I know. I'm awful. I PROMISE I'll finish one of my fanfics someday!
But this time: it's a YouTuber fanfic. Rhett and Link, prepare for a fangirl to take control of your lives.
For the past month, in front of the cameras at the very least, Link was able to laugh halfheartedly and smile at the camera while Rhett did most of the talking. But today, to the surprise of everyone including himself, Link had burst into tears halfway through recording Good Mythical Morning. It came seemingly out of nowhere, right in the middle of Rhett's sentence, and the blond had only had time to rest on arm on his friend's shoulder before the shorter man had abandoned the set completely. Rhett had had to keep the show going on without him, explaining nothing to the audience, and swearing under his breath. They didn't usually edit the show in any major way, but there was a first time for everything, it seemed.
All he'd waned to do was abandon the set as well and run after his best friend, but the rest of the crew quietly shook their heads, urging him to keep going. But all Rhett could think of was Link, mouth quivering and tears running down his face, knocking his chair backward as he run out of the studio with a loud and final slam of the doors. The final skit from the Wheel of Mythicality was very awkward, with no Link there to perform it with, and despite protests from the crew, Rhett had cut the cameras then and there and skipped over Good Mythical More entirely.
The whole drive home, Rhett had dialed and redialed Link's cellphone, and after 10 missed calls, he had turned sharply left-prompting several angry honks behind him-onto the road to Link's house. He'd barely parked the car, and hadn't even parked it properly, when he'd leaped out and started pounding at Link's front door.
"Link!" he'd yelled, his booming voice shaking. "Open the door, man! I'm worried about you!" No response. He'd waited, hands twitching, for Link to open the door or at least yell at him to go away. But when no such response, no matter how hurtful, was forthcoming, Rhett had gotten angry. "Link, I know you're hurting right now, man, but it's not the end of the world, okay? I'm sorry about you and Christy, but I'm here for you! I'm here, right now, and I just want you to open the damn door!" As he said it, he'd started to pound on the door again.
He was immediately sorry for coming off as more annoyed than anything, but the only other option was to burst into tears, and he needed to be strong for his best friend. How, he wondered, do you comfort a man whose wife had divorced him and taken off with their kids? Rhett knew that this total separation wouldn't last forever, that he'd see the kids again soon enough, but Link couldn't see that. All he could see was the emptiness of his children's rooms, feel the emptiness of the bed meant for two, and sit quietly in the silence of a once loud, bustling, broken home.
Rhett's own wife had talked at great length to Christy on the phone, and he'd been so tempted to prod his wife for details. For what, he didn't know. Maybe he just wanted to hear that Christy had at least had one good reason to break the heart of his best friend of 30 years. But the only thing Jessie had been willing to share with him was that "Christy was tired." Of marriage? Of Link? Of their life together? The vagueness and seeming selfishness of the answer had angered Rhett so much that he'd stormed out of the room and hadn't talked to Jessie for an hour, though he knew in his heart that it wasn't her fault.
He appreciated his wife's understanding as to why she'd had to take a backseat for a while; no matter how much Rhett loved her, Link had been a part of his life for too long to go through this alone. She pretended not to care that Rhett had spent more nights this month at Link's than at home with her and the kids. Once or twice, she'd almost said something, but the thought of Link, poor, dorky, lovable Link spending his nights alone and broken had stopped her.
The thought of Link's face as Christy broke the news to him and as he'd waved a quivery smiled goodbye to his kids, brought tears to Rhett's face, though he failed to notice. He loved Link dearly, and seeing his best friend deteriorate before his eyes had taken a toll on him as well. His own kids were none the wiser, but Jessie had gone to sleep nearly suffocated by Rhett's embrace, and his lovemaking had been more gruff, almost desperate, as if trying to convey that now he was afraid he'd lose his wife as well. In addition to that, his own usual enthusiasm and jocular attitude on GMM had fragmented as well, and as at last Link raised his head from the floor he was lying on, hundreds of YouTube comments flashed through both their minds.
