with whatever money he could scrounge up specifically for Roger, but no.
Of course Roger’d been Roger, couldn’t settle and be grateful for what he was given and needed to be a prick and find a way to fail his best friend. The only person nowadays who thought about him when he wasn’t right there, the only person who listened and paid attention to him, the one person who believed he could amount to something despite it all and Roger’d failed him.
“..Roger. You need to unlock it yourself to let me in, I don’t have my spare key anymore, remember? The scuttlers ate it. Which is why we needed to call the fire department last time..?”
Peter gently reminded and Roger shifted. Truthfully, yes. He had forgotten the scuttlers ate it, but he was half his mind to tell Peter to just go find it from one of the scuttlers’ stomachs just so he had time to down this booze.
“…I do want more time alone, actually.”
Roger tried and had to cover his auditory output when he slurred on his words a bit, hands cupping it and praying Peter didn’t catch on though, he knew Peter would.
He already knew Peter thought Roger’d relapsed, because who wouldn’t? Roger had lied and said it was the last time how many times now? Why should Peter believe him. He was nothing but a lying, untruthful piece of shit.
Everyone probably thought it by now. Everyone was probably thinking about him. Roger, that pathetic excuse, he’s probably two beers down already, and he’ll do the same in a months time!
“Roger.”
“What?”
There was a beat of silence before Peter laid his handset against the wooden door and rasped.
“Just let me in. If it’s just your uniform messed up, I won’t mind. You know that.” He was trying to add humour to this conversation, he really was, but fuck his stomach was doing flips and making him all sorts of anxious.
Peter felt defeated, like his soul that’d just began to grow so joyful was now wasting away. Seven months, the better part of a year and Roger couldn’t even face him to let him conclude his worse suspicions.
“Please, Rog.”
Don’t let it be true, playing through his mind like a mantra was all he could feel as those heavy footsteps came closer, and closer to that door and made the door let out a surprised click as it unlocked and was pulled open to reveal the shorter man with the set shoulders and hollow optic sensor.
He didn’t appear exactly how Peter expected. He looked tired but… Not drunk by any means.
Peter sank his shoulders and grabbed Roger’s collar, which caused Roger to stumble with a surprised look.
It’d began as a thing of panic, checking on Roger swiftly before playing it off and smoothing Roger’s shirt down, adjusting the man’s tie straight afterwards.
“What’ve you been up to? Uh. You’ve been… quiet.”
Peter asked and Roger swallowed thickly, glancing behind him before turning to let Peter in, and only then did he speak.
“Yea, um. I’ve been trying to catch up on sleep, you see…”
Roger stated- awkwardly looking around. The atmosphere between them was so tense, he couldn’t bare it. Usually Roger and Peter could have a conversation completely fine but now it was nervous, like they were both walking on eggshells around each other.
Peter was silently scanning the room. He didn’t see a can but, he saw open mints on Roger’s desk. Whatever, maybe the man forgot to brush his output device this morning. Peter did that on occasion, too. Roger was usually the one who reminded him to brush it, usually without even needing to say a word, since Roger’s always reeked of alcohol. Maybe that just inspired him to keep cleaning it day in, day out.
Roger’s hands came to Peter’s arm, holding the skin above Peter’s elbow and not releasing it.
This was new. Roger’d hugged him all over, sure, but never held onto the man’s arm.
Roger’s mind was hazy, his head was conflicted on the bottle hidden by his fern. He hoped it wouldn’t tip. Wouldn’t water his plant the way alcohol had watered him, killed him and made him a weed.
“Rog, your office is a mess.”
Peter stated and broke away towards his desk, moving the mints back into their container and the papers to the sides.
“I know.” He awkwardly shuffled towards the plant, sitting on the edge of the desk closest to it.
“You seriously worried me earlier.”
Continued Peter while he busied himself cleaning up for Roger.
He lifted a decent stack of paper into his hold and placed it behind Roger, retreating his hand back to Roger’s knee.
“…I have nothing to worry about, do I?”
“No, Peter.” Roger replied and eyed Peter’s hand on his leg. Roger was sitting on his own hands- a habit he got from Jake, because he’d apparently ‘picked his nails too loud’ on their Friday movie nights.
