Chapter Text
If his life were a movie, he’d certainly be the star of it. If his life were a book, he’d certainly be the main character. And, if BoJack were in a comic, he’d definitely, definitely be the hero. “Like, Superman,” he slurs, sloshing his whiskey onto the bar with a broad gesture. “Or, like, Batman. Yeah, Batman!”
His date gives him a strange look, and BoJack continues emphatically. “It’s ‘cause I’m like, I’m always saving people, y’know? Like, when someone’s in trouble their first thought is usually “call BoJack!” ‘cause it’s, y’know, it’s what I do.”
“So, are you some kind of cop? Or, like, a firefighter?”
“Huh?” BoJack swallows his last drink. “No, I’m an actor. Don’t you recognize me?” He smiles, and thumps a hand against his chest. “I’m the guy with the horse on Horsin’ Around!”
He doesn’t remember the rest; he wakes up the next morning alone in bed to the grating chime of his radio alarm clock. “Goooood morning 1994! Which is the year it currently is!” The hangover kicks in the instant he rolls over to swat the thing into silence, and scrapes mercilessly at the backs of his eyes as the morning sun comes to greet him.
It’s a blind stumble to the bathroom with his eyes squeezed shut and his hands held out to catch himself on the wall. It’s a chaotic, practiced dance; a commonplace morning ritual by now. He knows he’s in the bathroom when he feels the cold tile under his feet. Ceramic, tiny squares dig into his soles, and the pink glow of light that seeps behind his eyelids pains his head. It sends a tight shiver up his spine. He shudders as he fumbles for the light switch and flips it off.
“Hey!” Someone yelps. BoJack immediately swats at the switch again, and the room blooms white. The light nearly blinds him, and he reflexively covers his eyes for a split second before he bears it. Squinting, he sees what’s undeniably a man; tall, blond, and handsome, he stands over six feet tall and wears BoJack’s t-shirt, which drapes loosely over his toned frame.
BoJack stands in the doorway baffled, eyes wide. All he can think to ask is, “What are you doing here?”
The man doesn’t only keep smiling, he has the gall to laugh. “What do you mean? You told me to come here.” He looks around. “It’s nicer than I thought it’d be, honestly!”
Taken aback, BoJack looks around like there’s anyone else Mr. Handsome could be talking to. There’s only him. Himself and the man in front of him, who is still smiling despite it being too-fucking-early in the morning. “No I didn’t,” BoJack insists. “Why the hell would I do that? Who the hell even are you?”
That’s when the man pridefully puffs his chest and says, “I’m Mr. Peanutbutter, from Mr. Peanutbutter’s House!” The eponymous Mr. Peanutbutter then smiles, dries his hands, and strolls past BoJack with a jolly whistle. Left standing in that bathroom doorway, all the man can think is what the hell have I done?
So, it goes like this: a horse walks into a bar. He orders a whiskey, and then another, and when the bartender asks, “why the long face, pal?” the horse replies, “it’s an even longer story… It all started when I was born.” But really, it started when he met him.
Sitting in his booth and nursing his drink, BoJack is 30 years old and far from fresh-faced. He’s grown tired of his past haunts in clubs and underground raves, choosing instead to trade them in for the quiet life of saving coke for the weekends, and getting drunk for all the other days in between. He collects his royalty checks, and he recites his lines for the camera. He eats cookies for breakfast and drinks a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red for dinner. All in all, he’s the average American, and he’s living nothing short of the dream.
Despite that, he’s miserable. He sulks in the pits of Bellican’s bar every single night dreaming of the lives he’ll never get to lead, and it’s terrible! Maybe he’d be happier as a suburban father, or a college professor, or a violinist in the philharmonic orchestra. Maybe, just maybe, he had some latent well of talent and happiness deep inside of him.
Well, if he had, it’d certainly been long poisoned by his parents, or their foul genetics, or something evil in between. So, he drowns it in booze and pretends he doesn’t feel grief. He never has, and he never will. That’s what he says to himself, and to the absence on the other side of the booth.
