Warning: vehement swearing and attempted suicide.
"A Deadly Anniversary"
"You've stuck it out with Barton for almost a year," Sitwell said, and he patted Phil on the shoulder as he passed. "Only you could do it, Coulson."
"A year? Really?"
"Yep. We're thinking about throwing a party for you."
"Don't be rude," Phil said, his mind only half on the conversation. "Excuse me, Jasper."
"Sure thing."
Phil hurried along the corridors until he reached his office, and went straight to his desk calendar. It'd been one of those weeks where the days bled into each other, and time lost meaning. Sure enough, it was nearly the first anniversary of taking Clint under his wing, which meant that tomorrow…
Tomorrow was the first anniversary of his break-up. Tonight was the first anniversary of the last time they had slept together, the last time he had held Johnny in his arms, the last time they made love, the last time he said 'I love you'—
The only time he'd said 'I love you'.
And he'd forgotten that. What if Johnny had heard? What if he'd remembered? And then Phil went and broke up with him.
Phil was a monster.
His phone was in his hand before he noticed the action. Mind still only half on task, his thumb typed the familiar – as familiar as home – phone number, and then hovered over the call button. It would be so easy. Just press the key, and finally hear Johnny's voice again. Ask him out for drinks sometime, with whoever he was dating, just to catch up (and see what he'd lost when he dumped the love of his life, like the masochist he was).
But would Johnny even realise the significance of the date? And if he did, would that simply make him less inclined to agree to meet up?
Slowly, Phil backspaced the number. He'd do what he did best, and spy on Johnny. Not if he was wrapped up in someone else; Phil just wanted to make sure that his ex was all right, and wasn't lonely. See how he was celebrating today or tomorrow. Phil was sure Nick would be fine with him using SHIELD resources to pinpoint Johnny's location. He called on the internal line to check.
"Go for it," the director said. "I'll even help speed up the search."
It was surprising to see how far outside of New York Johnny's phone was. The heat signature on the radar matched perfectly, just confirming his suspicions. Phil quickly requisitioned a `jet to take him there, although for this to remain covert he would have to be dropped off out of sight, and get to Johnny's location by some other means.
The thing which made the least sense, however, was that Johnny was, apparently, completely alone.
It was a nice, quiet little place, a beachfront and a bungalow all to himself. Johnny rented it for the weekend, wanting to be away from everyone and everything that reminded him of Phil, and get nice and drunk.
The thing is, everything reminded him of Phil. Breathing reminded him of Phil.
He'd brought along a case of beer and a bottle of whiskey. Looking at it from a distance, he knew it wouldn't be enough to get himself wasted. A trip to the closest liquor store fixed that, and Johnny piled most of it in the one place, right beside an armchair in front of the television. In case of hangovers, he'd also bought painkillers. (That was what he told himself.) The local pharmacy had even more, so he stocked up, adding to all that he'd collected along the way.
After settling himself down, he scrolled through all the options on cable, trying to find something to occupy his mind.
Action: Phil's job.
Comedy: Phil's laugh.
Musical: Phil's one attempt at karaoke.
(Drama: Johnny's life at the moment.)
Romance: Enough said.
That left a documentary. Watching animals kill each other wasn't exactly good for his already maudlin state of mind. But it was either that or sit there in silence. The sports were either boring, or repeats of matches he'd already seen. David Attenborough it was.
If only it was animals killing each other.
Instead, it was all about romance in the animal kingdom. Screw that for a joke.
Johnny flipped between the shopping and weather channels, and even the foreign language news. But then he'd remember that SHIELD sent agents overseas, and that international disasters weren't exactly healthy for him, either.
He worked his way through half of the beer before he turned to the bottle of whiskey. He was halfway through – and proud that he was still conscious – when he dropped the bottle. The glass shattered, leaving the jagged neck and the near-empty bottom. Johnny picked up the neck and stared at it, curious, his mind nearing the edge of something.
"`Leas' there's `nother bottle," he muttered. But still his hand wouldn't let go, and neither would his mind.