"Is something wrong with Link? He seems pretty down." "Really weak episode today. You guys need to get it together." "Wow, is it just me, or has GMM gone downhill this month?" "Unsubbed. You guys aren't any fun anymore."
It's not our fault! Rhett thought with an exhausted resentment. My best friend's just gotten divorced and I can't even do anything to help him. It's been a month and he's still as sad as the moment he told me he was an ex-husband and his wife and kids were leaving house. It's not easy to have list shows and experiments when one of the most important people in your life is on the verge of-
No. He refused to think about it. Nothing was going to happen to Link on his watch. He hadn't been friends with Link for more than 30 years just to lose him this way.
As the loud bangs on the door gradually faded, Link wiped the dried tears from his cheeks and fumbled to clean his glasses on his shirt. He looked and felt pathetic, a grown man curled up on the ground, weeping softly and refusing to let his best friend help him. But what could he say, really? He didn't want help; he wanted to be alone. He didn't trust his voice, and it would hurt the both of them if he yelled at Rhett to leave, so he retreated to his only defense and offense: silence.
Finally, rubbing the tears from his eyes, Rhett turned on his heel and walked back to his car, feeling like a failure, and tried to tell himself that he'd done his best. At least, he thought, it's the weekend. He had two days ahead of him to try and put his friend back together again. He doubted it would work; he'd spent a little over a month already and hadn't gotten anywhere.
He'd just touched the handle of his car when he heard another door swing open behind him. Rhett turned around, startled, and saw Link standing there, and he looked almost normal, save for the perpetual bleak look in his eyes he'd recently attained. They looked into each other's eyes, as familiar to each other as a beloved childhood memory, before Link turned around and walked into the house, the door left open as an invitation to follow.
"Have you read the YouTube comments lately?" Link asked, leading Rhett to his living room. Both men failed to acknowledge Link's tearful exit from their studio earlier. The taller men did, however, take in a few details of the living room that might otherwise go unnoticed: his kids' forgotten toys lined up neatly on the windowsill, a dress presumably belonging to Christy folded and placed discreetly on the loveseat, and, most surprisingly, a small collection of empty beer bottles discreetly grouped in a corner.
Only a moment late in replying, Rhett replied, "According to the mythical beasts, something's going on and they're really worried about us. My favorite theory is that we've established a suicide pact and the day is drawing near." The beat of silence that followed made Rhett nervous, as though the possibility of suicide had already crossed Link's mind. When he spoke, however, his tone was still light. "It feels nice knowing they care enough to notice things like that."
It was a quiet sniff from Link that tipped Rhett off: the brunette was close to tears again. Rhett considered doing something, anything, to try and cheer him up, but Link cut off his thoughts by asking, "Want a beer?" The mere question threw Rhett for a loop. Neither of them were very big drinkers, but now seemed as good a time as any to share a drink.
"I could do with a drink".
With a beer in hand, Rhett sat on the couch he'd spent approximately 100 hours on over the past more-than-a-decade. For a moment, he got a taste of what Link was going through; if Rhett felt gloomy in this house now void of noise, how did Link deal with it when he lived here?
"What the hell happened back there, Link?" Rhett hadn't meant to ask, but the need to say something, to cover up the silence where Lily and and Lincoln should have been fighting, or where Lando should have been crying for Christy, overcame him. And now that he'd asked, he realized he was dying to know. He knew the looming reason why Link was almost always a moment away from tears, but usually Rhett could see it coming. Today he'd freaked out without anything to provoke him, which wasn't like him, even in this state.
The answer, when it finally came, was surprisingly simple, and simply heartbreaking.
"Christy and I had a special night planned tonight. We planned it months ago. Today's not anything special, it was just another Friday. We were supposed to ask you and Jessie to babysit tonight a few weeks ago. But then...you know..." As he walked into the living room to join Rhett, he downed the beer in a few gulps, and as he took his seat next to his friend, he let the now empty bottle roll onto the rug with a soft clink, refusing to look at his friend, knowing the kind, understanding look in his eyes would set him off again.
