Chapter Text
Robert's body hurts.
It's not the most accurate or precise description of what exactly is ailing him. If he were to get into the specifics, the list would probably never end. His head is pounding, a couple of ribs are likely bruised if not broken, his right knee sends sparks of pain jetting up and down whenever he walks wrong, just to name a few off of his laundry list of injuries. Every muscle in his body has been strained to its limit, despite the fact that he pilots a mech, sparks of pain shoot up and down his spine from his lower back, and his legs barely keep him standing as he peels his dirtied suit off.
So, in short, he hurts. His life of noble heroism has exacted its price on him once again tonight, because tonight is far from the only night he has come back home as a rolled-up ball of agony.
Tonight, the only thing that greets him at home is Beef and sleep for a three AM dinner. It doesn't get much better than this, and the last thing he wants to think about is if it could get any worse. An old mattress with no sheets, a plastic chair, an open window allowing the Californian air to waft in to make up for his lack of heating; empty cupboards, a fridge with a lone beer, and a medicine cabinet with half a bottle of allergy medication and his holy grail, a brand-new bottle of painkillers, specially reserved for situations just like this.
Bought just yesterday with the paycheck from his part-time, the bottle sits untouched in the bathroom's medicine cabinet. It's too soon to decide yet whether drastic measures need to be taken, so for now, as Beef patiently awaits cuddles on the bare mattress, Robert finally toes off the suit and leaves it on the cold, hard ground. Cleaning it can wait until it's at least a more sane hour—plus, he doesn't think anything on it will stain permanently if he gets a bit of sleep first.
Just a little bit. That'll be alright, especially after all he's accomplished tonight.
Despite that, Robert makes no move towards the mattress. He makes no move to put on pajamas, either, content with crashing into a semi-restful sleep with nothing but boxers on as the cool air filters in from outside. The suit lies beside his feet, sweat-soaked and dotted with red.
It will stain if he doesn't clean it. His body hurts, and the last thing that interests him at three in the morning as pain gnaws at him from within is putting on clothes, scrounging around for a couple of quarters, and making a run down to the laundromat.
What a lovely predicament. Heroism never ends.
When Robert turns to pick the suit up from the ground, in all his reluctance, he pivots his right foot and leans over. The attempt to do something as simple as pick up his suit is foiled when, as his other joints have also been doing far too much for his own comfort lately, a shock of pain jets up his right leg from his knee and his bones grind. The mere movement punches a gasp out of him, and all he can do at three in the morning, with the moon shining through the window and the cool air seeping into the apartment, is bury a noise of pain as the intense prickling sensation ebbs off with time.
When the quest to wash the stained suit is abandoned in favor of collapsing onto the mattress next to Beef for the night, pain jets up his spine when he stands upright and corrects his posture. His right knee buzzes, his chest aches with each breath, and his muscles are as tight as steel springs. The pain, as usual, is incessant. He's long learned to not expect anything else, so with the agility of a man three times his age, he shifts his gaze to the mattress and hobbles over.
Beef's ears perk up. It's the small joys. Robert kneels down, collapses boneless onto the mattress, and reaches a shaking arm around Beef's rotund figure, offering a few scritches before releasing a breath and letting his eyes drift shut.
He waits for sleep to come to him. Beef snuggles up next to his arm, letting out soft snores.
The cool nighttime air wafts into the small, bare apartment. It settles like a scratchy blanket over his uncovered skin, prickling along sensitive scarred skin and fresh bruises. His joints start to ache: his bad right knee, especially, but it's soon accompanied by the strain in his left, the aching pull in his elbows, a pinching sensation in his shoulders, the burn in his wrists and the lightning shooting up and down his spine. The simple act of breathing in and out irritates his ribs and the bruising on his chest, allows the taste of iron to escape from the back of his throat, winds his muscles tighter and tighter as he does nothing but lie down and chase sleep.
Robert's eyes are closed, Beef is snuggled next to him, and there's nothing he needs more right now than sleep. But as his luck will have it, that is the one thing the constant pain drives away.
He shifts, attempting to find a more comfortable position. He's careful to not shift his left arm too much for Beef's sake, but as he rolls to lie on his back, the pain in his lower back protests against being forced to lie flat. His right knee joins in the protest, so does his elbow, and when he finally settles, his entire body is threatening mutiny via pain against him. Because of course it is, right when he'd kill for even an hour of sleep.
