This one goes out to the grand total of four people still reading this story. Glad to see you made it this far. I appreciate you and hope you're staying safe out there. I've been doing a lot of self-isolating. I learned to juggle. Ate a lot of frosted flakes. I'm bored, so leave me a comment to inspire me.
_

John started awake, a foggy delay before he remembered who he was and where he was and what day it was exactly, the answers trudging indolently through the vapors to find him: John Tracy. In bed. On a Saturday. His phone was buzzing somewhere, a bee trapped in the covers, and he groped for it blindly, half convinced it was important. Brains wouldn't call on a Saturday, would he? Alan occasionally forgot the time difference between here and Kansas, but his weekends were reserved for sleeping in—John's hand finally closed over the phone and he pulled it out, pressing it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Rise and shine, cupcake."

"Gordon?"

Again?

John braced himself, expecting the usual brisk This-is-hotel-reception-I-believe-you-ordered-a-wakeup-call-sir or the customary Good morning, Los Angeles, and welcome back to our John Tracy Golden Hour! It's currently six fifteen on our glorious West Coast, and today's weather forecast is a balmy seventy-four degrees—not too hot, not too cold—all you need is a light jacket—the ideal conditions for sun salutations by the penthouse pool and meaningful phone calls with your significant brother.

"What do you want?"

"Ah, sorry, John. I kinda forgot what time it was."

Not likely. John could distinctly hear the crunch of pebbles, the dissonant call of seagulls. Gordon was up and at 'em as always and probably on his way back from the marathon he liked to call an easy jog.

John sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed; he was officially awake, and no amount of willing himself back to sleep would make it happen. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Was that a headache he felt? Or did he just imagine the pulse behind his eyes? "You called last night. Something wrong?"

"No, I just—" Gordon hesitated, "I felt like I needed to call again."

John felt the vague irritation swipe at him. "Why?"

"Because I, uh, kinda did all the talking."

"You meant the part about the overnight oats?"

"Yeah."

"I wasn't really listening."

"Oh." It was amazing how much hurt Gordon could put into a single syllable. "Well then."

"I was tired." John was still tired, even though he'd collapsed into bed and died to the world for more than the recommended hours. He had wanted to sleep. He hadn't wanted to pretend. Pretending required a base level of acuity he couldn't muster after his fieldtrip to Locke Labs. Fatigue had set in on the way back in the taxi, like a muscle clenched so long it ached, a tight fist wanting to uncurl.

"But you're up now," said Gordon.

John rankled at the cheer.

Call Gordon when you need a little pick-me-up, because Gordon was a motivational poster in human form, the walking, talking, anti-depressing exhortation of the most irritating kind: Do your best. You never fail until you stop trying. Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. Time to carpe this diem, bitch. Just call Gordon when you want to feel like the scum of the earth, the greasy, unmotivated drippings squeezed from yesterday's remains, so you too can roll out of bed and lace up your shoes knowing Gordon already did it two hours ago, his runner's instinct fueled by wheatgrass and a balanced breakfast.

"I meant to ask how you were doing," said Gordon because he was the trigger-happy miniature of Scott, the same aggressive empathy pent up in a smaller frame, the same holstered vigilance, concern tamped down like gunpowder. "How you are doing."

I'm fine. The usual answer, locked and loaded, the automatic filler to any question, the auto-correct to any situation. "How do you think I'm doing?"

"I mean…you've been a bit quiet."

"Isn't that my default position?"

"It can be."

"And?" John put too much edge into the question. "How's that different from any other day?"

"Scott said you're fine."

"Well, Scott knows everything, doesn't he?"

"Um…does he?"

"Sure. You and Scott and Dad and Virgil and Dr. Lapin. And let's not forget Kyrano. Everyone knows everything. Everyone who's ever had a horse in the race Knows All—down to the last, carefully scheduled minute. To the smallest, macrobiotic molecule of my well-researched diet."

Gordon paused, probably contemplating the tone in which this was delivered, probably missing the point on purpose. "You're not a horse."

