Who: Kermit and Gonzo When: 2004 Where: Gonzo's house What: The only time Kermit really tried to kill himself after Missy broke up with him. Warnings: Swears, suicidal talks, self-injury.
This was the fifth time that Missy had completely broken his heart into a million pieces, stomped on them with her completely amazingly beautiful shoes, and spit on them for good measure. ...Was it the fifth? Maybe it was even the sixth. Kermit had lost count, but it still hurt. It hurt so much, like she really had stomped on the pieces of his heart, like she'd ripped it out of his chest and stomped on it. And, as was custom for when this sort of thing happened, Kermit went running for Gonzo's house. Even if he had his license (which he didn't, he still had his learner's permit, and it didn't look like he was going to get his license until he was eighteen at this rate), he would have run. Running helped. Running cleared his mind.
Correction. Running usually cleared his mind. But this break-up was different. This break-up was for real. Missy had told him so. She'd told him that they were breaking up and she was never taking him back again, because she couldn't stand to be with a cheater, even though he'd never in his life even looked at another girl, and especially not that slut Janice. Never Janice. So instead of being relatively calm, by his standards, when he arrived at Gonzo's house, Kermit was still sobbing, tears streaming down his cheeks, hands shaking violently as he rang the doorbell and sagged against the frame. Gonzo would fix him. Gonzo would make everything better.
Gonzo had no idea what to do with himself, none whatsoever -- Grandma had gone off to Cabo with her boy toy who was young enough to be Gonzo's brother; Mom was in some spa in upstate New York which just seemed to be a fucking backwards place to go to a spa, based on all the times that Gonzo had ever been to upstate New York, and she wasn't taking calls, and she had made it clear when she'd left that she didn't want to see anyone least of all her son, and couldn't she at least have gone to Colorado, going to Colorado would've made sense and Gonzo could have called Aunt Clarissa to make her check up on Mom; and Dad was off in Germany on some business thing -- and everything just felt so... dead.
All he wanted was to not feel so dead, and pointless, and dull. He'd gone drag racing earlier, with Zoot, Floyd, and Animal, and he'd gotten some of Janice's AD meds and a decent amount of her cocaine, and he'd gunned it hard in Grandpa's favorite old car, nearly crashing it on more than one occasion. When that hadn't done anything for him, he'd gunned it harder on Animal's Harley, nearly fucking breaking himself on more than one occasion, and that had only made his mood improve a little. Now, he was just alone in his empty house, chain-smoking (he'd had five cigarettes so far, one of which had been put out on his left forearm and three of which had been put out on his stomach; the first one had been the only one to make it into Dad's tacky, Margaritaville ashtray); he was on his sixth when the doorbell rang.
...It was Kermit. Thank fucking God, someone Gonzo actually liked. Sighing, he copied Kermit's posture, leaning against the door-frame in a near mirror image of his best friend's slump. "Whooooo'saKermieeee," he asked bluntly, lazily elongating the vowels.
"Missy- *gasp* dumped- *sob* meee," Kermit wailed, grabbing at Gonzo and burying his face into Gonzo's neck. Although it didn't seem like it, he was already calming down. Just the sight of his best friend was enough to calm him a little, and leaning against him was even better. Gonzo always made him feel better, always always. Usually. "I want to die," he moaned decisively, sniffing obnoxiously before letting out a chain of loud, broken sobs.
With the decisive seizing, Gonzo dropped his cigarette and stomped it out; no one else was there to care that he'd done so on Mom's precious, hardwood floor, and he could clean it up later. He wrapped his arms around Kermit's shoulders reflexively, running a hand down his hair gently. "Come on, man," he sighed, a small laugh in his voice, despite the serious nature of the situation. He didn't know what it was doing there, but, seriously, there was a certain, dark humor about the fact that Kermit once again thought that Missy dumping him was permanent. The crazy bitch would be back on his nuts in a day, not even.