The brand-new bottle of painkillers in the bathroom cupboard calls out his name. Robert closes his eyes again—when had he opened them?—and refuses the call. They're only for special occasions, like shit days at his part-time and when he needs a clear head on missions. Any more than that, and he'll fuck up his kidneys.
He wants to sleep. Something so simple, something that he so desperately needs, denied to him because his injuries won't shut the fuck up. He just wants some goddamn shut-eye, and that is not too much to ask for.
Beef lets out a whine when Robert sighs and sits up. "Be right back, buddy," he reassures, with a scritch between the ears to supplement. His muscles protest the movement, but hopefully, they won't be protesting much longer.
Beef lingers patiently on the mattress as Robert stands up. He makes his way, step by painful step, to the bathroom, in search of a relief for the incessant ache that is his body. Fumbling for the light once he gets there, what greets him in the mirror is a face marked with dogged eyebags, a pallor to match his pain, and a shirtless torso marred with old scars and fresh bruises. A charming sight, really.
Robert lowers his eyes away from the reflection, then reaches for the frame of the mirror and pulls it open to reveal the cupboard behind it. On the middle shelf is the half-full bottle of allergy medication.
The object of his search is on the shelf above it. A little white bottle with a blue label, the seal unbroken.
It's an easy and fast process, not to mention convenient. Peel off the seal—which he only has to do once—and press down on the lid before untwisting it. The little red pills open up to him when the cap comes off. A hundred and fifty little red circles that promise him a relief, albeit small, to what's plaguing him.
He shakes out two of the little pills, fastens the cap back on and returns it to the cupboard, then pops the medicine in his mouth and chases it down with a cupped hand of sink water. Now, all that's left to do is wait.
Beef awaits him when he returns from his venture for pain relief. The sleepy little boy he is, he hardly moves when Robert settles back onto the mattress with a groan, but doesn't forget to curl back up by his human and let out a little rumble of contentment. Robert's nerves ease at the sound, and he lets his eyes fall shut again, hoping that his next pursuit towards sleep is a little more successful.
It's not, he realizes, thirty minutes later when the pain still nags at him, Beef still stays curled up at his side, and he's still awake.
The time on his phone ticks four in the morning. No longer the witching hour, but the hellish burn of pain in his body still tortures him from head to toe. Instead of a sharp knife stabbing into all of his joints, the tip of the blade has been dulled into something only slightly less painful, thanks to the two pills from earlier.
If only it had been morphine instead of ibuprofen. Oh, well, when one dose fails? Try, try again.
He's careful not to nudge Beef as he rises from the mattress once again. The endless body aches persist, as they always do, and his wound-up muscles battle him every step of the way as he returns to the bathroom.
Fumble for the light. Don't look in the mirror. Reach behind the cupboard, unscrew the cap, dump four pills into his hand and swallow with sink water as a chaser. Turn off the light, return to what can hardly be considered a bed, slowly settle back down to not disturb Beef and attempt to fall asleep for the third time tonight.
Robert is so, so tired. His hope for any ounce of restful sleep tonight is dwindling by the minute, but still, he persists.
The minutes tick by. Minutes that he spends with his eyes closed, curled up next to his best friend, hoping that the aching dissipates, or at least calms down enough for him to fall asleep. The cool air keeps wafting in, and he curls up further, just for his joints to spark with pain. He's tired, he's in pain, and all he wants is to fall asleep with Beef in his arms, but even that is denied to him. Every breath is painful, so is every involuntary twitch or shift to find comfort that continues to elude him.
He's sick of it, he's fed up with the constant hurt, he's exhausted.
Try, try again. Robert rises from the mattress with a disgruntled huff, pushes past the pain, and stumbles back to the bathroom after trying to move faster than his tense muscles will allow. Scramble for the light, be greeted with a both exhausted and exasperated reflection of himself, swing open the mirror and reach for the bottle of faulty pain relief.
No, not quite. It's not faulty; it's just not enough. The only remedy for that is to take more.
Seven pills tumble into his hand. He takes them and swallows them dry, pausing only when one of them almost enters his trachea rather than his esophagus. This time, he doesn't redo the cap, simply setting the bottle next to the sink with the cap haphazardly set back on top. The mirror is left open, letting him keep his eyes away from his pitiful reflection, but he still clicks the light off to save power as he returns to his shitty little mattress.