"Thoroughbred Tracy tipped to win big at the next Kentucky Derby." That was unusually nasty for this hour of the day, but so witty it made his heart beat tick up. "Place your bets, gentlemen."

"John?"

"There are standards, Gordon," John pressed on crisply, knowing the matter-of-fact approach would be the easiest way to turn things sour. "Benchmarks to hit. Performance evaluations of my contribution to the company." His list of achievements thus far: Bad coffee. Sadly collated papers. Suspicious bathroom activities involving a paper bag and rapid, shallow breathing. "It's necessary I live up to requirements. This has been a nice little break for me. Does a body good with some R&R. The holistic, cold-turkey reboot for the system. But I think I'm ready to go back now."

"Go back?"

John grinned into the speaker. "You know."

Bluntly, "I don't."

God, Gordon could be stupid sometimes. Inanely straightforward. Couldn't lie. Couldn't keep his feelings out of it. Couldn't be clinically detached to save his life. "It's not like I'm alone in this. It's protocol. Everyone's up late. Everyone's not sleeping. We all need that extra bit of synthetic motivation in the morning. Just a little bump in the afternoon when the energies are flagging." He imagined Gordon's expression, imagined his brisk walk slowing, imagined him stopping in his tracks. "It's choosing the lesser of two evils." John waited, and when Gordon didn't say anything, he supplied a little too gleefully, "The greater being that one should fall behind. Which is, objectively speaking, the worst transgression of them all."

"That's not objective."

John laughed. "You're being a bit puerile about the whole thing, aren't you? Just because you only saw the recreational side of things doesn't mean it's always the case." John could remember the day Gordon had been hauled into Dad's office, fresh off his bender, unshaven and bleary, hardly sober enough to put up much of a fight, not when the mutinous fires were already burning down, embering out, a sad defense against the looming paternal wrath. "Scott will understand," John went on breezily. "The Air Force has its own supply of go-pills. Dexedrine. Modafinil. Xenexcel. The cure for the long-haul flight and the critical mission. Who's to say Scott isn't happily enjoying its benefits as we speak?"

John was nearing the dangerous territory of no return, crossing a line one just didn't with family, throwing Scott under the bus for no perceptible reason and reversing back over him. The double death. A narrative John couldn't deconstruct later, when the madness had passed. If it ever passed. If he ever wanted it to, and why would he when he felt so alive, his heart singing in his fingertips.

"That's…" Gordon started, stopped, and tried again, faintly, "that's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

No answer.

"It wouldn't be too hard, I think, to start back up," John insisted. "It's LA. Every street corner's a hub for the finest off-brand pharmaceuticals. But I doubt I'd even have to go that far." God knows why he was saying any of this. Maybe because he'd depleted all the other things he could say to crush him. All the things over the last six months he'd tried to process on Dr. Lapin's couch and in after-dinner conversations and cross-country phone calls—the surge of thorny lies he'd swallowed at Harvard, or before it, that always came back up, like his head had caught the stomach flu and all the ugliness came heaving out, half-digested. I hate you. I hate you too. Gordon had spent the last six months listening, waiting, advising, his level of patience surpassing the mere twenty years of his existence. But that was all over now. John was undoing everything—the phone calls, the meal plans, the scheduled morning runs. The 'getting better'. "I just have to find some loser at work who'd be willing to share." Another cheerless fuck-up, another John Tracy looking for a shortcut out of mediocrity. "Gordon? You still with me?"

Gordon cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"You wanted to talk, right? So I'm telling you everything. Help you paint a real clear picture for Dad when you run off to tell him."

In the silence John could hear the ocean breaking on the beach in Santa Barbara, hissing, an eternity of white, foaming madness when Gordon should have told him to fuck the fuck off in the least diplomatic of terms. John could hear Gordon's slow, painful intake of breath. "Do you really feel that way?

John was supposed to say no. Unequivocally no, a thousand times over. Never. It hadn't crossed his mind. He was committed to this path of recovery and hadn't the faintest inclination towards going back to what he'd been: the proficient, much more useful version of himself that people liked, albeit superficially—the palatable speculative of John Tracy, the satisfactory abstract of a man. That was easier. John sighed, covering his eyes with his free hand. "I don't know, Gordon."