In an inexplicable way, it made every part of him more itchy lying to Peter so casually about something that to an outsider was small, even Roger clearly couldn’t completely understand the scale of it as he’d displayed earlier. But to Peter? Fuck, it seemed to Roger that Peter was only working here just to see Roger succeed- if not, for something to do.
And here was Roger, local fuckup and international failure as he lied through his output device to his best friend about the state of his sobriety because he couldn’t imagine how badly it’d hurt to tell Peter the truth. How badly he’d hurt Peter, and how hard it’d be to solidify the truth that he’d just killed his seven month long sobriety for what, a cheap bottle of booze he didn’t even like?
Peter was watching him through his optical sensor with a look of fondness as his thumb came to Roger’s orange ‘cheek’, running along the scratch there that’d marred the plastic.
“Good. How about you come sit in my office for a while, you can talk about whatever you want there?”
Roger would obviously say yes. Always would, why wouldn’t he? But at that moment, so much of him was inclined to say no and decline, simply because it hurt to think about that even after so long, even his best friend didn’t trust him alone.
Why would he?
Roger’d done nothing but lie and break promises- he was doing it right now while just sitting on his desk! Why would anybody put up with him the way Peter had? Why was Peter looking after him, and putting up with him?
What would happen when Peter decided he couldn’t take the hurt anymore and completely leave him. He had his wife, his job wasn’t paying- he lost nothing if he dumped his job and Roger with it. So why stay? Roger doubted it was only because of his sobriety, because how Peter always told him, “Think of yourself in their shoes.”
And if Roger were in Peter’s shoes, he’d have given up on Roger a long while ago.
Roger adjusted uncomfortably, optical sensor switching elsewhere to avoid any eye contact between the two as he shook his head and tried to come up with an excuse.
“Uhm. I wanna stay and.. sleep again.”
He bit out, clipping his words short trying so hard not to slur them in front of Peter.
Peter’s hand paused on Roger’d face and gave him a confused look for a moment, searching his features.
“Yea, but isn’t my couch so much nicer to sleep on?”
“My corner’s nice, too.”
He muttered and tried his damndest to keen in though, had to catch himself on Peter’s belt.
His mind flooded with curses, his pulse felt as if it was skyrocketing, fuck- maybe this was what he deserved? His hands shook on Peter’s hip and his other supported himself as he leaned back, hand dial trembling in his anxious tremors.
Peter strayed to lean away from Roger toward the man’s corner, just to glance.
The fern was still, leaves branching high, nearly higher than Peter and surely taller than Roger’s set stance, sunlight from the pulled curtains behind just peeking in to stare at the matte leaves.
“You’ve been taking care of it.”
Peter mumbled before glancing back down to Roger, grabbing either of Roger’s biceps.
“That’s good, bud. That shows commitment.”
Roger huffed and swayed his legs, dangling from the desk. The beer bottle tucked behind it didn’t show any commitment, it showed that we was weak and gave up on things easily because he couldn’t be bothered to care for himself whatsoever since, Roger thought, thirty would be the last year he’d need to worry about any of this. It was daunting to think about that being less than three years away. But then again, hadn’t he said the same about twenty-five?
What was more daunting was Peter just looking at the fern. Just behind its plant box, on the windowsill was that beer, hidden under pulled curtains. Daunting was Peter’s worried gaze as Roger continued to tremor and sway where he sat, breathing growing more and more restrictive because in his head, all the alarm bells were going off. His breath smelt too much of alcohol, the mints weren’t doing anything, and his clothes probably smelt of it, and his hat and—
“Roger, are you sure you’re alright?”
Peter asked softly and fixed the man’s collar of his shirt, then pulled Roger’s hat from his phone-head and placed it on his keyboard.
“Yea- just…”
He couldn’t think of a ‘just’ excuse. So he hung his head and fidgeted his fingers under his thighs, thumbs pinching sleek pant fabric between fingers his ocular sensor beginning to wobble as his breathing continued to get harder to struggle out, his clothes were sticking to his skin and making him sweat and in a matter of moments he was snuffling and looking around for a way out of Peter’s gaze.
He’d fucked up, it was hitting him now. Everything would come down around him, he was sure of it. As much as Lady Alcohol promised him nice things he’d never be more than scum left on the bottom of the food chain, the friend group punching bag and never whatever he dreamed of as a kid. Roger was a fuck up, there was no saving someone like him.