Phil was gone. Phil didn't want him. Didn't love him. He said he did, but then he left. Why would he leave? Did Johnny do something wrong? He must've done. Maybe it's `cause he didn't say it back.
But he could've fixed it, if Phil just told him how. Maybe he was bored? Or he'd found someone else? God. Phil'd found someone else. Was he seeing them at the same time? Nah. Phil just did the honourable thing and dumped Johnny. He wouldn't cheat. Not physically. Just with his heart. And Johnny thought he had Phil's heart. Phil had his.
Fuck all of this. Sue had Reed. Ben and Alicia were engaged. None of them needed him. None of them cared. They had each other. Johnny had no one. The only guy— person he wanted didn't want Johnny. Why was he always attracted to the ones who didn't want him back?
All these thoughts swirled in his head as Johnny heaved himself out of the armchair and staggered to the bathroom. Everything was swaying. He fell to his knees before the toilet and emptied his stomach into is. He hadn't eaten for hours, so it was mostly alcohol.
Johnny was still holding the neck of the whiskey bottle. One shard had scratched his arm when he grabbed the bowl of the toilet. Feeling the blood trickle down, seeing it, gave Johnny some kind of relief. It was like all his troubles were slowly leaving him. The blood would take it all away.
He stood, slowly, and managed to get to the sink. He put the bottle down, broken side up, and gave his face and mouth a quick wash. Tears and sick spoiled the image, after all. Then he picked up the bottle, and his head filled with white noise as he pressed the jagged edge to the skin of his left wrist. The alcohol had numbed him enough that it didn't hurt as he dragged the shard across, tearing the skin open. He'd felt worse in motorcycle crashes. Red rivulets ran down his arm and dripped onto the white porcelain. Again and again. Then Johnny's right hand went lax, causing the last cut to go a bit deeper. But he noticed nothing as he swapped to the other wrist, and started scratching there. More blood spilled, and his vision went woozy at the edges.
Collapsing here would be a bad idea. Maybe he should head back to the living room, and start on that other bottle. This would probably take awhile. If it didn't work in half an hour, he'd come back and try again. This would just take the edge off—
"Johnny! Jesus Christ, what the hell do you think you're doing? Shit."
"Phil?" Johnny said as the hallucination grabbed his hands. Oh good. Booze and blood had conjured up the one person he was trying to forget. Annoyed, he tried to pull back, and hissed at the slight pain from the broken skin tearing further. Phil swore again, and gravity went all over the place as he swept Johnny into his arms.
"Get you to a bed. God, Johnny. Stay awake, okay? Don't fall asleep. Whatever you do, don't fall asleep."
"Course not," Johnny said. It made his head hurt as Phil ran with him, for some reason, checking each room. Only seconds later, Johnny found himself on the bed he hadn't even tried out yet. "`f I do, I'll just dream `bout you. Kinda the point-a bein' here."
"You idiot," Phil said. Johnny frowned.
"`m the one who's heartbroken, `kay?" he said, pointing somewhere towards Phil. "Don't call me `n idiot."
"What was the point of all this?" Phil asked. Johnny managed to uncross his eyes long enough to see Phil pull off his jacket and rip off his shirt. He didn't even untuck it first. Huh.
"Can't get it up at th' moment," he said. "You'll have to use a hand."
Phil gave him that familiar irritated look. Then he ripped off the sleeves, tore the rest of the shirt into shreds, and began to wind the pieces around Johnny's wrists. Johnny wasn't sure why Phil was doing it. He wasn't sure of anything, in fact. He just wanted to sleep…
But then he'd dream about Phil, and that sucked. He kept thinking about where they would've been by now if Johnny hadn't screwed up however he'd screwed up.
Then again, they were happy places. Yeah. He didn't actually mind sle…
"Johnny?" Phil looked up when his ex relaxed completely. "No. No, no, no. Johnny!" He grabbed Johnny's face and slapped his cheeks. "Wake up! Come on, don't do this to me."
The stench of alcohol had pervaded the house, but it was concentrated on Johnny's breath. Phil hadn't even stopped to count how many empty bottles there were. When he saw the broken one, he worried that Johnny had accidentally cut himself, and assumed that he would go to the bathroom. Thank God he'd gone there first, instead of the kitchen.