Just like that, the angry flame burned out, and John shriveled like a spent match, grey and useless. "I want to feel like myself again."

Not surprisingly, Gordon waited before offering, very carefully, "You will."

John tried to resent the optimism but found he was too tired. "I have a headache." Well-deserved, at this point.

"Sorry, bud."

"I just want to get through the day without feeling like…" like what? The absence of an answer pricked him. "Why does everyone have to be so goddamned nice all the time?"

Gordon let out a short bark of laughter at this. "Oh, yeah. People being nice is a real bitch."

John felt heavy, leaden, the phone a dead weight in his hand. The morning was fleeting. The sun was rising, the automatic glass in the windows untinting slowly to the light, right on schedule. He couldn't remember any sunrises in Harvard he'd liked. The Adderall-nighters when he'd overdone it slightly, buzzing until daybreak, energy without focus, the euphoria of being up before the world had even thought to crack a crusty eyelid to the dawn.

"John?" said Gordon in a way that told John he'd been quiet too long.

"Why did you come to Harvard?"

"Virgil asked me to."

"You could have said no."

Gordon was quiet for a moment. "Dunno. Guess I didn't put too much thought into it." Bull. "Maybe I wanted to see how the other side lived." Also bull.

"Must have been nice for you, figuring it out. Like a rewarding game of Clue: John Tracy in the bathroom with a bag of pills." Curiously, John had managed to veer right back into the morbid. "Sorry." Why was it so hard not to be an asshole? "I didn't mean it like that."

"It's okay." Gordon graciously followed the non-sequitur. "I always sucked at Clue. And it was nice to figure it out. But you're not—you don't actually want to go back to all that, do you?"

"I could."

Could he?

"It will be different this time. It won't get out of hand." John grimaced, gritting his jaw for a hard moment. "Or at least, that's what I tell myself sometimes. If I could just have a do-over. If spring break hadn't happened. If I'd just paced myself." If you hadn't been there. "I had a system, Gordon. It was all working so well." He flushed with hypocrisy. "If I could just have made it to graduation, then…"

Then what? Be launched into the world of business? The long-con of working in that office with a view and a peppy assistant and the zip of a thousand and one under-the-table uppers, the refreshing nectar of the self-made, white-collar man; the tonic for any up-and-comers these days keeping pace with the Silicon Valley crowd micro-dosing on amps and acid. The short but successful career of John Tracy trying to off himself by chemical means.

"You just have to get a new system, Johnny."

Just.

"One that isn't trying to kill you."

Sure.

"It's a brave new world out there. And as much as I like being your only point of meaningful human connection, maybe you should, you know, venture out into the great wide somewhere."

"I have."

"Um, yeah, front cover of the tabloids might be going a bit too far."

"That," wasn't what I meant, "wasn't as exciting as it seemed."

"Wait," Gordon paused, "you're telling me you're not the undefeated champion of beer pong?"

"Regrettably."

"My life is a lie."

"I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Was Dad pissed?"

"He should have been."

"Well, yeah. I mean—it was Robin Locke. As in Can't-Be-Hungover-If-You're-Never-Sober Robin Locke. Even I know that's a bad idea. Dad would've had my ass if I pulled something like that."

"You did."

"Yes, and I've only just recovered. I would thank you to be more considerate when approaching such a sensitive topic."

"Mmm."

Gordon breathed out, bracing himself for something. "Is that why you've been quiet? The picture?"

John didn't answer. Gordon could fill in the blank if he wanted to.

"Because if it helps," Gordon went on, "I don't think anyone actually thinks you hang out with that kind of crowd."

"My reputation precedes me," said John, grimmer than he intended, and stood up, walking over to the window, passing a hand over the sensor and untinted the glass, the room flooding with light, the brightness lunging into his skull. It hurt, and he wanted it to. "I should go."

"Where?"

"Downstairs."

"Ah."

"Breakfast."

"The most important meal of the day."

"Yeah."

John hung up.