That money he used to pay for that booze could’ve done good. It was scraps he’d managed from any poor fool who was moronic enough to buy from their failing business or, easier, forgotten on the street by a sad sod, but it still could’ve been used for anything else.
He could’ve gotten groceries that were a bit healthier, he could’ve paid early on his rent,
Hell! He could’ve taken Peter out to the funfair like they’d promised each other months ago.
Peter was looking at him with that confusion that was so genuinely full of care, so full of worry.
Why could Peter worry about Roger so often, but Roger couldn’t bring himself to care about himself? Didn’t care what he ate, how clean his apartment was, not even his sobriety.
How could Peter care? Roger surely couldn’t.
“Rog? Rog- Cmon, what’s wrong y- You’re clearly not.”
Peter’s hands came to Roger’s shoulders and his fingers tapped on his body, feeling the man present with him in that moment when he could tell the man’s mind was drifted elsewhere was somehow surreal, like being brought back to the reality that no, Roger somehow every single time proved he couldn’t be trusted as the shorter man in front of him slobbered and hiccuped through panting and holding back that annoying sound that came along with sobbing.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Roger brought an arm to cover his optical sensor and continued his harsh breathing, while blood pumped in his ears loudly like a barking dog drumming through his head and straight to his already hurting brain like little bullets.
He was drunk. It was mild, though he’d barely ever had much alcohol tolerance. But, maybe the clarity had sobered him up.
Peter wasn’t an idiot, and it made Roger want to shrink into his coat.
“Rog-“
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Didn’t mean to what?!”
Peter desperately rasped, though he didn’t mean to yell whilst he begging for an answer that wasn’t the one he knew was coming, the one that was lurking under Roger’s minty breath and tucked behind the same plant Peter’d stared at just a moment ago.
“I want to be alone.”
The other cried out into tan hands that cupped his own phone-face, trimmed nails trying so hard to dig into his own dial. His voice shook in a desperation as if something so severe to be kept under wraps, yet in the back of Roger’s mind a voice yelled it was small. Just one man’s sobriety. There were bigger problems that Peter should care about. His workers lacked the funds for meals, they only stuck around under the promise that something would get better sometime.
Roger was a horrible boss and a horrible person who cared about nobody but himself.
If he thought about it, was he really upset that he’d broke his sober streak or was he only upset that Peter would get upset?
The way Peter’s hands shook like a tremor on either of Roger’s shoulders, fingers tightly digging into Roger whilst trying their best not to cause harm- it was enough to make Roger break into a wail and croak out in a near shout.
“Please don’t be mad at me! I’m sorry, Peter!”
The other man’s hands pulled Roger’s hands from his face, then cupped his wet phone head, meeting the soggy gaze of his optical sensor while he sniffled.
Peter couldn’t help the pit that formed in his tummy, a mix of pure anguish and anger. He’d dedicated so much of his life for Roger, spending days with him keeping his head busy through withdrawals and nights of failed sobriety attempts holding Roger’s shoulders while he threw up into his toilet bowl.
He’d watched Roger stare into the reflection of the water at the bottom of that toilet, watched him watch his tears dribble into it. Taken a million stares and nasty looks when he came by *regularly* to the pub to collect the weeping mess.
And he’d gotten nothing. Not even the satisfaction of Roger reaching out when he couldn’t take it, nor the right of seeing the man reach a year of being clean. They had celebrated his half a year just a month ago, and this is how he was repaid.
“Roger- you didn’t, did you?” He couldn’t help the shake of his voice as his optical sensor shot wide, the turn dial of his face jittering nervously.
And Roger?
He couldn’t even give Peter the satisfaction of an answer. Just slumped in on himself and brought his knees up to his face on the desk where he sat.
Peter soon took a few stumbled steps back to peer around the room, when his eyes caught on the shine of the brown bottle reflecting off the sun on the other side of the window pane, and padded over to its empty contents, with only a drop left to pool at the bottom.
Peter turned the cool bottle over in his hand, then slowly peeled his gaze up to Roger. Everything in his body told him to ditch it at the man, scream at him that he truly was hopeless, tell him to get fucked and die from liver disease if that’s what he truly wanted.
But instead, Peter dropped his shoulders low, hunched his back and stepped out the door of Roger’s office, slamming it hard behind him.
Roger snapped his head up to the door, eyeing it for a long moment before letting out a loud sob and dropping his head down to wail and cry into himself, left alone and utterly useless.