Then, he arrives.
It’s as if all heads turn when tall, blond, and handsome shows up, and that includes BoJack too. There’s something that’s instantly magnetic about him, and maybe it’s the way he walks, or the way his voice carries when he talks, but it enrages BoJack in an instant. The son of a bitch, how dare he come into this temple of doom and gloom acting just…right as rain? Just, peachy-fucking-keen? Oh no, not on his watch!
So, he lugs himself out of his tight little booth and stumbles across the floor, knocking right into the bar and thudding his empty glass down as he does. “Another,” he barks at the bartender. So, another refill is what he gets. He is, after all, famous.
Tall, blond, and handsome is looking at him now, regarding him in an instant from toe to top with his big, brown eyes. BoJack takes the blatant opportunity to puff up his chest and say, “Yeah, that’s right, off your TV screen and into your shitty life.”
Mr. Handsome’s laugh is infuriatingly bright and cheery for the hour. “Holy shit, BoJack Horseman! I hardly even recognized you.”
The acknowledgement admittedly throws him off, and BoJack leans back with widened eyes. “Uh, yeah, duh,” he stammers, but then he collects himself with the help of a thick gulp of whiskey. “Let me guess, you’re a huge fan?”
“Oh boy, am I!” Mr. Handsome replies. He sticks out a bold hand, and BoJack stares at it like it’s an offensive object before he remembers what to do with it. Shaking hands like honest men, Mr. Handsome declares, “I’m Mr. Peanutbutter! From Mr. Peanutbutter’s House!”
Now, nobody can blame BoJack for laughing. One, he’s dead drunk, and two, “What kind of name is Mr. Peanutbutter? I wouldn’t even name my dog Mr. Peanutbutter!”
“Well,” says Mr. Peanutbutter, itching at the nape of his neck, “My mother named me something else, but nobody knows me by that. Everyone knows Mr. Peanutbutter!” He smiles emphatically. “Y’know, from Mr. Peanutbutter’s House.”
Frustratingly, the more he says it, the more the name starts to sound familiar. “Is that, like, your show or something?”
Well, as it turns out, it is. And, from the way it’s being laboriously described to him, BoJack feels pretty grateful he’s probably never heard of it before. As soon as he gets a chance to, he cuts into Mr. Peanutbutter’s spiel to boldly declare, “Sounds boring.” He slugs his fifth glass of whiskey, and gestures for another. “And derivative. And boring.”
“I think you already said boring…”
“That’s just how boring it is! I started falling asleep after thinking about it for like, two seconds.”
Somehow, Mr. Peanutbutter keeps smiling, but it’s oddly plastic and cold. He only nods thoughtfully before knocking back the single shot he’d ordered, and then he asks the question BoJack had least been expecting: “Well, what would you do to make it better?”
In all his history in show business, nobody has ever genuinely asked BoJack what he thinks would improve a concept. That hasn’t stopped him, of course, from giving his advice anyway, because he is quite obviously famous and therefore very, very smart, but being asked outright feels like an entirely different thing. And, even though he’s drunk—drunk enough to know he’s too drunk now—he isn’t one to back away from a challenge. Or, an ego boost. So, BoJack leans against the bar and really considers it.
The answer seems so obvious the second he goes searching for it. “Well,” he starts, already slurring and sloshing his newly refilled drink, “I guess I’d probably pay homage to my, like, super obvious inspirations. Like, clearly you were inspired by Horsin’ Around, which I don’t blame you for. It’s basically the best thing on TV right now.” When he pauses to finish his drink, he swears he sees those brown eyes chase his throat as he swallows. Nevertheless, BoJack continues, “So, clearly what your fans would want is a crossover episode.”