"You know she doesn't mean it, Kermit," Gonzo went on, another note of a laugh slipping in despite his best efforts. "And you know that you don't want to fucking die." What the fuck kind of suggestion was that. Kermit didn't want to die. He couldn't want to die.
"She does!" Kermit insisted, pressing himself tightly against Gonzo. "She told me she meant it this time, that we're never getting back together again, and that she hates meeee." And he couldn't live if Missy hated him, he couldn't, he couldn't, and he wouldn't do it. "I do so want to die," he replied insistently, sniffing again and freeing himself from Gonzo's grasp, wiping his hands down his face. He wasn't crying anymore; this was far too serious for his blubbering. He stared at Gonzo for a moment. Then, slipping off his shoes completely out of habit, he went into the house, bounding up the stairs and down the hall to Gonzo's parents' bedroom, into their bathroom, into the medicine cabinet. He was going to do it. He couldn't live without Missy, she was his entire life.
His hands shook as he dug through the various bottles, finally finding the bottle of sleeping pills he knew were hiding in there. He'd take them all, and then he would die, and then he wouldn't have to live without his Missy.
Compulsively when Kermit pulled away, Gonzo whipped out another cigarette and his lighter, and lit it up and took that first, feverish drag that was always infinitely better than the following ones -- but it didn't take him long to notice that he wasn't going to get to focus on this fag. With it still hanging out of his mouth, Gonzo took off after Kermit, following the desperate footfalls down a path that he, himself, had walked several times before and no doubt with similar things in mind. It was okay when he did it, though, because, unlike Kermit, Gonzo never intended to kill himself -- just to catch a buzz off Dad's Vicodin or knock himself out with Mom's sleeping pills.
Ending up in the bathroom with Kermit, Gonzo took another drag, just to calm himself down enough to handle the situation... which didn't mean much, as he still exclaimed, with yet another inappropriate note sinking in: "WHAT THE FUCKING SHIT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
Kermit hadn't even heard Gonzo following him, so the sudden shouting in his ear surprised him enough that the bottle of pills slipped from his hand and tumbled into the sink. Thankfully, the lid was still on, otherwise Kermit would have thrown a fit. "I told you!" he squawked back at Gonzo, flapping his arms wildly. "I told you I want to die! I can't live without her!" He wouldn't! Fumbling, he grabbed up the pill bottle again and struggled to get the lid off, scowling down at the little orange bottle.
God fucking shitting bitching fucking damn it -- Kermit was fucking serious, or at least he looked it for all appearances. And Gonzo had been sitting here, wishing for something to get his mood up; this wasn't quite the lift he'd wanted, but it was a motherfucking lift. Without thinking anything, beyond the fact that he needed both of his hands, Gonzo shoved the lit end of his cigarette into his right forearm, gasping in pain and pleasure as he felt the small fire eating away at his flesh and, once he was satisfied that it wasn't burning anymore, tossing the butt into the sink. Face painfully serious, he grabbed onto the top of the bottle and shouted again, "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FUCKING DIE, OKAY? I WON'T FUCKING LET YOU!"
Of course he was fucking serious. But when that pained little gasp reached his ears and Gonzo grabbed the top of the pill bottle, Kermit blinked at him, wide-eyed. What... oh god what was that? His fingers automatically released the bottle and he latched onto Gonzo's arm. "What did you do?" he demanded fiercely. ...Oh Gonzo. Kermit's stomach twisted and he pulled insistently on Gonzo's arm, sleeping pills completely forgotten as he forced the other boy into sitting on the closed toilet seat. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!" he bellowed, turning back to the medicine cabinet to grab a box of band-aids and a little tube of Neosporin, kneeling in front of Gonzo and carefully taking care of the burn.
