The Rules They Broke

Chapter 32: Late Night Road Trip

[Trigger warning: depression. To be honest, I myself had to take a break writing this, so just read whatever you know you can, or just skip the stuff in between the line break-five stars thing I have]

ELIJAH 

The incessant ringing of his phone dragged him from his nightmarish sleep. Elijah groaned loudly and forced himself to look at the caller ID because he only had his ringer on for a few people when he went to sleep at night. For a few moments, he didn't recognize it.

Then, with a jolt, he did.

"Fraser?" he said into the phone. "What's wrong?"

Fraser was a social butterfly who always had bad jokes for anyone who'd listen and didn't seem to take many things seriously. Elijah had always believed that it was by sheer miracle that the excessively cheerful guy and Logan had survived each other as roommates for nearly two and a half years now.

But Fraser's voice at that moment was only very quiet and very serious.

"I think you should come down," he said.

*****

Elijah knew that driving in a blind panic was never a good idea, but try as he might, he couldn't calm himself the whole three hours it took to drive to Logan's apartment.

This wasn't the first time he had taken this drive. Every few months - or weeks, if it was really bad - Fraser, Logan's roommate, would call Elijah, usually in the middle of the night, and kindly request he come and take Logan home for a while.

He remembered three months into Logan's first semester of college, when Fraser had first called him in a slight panic. Logan had locked himself in their apartment bathroom and hadn't left for nearly a day. At the time, Elijah barely knew who Logan's roommate was, but ever since that incident, he had come to respect him and even rely on him to make sure his brother was okay when he couldn't be there to do it himself.

Fraser hadn't told him much over the phone this time. Just, I found him without a jacket freezing his balls off on the balcony. Dude tried to throw me off when I asked if he was okay, but I got him to calm down for now. Just thought you'd want to know.

Elijah got to his apartment at three thirty in the morning and took the steps two at a time to the right floor. He only had to knock once before Fraser opened the door for him.

"Hey, man," he said, smiling at him tiredly. There were dark circles under his eyes, but he greeted him genially like they were just two friends hanging out. "Good to see you."

"Thanks for calling me." Elijah looked over his shoulder into the darkened living room where there was a figure slumped on the couch, covered haphazardly with a blanket.

Fraser turned to follow Elijah's gaze. "Yeah, I tried getting him to go back to his room but he wouldn't, so we compromised on the couch. Don't turn on the light though, he really doesn't want it."

Elijah felt uncomfortable hugging anyone other than his family, but he suddenly felt the huge urge to hold Fraser in a bear hug because he didn't know how else to tell him that he would never, ever be able to thank him enough. It wasn't Fraser's job to look out for Logan, yet he did it without ever being asked.

Elijah cleared his throat and awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. "Fraser, thanks for-"

Fraser turned away and waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. I'll just be in my room, I've got a paper due in five hours." He dropped his voice to a low whisper. "And, uh, maybe don't mention my name. He's kinda pissed I called you."