Mr. Peanutbutter lights up in an instant. “Oh yeah! I’ve been begging the network to let us do one for ages!” But then, his face falls as he remembers, “Oh no, they said we definitely can’t. Something to do with…intellectual property rights? Whatever that means…”
BoJack smiles, wicked and sharp. It’s his only grin by nature. “Who cares about that shit? If I vouched for it, there’s no way anyone’d say no.” He throws an arm over Mr. Peanutbutter’s broad shoulders, and nearly knocks him off his stool as he does, but the man catches himself in a flash with a steady hand braced against the bar, and he just laughs. “I’m gonna’ blow your ratings sky-fucking-high!” BoJack declares. He’s done it again, he’s saved the day!
When he gestures for a celebratory refill, though, the bartender gives him a familiar look. The one that always reminds him, in some wriggling little way, of his mother catching him with his hand in the cookie jar. Just as the air turns tense, Mr. Peanutbutter suddenly waves a hand and says, “A round for me and my friend here, please! Whatever he’s having.”
Even though he’s been bought drinks plenty of times in the past, that’s usually been before any sort of drawn out interaction with him, so BoJack leans back, honestly shocked. “Well, fuck me, Mister…uh…” He thinks. “Pumpernickle?”
“Peanutbutter. From Mr. Peanutbutter’s House.
BoJack sighs. “Sure, well, you’re not so bad after all.”
“Then, you said I wasn’t so bad after all, and we talked about the crossover episode, and then uhhh…” Mr. Peanutbutter gestures widely, “Well, here we are!”
They’re both stood in BoJack’s spacious kitchen with a very large, very wary gap between the two of them. BoJack is perched beside the coffee maker, clutching his mug with grim disbelief. It’s still too early, and the sun is still too fucking bright, but BoJack bears it all through a squinted, distrustful glare.
As Mr. Peanutbutter ran him through just what exactly caused their paths to cross last night, BoJack’s memory began coming back in snippets; he remembers drinking alone that night, his own shadow darkening his familiar booth tucked in the corner. He remembers turning his head to see him. He remembers stalking over to him, and talking to him about crossover episodes and prime-time ratings and, “Wait, when did we start talking about superheroes?”
“Oh, well, we were trying to figure out what your character was going to be. Y’know, for the–”
“Yeah, yeah, the crossover episode.”
“I think we landed somewhere around…Robocop?”
“Robocop?” BoJack scoffs. “Robocop isn’t even a superhero. I’d be like…batman or something.”
“I definitely think you said Robocop.”
“Who–who cares!” He sputters. “You’re leaving out a huge chunk of the story! You haven’t even explained how any of that leads to–” He gestures sharply, “This!”
Annoyingly, Mr. Peanutbutter scratches his neck, looks down at his two-sizes-too-large t-shirt, and he honest to God blushes. “Oh, yeah, sorry,” he says. “Honestly, call me Goldie Hawn, because I went pretty Overboard with the drinks! I uh…I got pretty drunk last night, so I don’t entirely remember everything.”
BoJack recoils. “Pretty drunk–wait, then who drove?”
“I called a taxi from the payphone.” He smiles, though a little confusedly. “How else would someone get home from the bar in 1994, the year that it currently is?”
This isn’t adding up, none of it, and it’s to a degree that even a neutron star like BoJack can notice it. Everything is pointing towards the same, horrifying, nuclear idea. The shirt, the taxi, and the fact that Mr. Peanutbutter is still here, in his house, in his kitchen, at 9:39 in the godawful morning. It’s less like a realization, and more like a tungsten steamroller that slides agonizingly slow across the length of BoJack’s body. There is no way. There is no world where…no!
Mr. Peanutbutter, from Mr. Peanutbutter’s House, stands like a mocking idol rooted to the floor of his kitchen. Shuddering, all BoJack can manage is a weak, “did we…?”
“Forge an unforgettable bond between men?” Mr. Peanutbutter grins. “Yes!”
“Oh God…we…?”
“Got incredibly, shamelessly vulnerable with each other?” Mr. Peanutbutter laughs. “Oh, you bet so, buddy!”