Well, it wasn't quite what Gonzo had wanted, but it had gotten Kermit to leave the fucking sleeping pills alone; now he just had to suffer through Kermit fussing over him, which was nothing new, and it helped Kermit calm down, and... oh, fuck. Right. He'd been cutting himself on and off all week, and the extra burns, at least the ones that were new from the last time that Kermit had fixed him up, and Kermit was going to fucking find them -- "It's fine," Gonzo said brusquely, trying to brush Kermit's hand off him and yanking his sleeve down as he did so. Last thing either of them needed now was for Kermit to flap more about this fucking habit of Gonzo's.
"Don't!" Kermit insisted, swatting Gonzo's hand away and pushing the sleeve back up insistently. He wasn't done! Once the sleeve was back up, though, all he could do was stare, mouth hanging open. Oh... Oh Gonzo. "What did you do?" he whispered, brushing his fingers softly along the unmarred bits of Gonzo's arm. Oh god, he had to fix this. Kermit immediately started tearing into the band-aids, smearing the Neosporin carefully over each of the burns in turn and covering them with the bandages. The cuts would have to wait until he was done with these, and oh was Gonzo ever getting a talking to when he was finished here. "Give me your other arm," he demanded once all of the burns were taken care of.
"It's fine, Kermie," Gonzo sighed -- god, they had to fucking do this, didn't they? Any time Kermit noticed something even vaguely wrong, they had to fucking do this, and it was fine, and why all of the fucking fussing? Using his legs, Gonzo shifted back until he was pressed as far against the toilet as he could have been. "Just -- it's fucking fine, okay?"
"Give it!" Kermit squawked. Of course they were fucking doing this, they always fucking did this, and Gonzo should have been used to it by now. "It's not fine, you're hurt, and I need to fix you." He had to take care of Gonzo, he'd be itching and sick for the rest of the day if he didn't, and Gonzo was hurt and he couldn't just let him sit there. "Please," he whispered, reaching for Gonzo's other arm.
God, not the fucking whispering -- Gonzo couldn't fucking take it when Kermit started acting like some kicked, orphaned puppy about everything and groaning, he rolled both sleeves up to the shoulder and stretched his arms out for Kermit to fuss over as he would. Fuck, he didn't want to do this right now. Of course he knew that Kermit would have to do this, but that didn't make it any more tolerable -- what was the fucking point to it? Kermit would fix him up and then he'd just hurt himself again, because there was nothing else that really made him feel decently.
"Oh, Gonzo," Kermit breathed quietly, leaning over his arm and setting to work in fixing him up. Once band-aids covered all of the burns, he started in on the cuts, crooning softly and grabbing a roll of gauze to wrap him up. He knew how much Gonzo hated it when he got so fussy, but he couldn't help it. He just worried so much, especially since Gonzo was so good at hurting himself. Despite the argument he was sure was coming, Kermit wrapped first once arm, then the other, carefully taping off the end of the gauze with two band-aids across the corners, kissing each before setting his "equipment" aside and peering up at Gonzo. "Why d'you do that?" he asked quietly, brushing his fingers down Gonzo's left wrist.
"It feels good," Gonzo answered dully. God, why did they even bother having this fucking conversation? Every time Kermit patched him up, it was the same shit and he never, ever said anything different: it felt good; he couldn't explain why, not really, but the pain was like an awakening jolt to all of his senses, and it just felt good -- which having bandages all the fucking way up to his elbows very much did not. He was just going to take them off once Kermit left; he liked having the extra option to pour alcohol into his wounds or not. "Why d'you wanna kill yourself?" he asked by way of diverting the conversation entirely.
Kermit's shoulders slumped, and he traced an absent pattern on Gonzo's wrist, dropping his eyes. "I don't want to live without her," he mumbled, feeling suddenly and horribly exhausted. He didn't get up though, he didn't look around to figure out where the sleeping pills ended up. He couldn't leave Gonzo. And if he killed himself, who would look after the other boy? His parents? Not likely. Looking after Gonzo was his job, and nobody else could do it right. "...Let's get drunk and watch a movie," he said after a moment, looking back up. "I'll let you pick."