It's just before four-thirty now. His shift doesn't start until nine in the morning, so if he falls asleep at five, he'll still have at least three hours of sleep.
The minutes start to pass again, but as the pain lingers, disturbing his attempt at rest with every breath until he's only left more restless than he started, he gives in.
Try again. Try again. Try, try again. He's so tired, so desperate for the pain to go away.
Turn the light on. Reach for the open bottle. Let the cap fall to the ground, dump too many pills to count in his hand, swallow them and swallow them and swallow them.
He's just so fucking tired.
His throat runs dry with all the little red pills running down, so once he's finished taking them, he sets the bottle to the side and cups his hands beneath the sink, using the water to swallow back any stragglers that linger in the back of his throat.
It shouldn't be long now. He sets the bottle back down, but doesn't bother capping it before turning the light off, stepping out, and standing at the foot of his mattress, but not lying down. His body hurts too much for him to move another inch.
Beef lets out a whimper. The dog is wide awake now, head tilted as he looks up at Robert.
"Sorry for movin' so much," Robert whispers. As he settles back onto the mattress, he doesn't promise that he won't move again.
It's just after four-thirty now. Everything hurts. He's tired.
The fatigue claws into his bones, burrows itself into his psyche, ensures that he'll never feel anything beyond pain and exhaustion again. His head pounds as he stares up at the ceiling, his lower back stabs into the rest of his spine, and there is no comfortable position that alleviates the ache in his right knee.
He sits up. Beef is being robbed of his beauty sleep with every movement Robert makes. Robert is quite the terrible owner. He's terrible at a lot of things.
Click the light on. He's repeated this so many times tonight—or is it this morning, at this point? It doesn't matter. Pick up the bottle, dump pills into his hand until a few spill into the sink. Take them. Robert starts taking them. He takes them
and takes them
and takes them
and takes them, until there's nothing left of the pills except for the plastic bottle they came in.
A perfectly good bottle of painkillers—or maybe a faulty one, considering how much he still hurts. Good or not, that's fifteen dollars gone in a single night.
Maybe he should be worried. He did just take thirty-seven times the recommended dose, after all. Or maybe, he'll finally be able to get some sleep. A slow wave of drowsiness is starting to wash over him, so he leaves the bottle beside the sink, then fumbles to click the light off.
Beef is waiting for him. The poor guy deserves some "I'm sorry" scritches for having his sleep disturbed so many times. Step by step, he returns to the mattress, the outside air washing over him just as the drowsiness does.
He still hurts, but now, he hurts a little less. It's not quite the relief he'd hope for, but beggars can't be choosers, and all he needs right now is to sleep for the rest of the night. When he settles back onto the mattress, Beef greets him by nuzzling the crook of his elbow.
"Hey," Robert greets. Beef settles with his head resting on Robert's elbow. "I'm not goin' anywhere else."
And so, he doesn't. When he closes his eyes, the arms of sleep slowly begin to drag him under as relief settles over his body. It's… nice. Falling asleep with Beef in his arms as the cool Californian air wafts inside. It's peaceful, that's what it is.
His next attempt at sleep is, after so long, finally successful.
Robert wakes up.
The early morning sun streams through the window. Beef is cuddled at his side, snoring the morning away. Dust motes float aimlessly through the air, the scent of Los Angeles greets him as he comes to, and so do a million white-hot branding irons pressing into the left side of his abdomen.
He can't move. The pain is searing, crippling, tearing him apart from the inside out, and yet every muscle and joint in his body is locked up like hardened cement. His lungs aren't spared from the cement treatment, each breath raspy and panicked and desperate and grating his trachea and nose and lungs. It's relentless, it's a stabbing and a choking and a clawing sensation from deep within. Everything, all together, all at once.
It's unbearable. It's all he can think about, all he can feel, and it hurts so fucking bad.
The peaceful morning is pushed to the very back of his mind as he races to figure out why he's feeling this way, and how to fix it before he's torn apart from the inside out. Even that becomes a challenge when he can't even focus on what's in front of him, and the incessant pounding in his head interrupts every single train of thought. There's a ringing in his ears that overshadows every mental process, leaving him a helpless prisoner in his own body.