“Please…don’t tell me…we…?”
“Had sex?” The world collapses underneath BoJack Horseman. “Sure did!”
When he pitches the idea to Herb on Monday, he can’t help but sag in shame in his chair, because there’s no way Herb Kazzaz doesn’t have some sort of idea as to why all of a sudden BoJack wants to do this ridiculous crossover episode that he’s otherwise been hard-vetoing since 1992. While he couldn’t possibly know the specifics, the mere fact that BoJack is sat before him pretending like he’s all for the episode is evidence enough: Peanutbutter must have something very big, and very bad on him. If that doesn’t sell it, the blatant look of guilt on BoJack’s face does.
“Level with me, BJ,” Herb says, swiveling away from his stack of scripts to look him in his eye. “Is there something going on with you two that I should know about?”
“Psh, what are you, my dad?” He spits the question before he remembers that Herb actually knows just how awful a comparison that really is.
“Listen, I know we haven’t been close for a long time–”
“No doy.”
“–but I want you to know you can talk to me.”
BoJack looks down. His shoe is tapping a rapid pace onto the floor enough that, when he presses his palm against his knee, it still doesn’t stop. Damn it. Damn his ridiculous lack of acting ability. He can delivered hackneyed punchlines for hours, but he can’t even pretend he isn’t drowning for five whole minutes. If ever there were a stupider piece of shit, it’d be him again, just wearing a different skin.
But, maybe it’s the shocking levels of sobriety present in the room. Maybe it’s Herb. Maybe it’s time to stop pretending like he hates this guy, when all BoJack wants to do is unravel in front of him like he used to be able to.
He breathes a deep sigh, and then he talks. He starts with drinking alone, and regurgitates Mr. Peanutbutter’s story before ending it with his own, of finding the man in his bathroom, and chasing him out of his house as soon as he’d realized what he’d done with him. When he’s finished, there’s a long pause in which Herb just looks at him. He’s searching his face, or maybe he’s quietly judging him. Then, in a maddeningly neutral tone, he finally asks, “So, you had sex with Mr. Peanutbutter? From Mr. Peanutbutter’s House.”
If it didn’t feel real before, it certainly does now. Hearing the sentence said out loud punches a hole straight through BoJack’s stomach, and he doubles over to put his head in his hands. “I fucked up, I fucked up so bad. My career is over!”
Herb’s chair squeaks as he hops up and rushes to BoJack’s side. It’s like they’re twenty years old again, and BoJack’s crashed his first car; a soothing hand rubs circles between his shoulders, and Herb says, “Hey, it’s okay BJ, it’s nothing we can’t fix, okay?”
But, unlike when they were twenty, the words ring hollow now. He’s already got so many problems they’ve never managed to fix over the years. Now, faced with what feels like a tsunami, all BoJack can say is, “You don’t get it Herb.” He groans into his palms. “I’m not gay like you, I don’t do shit like this! Don’t you know what this means for me?”
Herb pauses, drawing his hand back for a deliberating moment before he lightly smacks him on the back, and then continues his ministrations. “I-I’m not gay. But if I were gay, there’d be nothing wrong with that! And there’s nothing wrong with you being a little gay, too, BoJack. You can’t think like that.”
He protests, “It’s not about that,” and throws his head back to look at Herb. “It’s about the fact that if he tells anyone–anyone!–I’m through! I’m finished! I can kiss Secretariat goodbye!”
Now, there’s real concern in Herb’s voice. Even his hand pauses once more against his back. “Did he say he was going to tell anyone?”
For some reason, BoJack actually feels a little angry that anyone else would assume that of the otherwise nothing-but-stupidly-nice Mr. Peanutbutter. Ironically, when said back to him the suggestion seems ludicrous. “No,” he says sharply. Herb recoils, so BoJack softens up and starts again, “No, no, he didn’t. It’s just, like, he could. If I don’t do this crossover episode, he could pull the plug on everything I’ve–we’ve built! Doesn’t that terrify you? At least a little bit?”