Now that he'd started talking about it, he realized he couldn't stop. "We were going to go to the theater for once, which wasn't my idea. She said she didn't even really like the thought of seeing actors put on fake accents and yell and flail their arms around, but that she felt like being fancy for once. Then we were going to some restaurant, I can't even remember the name of it now, some Italian place." The brunette hadn't realized it, but his voice had started to wobble, and tears were forming in the corners of his eyes.
Rhett peered closely at Link, taking in the slight shaking in his hands, the little extra bit of breath he needed to keep talking, but chose to let him keep talking. "It certainly wasn't the ideal date that I would have wanted, but she was so looking forward to it. She didn't say so, and maybe I'm just reading too much into everything, but maybe she was hoping this date would bring the spark back, or something. She spared me the gory details of exactly why she wanted me to take off my wedding ring and pretend the last few years of my life never happened, but I'm pretty sure she was just sick of me. Anyway, we were sitting at our desk, and I looked at my watch, and thought to myself, 'I've still got time, we're not going out for another three hours.'
To his surprise, a sob escaped Link, he who hadn't even realized his eyes had started leaking tears onto his cheeks again. In spite of himself, he managed to continue. "And suddenly, I felt like I couldn't breathe, and I wanted Christy back more in that moment than I have this whole time, and I wanted to say something to you, that maybe I was having a heart attack, and suddenly I was crying and I had to go home. I was hoping you wouldn't follow me either, I needed time to be alone, even if just for an hour or two, and I just came here and cried and I thought I'd never be able to stop-"
And now he was sobbing, giving voice to the pain of having the woman he'd pledged his life to give up on them, and not being able to hold the children he'd die for, reliving years of memories with every tear that ran down his face. His first date with the woman he had no idea he'd marry, the moment he proposed to her and her face lit up in tearful delight, dancing until his feet ached at his wedding, with Rhett and his family happy beyond reasonable measure that he'd found someone to share his life with, becoming a father for the first, second, and finally third time, and even just five months ago, holding Christy at two in the morning, suddenly overcome with emotion over how different his life would have been without her...and the pitying, teary look in her eyes as she herded the kids into her mother's car, not even able to whisper a goodbye...
He'd been so overcome with anguish and destroyed memories, Link hadn't realized that Rhett had gathered him into his arms, held him like he was shielding him from something, and Link had a disembodied memory of a past Wheel of Mythicality. Relishing in the comfort his oldest friend offered, Link buried his face into Rhett's chest, and his sobs were smothered by Rhett's shirt. Blessedly, Rhett didn't let go, and Link realized dimly by the gruff rise and fall of his friend's chest that the blond was struggling to hold back his own tears.
Finally, his sobs had dwindled to small creaks and whimpers, and he found that he'd been clenching Rhett's shirt to the point of leaving wrinkles. Slowly, he disentangled himself from his friend, rubbing his eyes and mumbling some sort of apology, and a thanks for being there for me, and a what would I do without you? He looked into his friend's eyes, slightly surprised by the intensity in his gaze. Prompted by this, Link cleared his throat and managed to croak, "Really man, I'm okay. You can stop worrying now." Rhett chuckled softly, shaking his head, and said lightly, "You really think I believe you?"
The complete lack of disbelief had a surprising effect on Link, and he actually laughed out loud,
and this set the both of them off. When the laughter tapered out, Link found he actually felt like a human again, and he was ready to thank his friend again when he suddenly spoke again.
"Linkster, I know I'm not Christy, or even a woman, but I'd be more than happy to take you out tonight."
Fave, comments, critiques, etc. No flames if you can help it.
I'LL FINISH MY SOUTH PARK FIC BY THE END OF FEBRUARY IF IT KILLS ME! sorry at this point I can't promise anything, but I'll try!