The pills. The memories return to him, memories of going back and forth between taking them and trying to sleep, right up until he took the entire goddamn bottle and went to sleep like it was no problem at all.
Fuck.
Fuck.
If half of his internal organs aren't already fried, they're most likely quick on their way to it.
On top of that, he managed to be dumb enough to take them on an empty stomach. Any amount of painkillers on an empty stomach is a stupid fucking idea, so if this little incident hasn't already burnt a hole through his stomach, then nothing will.
Except it sure feels like it already has, anyway.
First things first, he can't deal with anything if he can't even move in the first place. Every muscle in his body is a hundred times tighter than last night, but he starts small: making a fist with his right hand. He sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth right as the tendons in his forearm pull, pull, burn and his hand balls into a shaky fist.
When he starts to move the rest of his arm, another stabbing sensation pierces his gut, and liquid fire trails its way up to the back of his throat. If he doesn't get up now, he'll throw up and aspirate it, and that'll be a whole new issue.
It's great. It's wonderful. It's perfectly fucking fine and lovely and dandy, waking up paralyzed with pain after remembering he's overdosed on ibuprofen and is quick on his way to his stomach eating itself and dumping very much toxic stomach acid into the rest of his body. That, or the pills depressing his central nervous system until he falls asleep and stops breathing. Or poisoning his liver and/or kidneys until he dies at the hands of the most slow and painful option that lies before him.
So, yes. Lovely and dandy. Fuck, the sarcasm is not helping.
Beef shifts beside him. The dog's eyes flutter open just as Robert's right arm comes to clutch at his side, then as his left arm nudges Beef away to make space. Beef whines, but so does Robert, a harsh cry of pain as the agony eviscerating his insides amplifies with the motions.
He just needs to get up. The burning-hot bile in the back of his throat tastes too much like iron for him to be comfortable with. Hell, he's the furthest thing from comfortable, and the possibility that whatever he's about to throw up is blood is only another thing added to the pile of burning shit that is the current state of his body.
He needs to move. If he doesn't, whatever's about to exit his esophagus will enter his lungs, and it will kill him.
Wasn't that the goal in the first place?
No thought is spared to it, because now, Robert is running on nothing but the basic human instinct to not die.
His entire body screams at him as he starts to roll to his side. Beef lets out an indignant yap when he's pushed off the mattress, but Robert pays him little mind when the sloshing in his stomach sends white-hot pain jetting through the rest of his body.
He doesn't have enough air in his lungs to breathe an apology. There is no thought in his mind except for the ones guiding him to the bathroom, because even through all the pain and organ damage, a small part of his brain reminds him of the mess he'll have to clean up later if he vomits his guts out onto the floor rather than into the toilet.
So, he gets onto his hands and knees, winces when his stomach rolls with pain again, and begins to crawl. His dignity was lost the moment he downed that bottle, so all he does now is fight everything set against him—the relentless waves of pain, the intensifying nausea, how tightly wired up his muscles are and the possibility of organ failure hanging over his head—in the pursuit of seeing another day.
In the pursuit of continuing to be the "hero" he is. In the pursuit of donning the mask again, of stepping into the mech again, of coming back to his bare apartment with his entire body aflame with pain and nothing but fatigue and hunger as a reward.
This is what he's fighting for. Whether he's fighting because it hurts and he's scared to die like this, or he's fighting for some greater purpose that his mind is too addled to think about, that is what awaits him if he survives.
If. Maybe he'll just curl up and let it take him. That's what his goal was last night, wasn't it?
No time to think about it: the fact that Robert Robertson, third in a line of famous heroes, tried to overdose on painkillers and pass away in his dingy little apartment. Survived by no wife and no son to continue the legacy, only an overweight chihuahua and the meager sum of money he has to his name. He can only imagine what the headlines would say, what his own father or grandfather would say if they saw him like this.
It doesn't matter, because they're both dead, and here he is, fighting to stay alive.
Robert Robertson, post-failed suicide attempt, continues to crawl towards the bathroom.
It takes an eternity to reach the bathroom. Crawling forward inch by fucking inch on all fours as an invisible blade stabs into his stomach, again and again and again as his bones grate against each other and his muscles pull and burn. It hurts, and he just wants to stop, but the flames welling within his gut singe the back of his tongue and threaten to spill forth with every moment.