There’s another deliberate silence in which Herb honestly thinks, but BoJack knows it isn’t about the question he’s asked. He’s got his How Do I Keep This From Turning into a Category 5 BoJack Freakout face on. After all these years, it’s unmistakable. Maybe he’d bother to find it patronizing later, when he’s far away from here locked in his bedroom, on top of the covers and deep in a drunken stupor. But, right now, it feels just a little too nice to be known.
He waits for Herb to answer, and when he does it's obviously something BoJack knew he wouldn’t want to hear, but probably needs to. “Why don’t you just talk to him? Tell him you blacked out or something before you agreed to the episode, and you don’t want to do it anymore.”
It sounds so simple, and yet BoJack feels every single atom inside of his body curl in on itself at the very suggestion of it. “No,” he groans pitifully, “Anything but that…”
“Well, BJ, I’m not going to approve a massive operation like this on the basis of…what? Perceived blackmail? Paranoid delusion? You have to do something.”
Annoyingly reasonable, and usually right, that’s the Herb he knows. God, maybe he really does hate him sometimes. But, for once, he has to admit that he’s completely right. As much as BoJack wants to run from the situation, he has a brand to protect and a once-in-a-lifetime movie deal riding on the line, so he needs to straighten this thing out with Mr. Peanutbutter sooner rather than later.
He sighs. He takes a deep breath, and groans one more time before he stands from his seat. He has to look down at Herb now, and he does so with reluctance. “I guess I could…y’know…call him.” It feels like committing to a murder; it feels more terrifying than stealing his mother’s cigarettes at nine years old, so he knows it’s bone-deep.
“Yeah, good idea,” Herb says, and it’s delivered with a placating smile.
BoJack pretends not to notice it. “Thanks, Herb”
“Any time, BJ.” Then, “I meant what I said, y’know.”
“That it’s okay if I’m a little gay?”
Herb sighs exasperatedly. “No, BoJack. That you can talk to me.”
“Oh.” A beat. One, two, three. Then, “I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”
After the day’s filming comes to a close and the union bell tolls, BoJack finds himself out back beside the dumpster, agonizing over just what he’s going to say, if he’s going to say anything at all. He doesn’t really do this sort of thing—he’s never felt like he’s had to! Usually, he likes to put the women he sleeps with into the garbage can of things he’ll never think about again. But, for all the wrong reasons, this situation is undeniably different.
Sleeping with a celebrity means something. No, not anything stupid like love, or obligation, rather it means that, as a fellow celebrity, the news could only stay behind closed doors for so long. Something would slip soon enough; knowing Mr. Peanutbutter—which BoJack doesn’t like to consider he does, but he’s at least talked to the guy for more than five minutes—the guy’s lips are notoriously loose. It’s only really a matter of time.
But, what would he do? Threaten him? Beg him? Either option felt like shooting a different kicked puppy in its face.
Lost in deep contemplation underneath the waning summer sun, BoJack hardly notices the hapless PA rushing over until she’s finally right in front of him, gesturing wildly towards the closing set. Through her doubled-over, breathless panting, BoJack hears he has a phone call waiting for him.
She points him towards a stalled payphone just outside the western doors. It waits for him plainly as he jogs over, though when he reaches for the receiver he feels a pang of hesitation. He doesn’t usually get any calls from the payphone…
With an unsure hand, he cradles the receiver to his ear. “Hello?”
The man on the other line breathes a deep sigh of relief, and the microphone crackles. Then, a tight, familiar voice comes through. “BoJack?”
It’s unmistakeable. “Mr. Peanutbutter…?”
“You said, uh, people call you when they’re in trouble, right?” He laughs. Then, he gasps, and he groans. “Like, if it’s an emergency, y’know?”
“Huh? What the hell is going on?”
“I think I need your help!”