The night before there had been drinking and ranting and planning. Jack vaguely remembered going to buy more alcohol, but anything after that was fuzzy. His head hurt. He felt like he was maybe going to throw up. He hoped that they'd written down their plans, because he was certain that neither of them remembered them. If they were any good they weren't good Jack you know that they were drunken plans of revenge sure better than you could ever make while you were SOBER but still not GOOD.

Robert woke up then, yawning and sitting up. His foot pressed against Jack's hip for a second, then withdrew. Jack, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, glanced at him. "Christ, that was great," Robert said. "Nothin' like having a rich friend, right?"

"The only reason I'm rich right now is because I stole my parents' money," Jack muttered. "Took everything out of my savings and took a bunch out of their savings."

"An immoral rich friend is even better," Robert said. "Well, I'm gonna hit the shower and then we can go find Bill and Ralph."

Jack looked at him, uncomprehending. Robert didn't notice and headed to the bathroom, and Jack rolled his eyes. As nice as it was to be around Robert, he could be a little unobservant sometimes not like you're any better you don't care about ANYTHING but yourself that's what you are you're SELF-ABSORBED and SELFISH and ATTENTION-SEEKING and it's disgusting you're disgusting disgusting disgusting

"You okay?"

Jack glanced up. Robert was half-way out the bathroom door, half-dressed. He looked slightly concerned. "Yeah," Jack said, and Robert nodded, closing the door and turning on the shower. Jack stood up, listening to the shower run and rifling through the papers on the desk. The newspaper, along with a hotel notepad that had scribbles all over it. He flipped through them, noticing his slanted handwriting and Robert's scrawls. Most of it was crap. Nothing he could use for anything.

Tucked in the newspaper, however, was a piece of paper with just Robert's handwriting. Jack couldn't read it. Robert really did have bad handwriting and, from what he could read, horrific spelling, too. That was one thing Roger had been good at. Spelling. Grammar. He hadn't always been the best at putting his thoughts into sentences, but everything he ever wrote was always spelled correctly and grammatically correct. Except apostrophes. He never seemed to bother with those for some reason. Punctuation in general was disregarded by Roger, but he always had the correct verb tense and the words in the right order and all that.

A few minutes later, Robert got out of the shower. He'd thrown on his clothes from the night before – of course, he didn't have any clothes on him he came right when you asked him to he didn't even stop to pack he just came right there perfect little underling.

"We need a better plan," Jack said. Robert looked like he was about to protest. "Either that or you tell me what this is, because I can't read it."

"Well," Robert said. "The general idea was to… get Bill on our side? And then go catch Roger and turn him in to the insane asylum 'cause that'd get rid of him. And it says in the article that they're willing to pay to get him back 'cause he's a menace or something."

"Let's just skip the Bill part and go straight to catching Roger," Jack said. Bill would be hard to convince, he told himself, it's not because you're incredibly fucking jealous of him and Ralph admit it Jacky that's why you don't like Ralph but you don't want anyone else to have him if he just would've if he just would've what if he just would've been yours on the island if he wouldn't have had his own ideas about things face it Jack you couldn't have him so you don't want anyone else to have him either

Robert snapped his fingers in front of Jack's face and Jack jumped. "You really gotta stop doing that," he said, his ever-present smirk growing. "Someone might think you're crazy or something."

"Maybe I am," Jack said, tipping his head back and staring up at the ceiling. "Maybe that's why nobody ever sticks around, because I'm so damn crazy they can't stand me."

"Actually, it's because you're an insufferable prick," Robert oh-so-helpfully provided. Jack glared at him, and he grinned. "Just kidding. That's mostly before… you know."

"The island," Jack said. Robert nodded, finally looking uncomfortable. Huh. And Jack had thought that Robert would be the steady one. The one that wasn't going to flip out on him. Maybe he still would be, but if he felt uncomfortable about the island which you also feel uncomfortable about Jacky don't be a hypocrite then there would be other things he'd feel uncomfortable about, too like what murder and it wasn't like he was planning on killing someone or anything except maybe Bill because he stole Ralph he FUCKING STOLE RALPH FROM YOU JACKY ARE YOU JUST GOING TO LET THAT SLIDE and Robert was usually up for anything.

Robert had been speaking. Jack had no idea what he was talking about but he suspected it didn't matter. "So, if we're just going to scrap the whole 'get Bill with us' thing, we should go on a hunt for Roger right no-"

"Now?" Jack asked. "My head feels like it's going to explode. You seem perfectly fine, though."

Robert grinned. "I don't get hungover," he said. "At least you aren't puking your guts up. One of the guys I know throws up every time he has a drink. Every fucking time."

"You can go do whatever," Jack said. "I just want to…"

"Sleep?"

"That sounds good."

…

At one in the afternoon they went out to eat. Jack was glad his parents were so rich. He wouldn't be running out of money any time soon, even with Robert eating everything in sight.

After they ate, it was time for their first Roger hunt.

"Where do you think he is?" Jack asked as they wandered through a park. Robert shrugged.

"Dunno," Robert said. "You knew him better than I did."

"I don't think anybody knew Roger," Jack said quietly. "Maurice, maybe, but I don't even think he really knew him."

"I don't want to know Roger," Robert said, pretending to shudder. "God, who knows what goes on in that fucked-up head of his. Say, do you feel up to buying us some more-"

Jack shoved some money into his hands. "You can get drunk all you want but I'm sure as hell not drinking in the near future."

Robert snorted. "You're such a wuss," he said. He pocketed the money. "But thanks."

Jack nodded and they resumed their search.

robert is much more entertaining than i originally thought good job robert