Beef is barking. He's barking loud enough for Robert to hear it over the deafening ringing in his ears. Robert just needs to get to the bathroom, then it'll be over, then he can slump over the porcelain and let the liquid fire spill from his scorched throat. He's so close. The open door is right in front of him.
He's unable to reach the light, but he doesn't need it on to find the toilet, reach his head over, and let loose.
It's razorblades along his tongue, whatever he expels into the porcelain bowl. It's the overwhelming taste of iron, it's the crushing pain of his stomach expelling the poison while it has a hole burnt through it, it's snot dripping from his nose and tears from his eyes as he expels, expels, expels, and expels the raw agony.
It's too much, but it doesn't stop. The sounds that escape him along with the relentless waves of puke are as disgusting as they are pitiful as they are painful, high-pitched whines and sickening retches and the sensation of his throat being worn raw.
It hurts. He's never felt so childish thinking that. Of course it hurts; here lies the consequences of his own actions. Everyone feels pain, everyone throws up, everyone has their bad mornings.
Except Mecha Man is not supposed to throw up and sob over a toilet rim after taking too many painkillers. He is a hero to the people, not a man who loathes the situation he put himself in. He is a man who carries the torch of his family, not a man who attempts to snuff it out with his own hands. Yet here he is, riding out the last throes of nausea, spit dribbling down his chin as tears trail down his cheeks.
The tears are just because of the vomiting. It's reflex; he can't control it. He shouldn't be crying, not after putting himself into this situation.
Robert flushes the toilet before even bothering to turn the lights on. Blood or not, whatever was in there was undoubtedly some shade of red, whether from the coating on the pills or the degraded inner lining of his stomach. He wipes the spit from his chin, the snot from his nose, then, with his other hand, the tears from his face.
He's a mess, but there's nobody else here to see that. Except for Beef, who lingers near the doorframe of the bathroom, there's nobody here to witness him fall apart.
He clamps his hands around the rim of the toilet and leans, then braces his core—
Nope. Not yet, not yet, fuck, not yet. No standing up just yet. He waits, then waits, then waits for the stabbing in his side to subside just enough for him to step back onto shaking feet and reach for the light.
Light envelopes the small bathroom. Beef still stands at the door, head tilted to the side as he pouts. Robert's throat is too raw for him to say anything. He just hopes Beef gets the idea.
When Robert turns back to witness the remnants of the waste laid in the toilet, his stomach swirls again. In hindsight, he knew there was going to be blood. That's entirely on him for turning to look back.
Most of the toilet is clear, with the exception of the red stains on the sides and the rim. Red dots are scattered about the bowl, only confirming what he already knows.
He's bleeding. Something of this caliber requires a hospital visit. It's not a suggestion, it's something that has to be done if he doesn't want to end up septic within the week, or end up with a failing liver or kidneys. There's just one hang up, one tiny, little, small hang-up with the healthcare system.
There's no way in hell he'd be able to pay for it.
He was happy enough to afford that little fifteen-dollar bottle of painkillers. A whole hospital trip? He can kiss maintenance and repairs of the suit goodbye for at least half a year if he ever hopes to pay off a hospital bill. In other words? It's the last thing he can afford. Either a perforated stomach and the ensuing sepsis kills him, or the hospital bills do. Either way, Robert is in a hell of his own making, and this is only the first day of mitigating the symptoms.
The corner of his reflection in the mirror draws his eyes away from the toilet. Against his better knowledge, he steps closer—slowly, in case his knees decide to buckle beneath him.
The image that is reflected back at him is… him. Robert Robertson, with spit and blood both running down his chin, eyes puffy from the tears, and a pallor that would earn him a spot as a ghost on a movie set. Or a zombie. Or some other undead figure, because he's damn well close to it.
It's him. Robert Robertson the Third. The morning after a suicide attempt. Sick, fucked up in the head, suffering the consequences after searching for the coward's way out.
This won't happen again. Like a fucked up mission, the consequences will bite his ass for a while, but from it, he'll learn to not repeat his mistake. Men don't cry, especially not Robertson men. Robertson men own up to their fuck-ups, they fix their mistakes, and they certainly don't try to take their own lives over something as silly as pain.
Robert's stomach twists. The stabbing sensation returns, ricochets through his body, and he's retching into the sink before another thought can appear in his mind.