A-Symmetric // bxb

02: Rough Nights (Part 1)

TW: Homophobic scenes, homophobic slurs. (It starts in the italicized section). 

Rory's POV:

I lay on my bed, scrolling through my photos. I'd say I do it once every two weeks. I go in to delete stuff I don't and always end up walking down memory lane. I clicked on one of my favorites. It's of me, Rodger, and Jay on Halloween. We were 12 here. Jay was dressed as Billy, I was dressed as Max, and Rodger was dressed as Mike from Stranger Things. I remember we couldn't go trick-or-treating that year because of Covid. So we sat in my basement and watched scary movies and acted like complete nutjobs. Well, we were nutjobs.

Are nutjobs.

RING RING!!

I glanced a peek at my phone, who could be at my doorstep at 10:37 on a Saturday night in the middle of July? I ignored the ringing and continued eyeing the picture. A message popped up, I looked at it.

Hair Gel Jay: Rory?

Hair Gel Jay: You up?

Me: Yeah, why?

Hair Gel Jay: ...

Hair Gel Jay: It's a night. One of those nights.

I didn't even respond to that. I leapt off my bed and jumped down the entire flight of stairs, (my knees are gonna get revenge later), and practically flung myself at the door. I opened it slowly, not sure what to expect.

It certainly wasn't this.

Jay had never come to me this bad before. He had a busted lip, an extremely bloody nose, a darkening bruise on his right eye, and a large gash on his forehead trailing down through his eyebrow. I was almost positive he had a broken rib, as well.

He attempted a weak smile, which then showed me all the blood in his mouth. It coated his teeth and gathered in the tiny spaces between them. He suddenly coughed and raised his arm to cough into, blood spluttered out of his mouth and all over his pale blue sweater.

"Jay...holy sh-" I paused, "I'm gonna get you inside, into the spare room. Okay? Then I'm gonna call Rodger, and then you better tell us what happened." I told him firmly.

I reached my arm out to guide him inside, he took my hand to help pull himself in.

Once I got the spare room, which was really just his room at this point, all ready and situated, I took him into my cramped bathroom to clean him up.

"Sit here on the sink-no, nevermind...Uhm, sit on the tub so I can actually reach your face, Mr. Burj Khalifa." I said, adding a joke at the end in an attempt to lighten the mode. By the look on his face, he understood that I was trying...or maybe that was just me, because he did have blood smeared all over his fair skin, so I could be wrong.

I handed him a bag of frozen peas to put on his eye. He gingerly pressed it against his face, wincing when he pressed too hard. I left him to himself for a moment as I went to call Rodger. He probably won't respond, but maybe he'll surprise me.

I went into my room and found his contact, then called. To my surprise, he answered on the first ring.

"Rory?" Rodger asked slowly. I could hear the sleepiness in his voice. I'd probably just woken him up. "Can you explain to me why you're calling me at-" He paused, I assumed he was looking at a clock. "11:03 PM?"

I was a millisecond away from responding when I heard a string of curses from the bathroom down the hall. From Jay. It was loud enough Rodger might've heard it. I glanced back down at my phone, but the line was dead. He must've gone back to sleep. Now I had to deal with Jay all on my own.