"I'll be back," Phil said, tying the knot on the last layer of improvised bandaging. He leaned over and kissed Johnny on the forehead. His lips lingered, and it nearly killed him to pull away. But he jogged back to the bathroom. Ignoring the blood (or trying to) he rifled through the medicine cabinet until he found a first aid kit. The sheer number of boxes and bottles of painkillers, purchased from all over the place, scared the hell out of him. But he couldn't leave Johnny unsupervised any longer, and ran back to the bedroom.
Johnny was still unconscious, and the red stains were spreading. Phil's hands shook as he opened the box and found pads, bandages, and even a small sewing kit someone must have thrown in there in case stitches were needed. He didn't have any rubbing alcohol, though. Fortunately, the cuts weren't too deep, for the most part, although they would undoubtedly leave scars which would never truly fade with time. But then Phil wasn't a doctor; how would he know?
Hands still unsteady, he removed the ruined fabric from Johnny's wrists. He used an antiseptic wipe to remove the blood from the cuts. Before it could well up again, he slapped pads over the cuts, taped them in place, and finished off with bandages wound tightly around Johnny's wrists. Phil secured them, packed up everything he didn't use and threw out the wrappings. He returned the kit to its place, grabbed a strip of aspirin and a glass of water, and went back to the bedroom.
He would never be able to forget the sight of Johnny, glassy-eyed, reeking of alcohol, and slitting his wrists with a broken whiskey bottle. The confused look, the slurred speech, the way he was far too light in Phil's arms.
"Johnny!"
Phil looked up from where he was holding Johnny and stroking his hair.
"He's in here!" he called.
"…Phil?"
He sighed, and waited for Sue to reach the bedroom. When she did, her eyes immediately zeroed in on the blood stains, and then Johnny's wrists. Then her gaze met Phil's.
"What. The hell. Happened?" she asked.
"I found him in the bathroom," Phil said. "I… I… He tried to kill himself." The tears which had been building up for nearly an hour finally spilled over, and he wrapped his arms tighter around Johnny's torso. "Oh God. I could've lost him."
"He isn't yours," Sue said. But another look at the blood, and all the fight drained out of her. She clapped a hand to her mouth and began to hyperventilate. Fortunately, Reed showed up right behind her and forced her to sit on the edge of the bed, farthest away from the blood stains and the remains of Phil's shirt. Alicia and Ben showed up at the door. Brilliant. All of them together again. And Phil was painfully aware that he was bare from the waist up. Well, except for the tie he hadn't removed yet.
"Why would he do this?" he said, not quietly enough. Sue turned around, furious once again.
"Because of you, Phil," she said. "Don't you even know what tomorrow is?"
"I know," he snapped. "That's why I came here. I wasn't expecting to find this." No matter how angry he was, the tears kept coming, and his voice felt like it was ready to close up shop. "He wouldn't… because of me… would he? He's so young." He looked down at Johnny again, and stroked his face tenderly. "Too young. I'm not worth it. It must be something else. It's not like he loved me or anything."
"Didn't he?" Alicia said. "Doesn't he?"
Phil couldn't speak for a few seconds. He swallowed the hard lump in his throat, and then kissed the top of Johnny's head. He murmured prayers, pleas, anything to make Johnny live to see another day. He'd probably stopped the bleeding in time; but apparently he needed to be healed emotionally as well.
"Should I stay?" he asked quietly. He dreaded the answer.
"Yeah."
They all stared at Johnny. He slowly licked his lips, and coughed once.
"Stay," he croaked. "Stay. Phil."
Phil exhaled in a great rush, and pulled Johnny further into his arms.
"Of course," he said. "Of course. I love you, Johnny, and I'm so, so sorry."
Johnny smiled, and went back to sleep. This time, it looked to be natural, and Sue fell into Reed's arms with a slump of relief. Phil shifted his legs slowly until he was lying with Johnny on top, back-to-chest. He kissed Johnny's cheek, his chin, his neck; anywhere he could reach, and cocooned his injured wrists as gently as possible.
"You can leave now," he told the others. "I won't let him out of my sight for a second."
"You better not," Sue said. Her scowl told Phil that he had a lot of making up to do, and clearly not just for this. If they hated him that much, the break-up must have hit Johnny harder than Phil had anticipated.
In the morning, Johnny woke from a different kind of Phil-dream. In this one, Phil had stopped Johnny from doing something very stupid, brought on by way too much alcohol, and possibly an animal documentary. He tried to open his eyes, and groaned at the amount of light that let in. Something moved behind him; but he was in no condition to defend himself, so he waited.
"Tablets. Just two of them. Some water as well. You're probably dehydrated. Either that, or still hammered."
"Huh?" Johnny sat up gingerly, and recognised the horrible taste in his mouth. He also thought he recognised that voice.
"Tablets and water. Once you feel up to it, we'll talk. But I'm not leaving you alone. Pop these in. That's right. Now drink up. Swallow. Good work, Johnny." There was the clink of a glass being set down, and the dip of the bed as someone sat beside Johnny. But it couldn't be…
"Phil?"
"Right here."
Johnny let his eyes focus, and recognised his former lover. Phil's eyes were red and bloodshot, he looked like he hadn't slept, his shirt was buttoned up the wrong wa—
Johnny's shirt. Phil was wearing Johnny's shirt.
"You look good," he said. His voice was hoarse, his throat raw. His head was pounding, although the aspirin seemed to have worked. "What're you doing here?" Phil didn't answer, and Johnny looked down at his lap. Then he saw his hands. "And what the hell is with—?"
"You tried… to kill yourself," Phil said. It sounded like it was an effort to say each word, and he sounded about as wrecked as Johnny. "I had to patch you up. There was booze, hundreds of painkillers, and you were slitting your wrists when I found you. Thank God you hadn't taken any of the meds, or you'd probably be…" He looked like he wanted to throw up, and turned away. "Johnny, why would you do that?"
"Well…" Johnny wasn't really thinking, and he rested his hand on Phil's shoulder. "You left me. Hey, happy anniversary. Wait, how long have I been out of it?"
He heard something strange. Phil buried his face in his hands, and Johnny shuffled closer. It made his head ache, but he was hurting even more in other places, deep inside, and he had a bad feeling that Phil was crying. Cautiously, he slipped his arms around Phil's waist and leaned his head against Phil's upper back. He waited it out, for Phil to stop trembling, for the sobbing noises to slow down. Eventually, Phil turned around, and stared at Johnny.
"Over me?" he said, like he couldn't even believe it. "I'm not worth it, Johnny. Not worth k-killing yourself."
"Maybe," Johnny said, and he cupped Phil's cheek. "Not over a broken heart. If I was sacrificing myself to save you, yeah, you're definitely worth it."
"Johnny…"
"Don't cry." He caught a tear before it could fall. "Why did you come?"
Phil shook his head, and Johnny's hand followed. "I was too much of a coward to call. I wanted to see you again. If I'd called… maybe you wouldn't have—"
"I might not've answered. Don't blame yourself. Just kiss me." Phil's jaw dropped, and Johnny's blood ran cold. "I… I mean—"
His words were cut off by Phil's mouth on his. Johnny shivered, and leaned into the kiss, letting Phil drag him close. His world tipped as Phil pressed him back into the mattress. A pillow supported his head, and he scrabbled to pull Phil down on top of him. The warm weight took his breath away, yet he missed Phil's lips as soon as they retreated.
"Do you want to stay here, or go back to New York?" Phil asked.
"Where will you be?"
"With you."
"Then I don't care where we go."
I did my best to stick roughly to what I implied through Reed and Johnny's conversation after Phil's party, re. Johnny's kind of attempted suicide. Not a very good effort, in retrospect, but scary enough to freak out Phil Coulson. And that's not easy to do.
Did I scar anyone with this? If so, I apologise. I mean, there's a warning, and anyone who read 'The Agent and the Human Torch' would know that Johnny had tried to kill himself.
