And now some BoJack Horseman fanfic

HIS LAST LEG

BoJack Horseman maybe goes a little too dark for the series finale

It's been a full year since anyone has called him. Every friend and even the ones he just told himself were his friends have left, at last. Nobody calls, and he calls nobody. He doesn't leave the house anymore. He's given up on solid food, given up even the pretense of cleaning. Now he just shovels the drifts of empty bottles out of the way with his legs. When he gets up at all.

How would Diane write this, he thinks, idly. The thought doesn't get much further than that before he's distracted by seeing himself on the television. In the show he's young again. He's never not watching the show these days. Paid some nerd to get his DVDs onto a computer that plays them on a loop. The horse on the screen is saying something sentimental to Sarah Lynn and it twists in his heart and he takes another drink. Maybe he's crying.

He doesn't care. He's too drunk to feel anything. Too drunk to remember anything. It's surely the five hundredth time he's seen this episode but he doesn't remember it.

It feels like he's waiting for something, but he has no idea what. It's like he's waited his whole life and never realized he didn't know what he was waiting for until now. It's a terrifying thought. A long pull of bourbon quenches it. The sun comes up and goes down and comes up again and slowly he becomes aware that someone's standing next to him, talking. She sounds angry.

'Can you even hear me?' she says. 'Shit, are you even alive? Did I get here in time?'

BoJack turns his head, so slowly. One eternity at a time, the pieces come together. The white flecks in her fur, dot, dot, dot. Her big twitchy ears. Her big doe eyes. Charlotte. That's Charlotte standing there. With a shotgun.

'What are you doing here?' says BoJack. The words feel familiar in his mouth but he can't place them.

'I told you I would kill you', says Charlotte. Her voice is hard. Hoarse, like she's been crying, but hard like iron. 'If you ever got near my family again, I would kill you. Remember, BoJack?'

He remembers it vividly. It's the worst things that stay, and that was the worst. The very worst thing he ever did. He doesn't remember doing it, though. Getting close to them. Oh well, he can take her word for it. He must have done something. He hopes it wasn't too fucking awful.

'Hello? I'm going to kill you, BoJack. Can you understand me? I want you to understand that much.'

'Yeah. I understand. You're going to kill me.' He looks at her in the eye, feeling absolutely nothing. 'Thank you.' This part is going to be hard. He can feel that. He can feel it's wrong for him to say her name. But he has to know. 'Is Penny, is she going to? What did I do?'

'You don't remember, do you? Well it's been a few years. You showed up at her school dressed like a stalker and spooked her. You didn't leave when she told you to leave. She ran home. Ring any bells?'

'Yeah, it sounds like something I'd do. I'm sorry.' It's the simplest thing in the world to know what he should say, but still the words come out of his mouth like heavy stones. Each one. 'I fucked up. I can't be trusted. I need to be. Put down. You're doing the world a favor. Doing me a favor. Thank you, Charlotte.'

It seems like he should stand up or something, but he can't figure out how, and anyway he's probably less threatening like this. Less frightening. He's so sick of scaring people.

'I, uh, I'm glad we agree', says Charlotte, and raises her gun.

'But I mean, I could do it myself. I'm probably going to be dead inside a month either way. You shouldn't, you don't have to bloody your hands. I don't want my murder to hang over you the rest of your life. I don't want, do you see, I don't want to cause anyone pain. I never wanted that. Once you kill someone, even if it's a shitbag you don't even care about, it's something you can never walk away from. Just ask me.'

'That's very thoughtful of you, BoJack. Very considerate of my feelings. You know, I still think you're a good person deep down. But good intentions isn't enough.' The gun goes off, but there's no sound, no pain. Just a flash of light, and BoJack slowly glides down until he's looking at her upside down, lying on the floor in a weird position that doesn't seem to fit with where the couch is. She looks so hard. Pitiless, that's the word. She puts the gun down, leaning against the wall, and kneels and pets his nose.

'It doesn't hurt', says BoJack. 'I thought it would hurt.'

'Me too', says Charlotte, and shrugs. She keeps her hand on his nose, pretty gentle, and keeps her eyes locked on his without any gentleness. It's strange, how part of her is calm and caring and soft while part of her is shaking with rage. 'But that's okay. I aimed low so you would stay alive a while. And know you were going to die. And you're going to die knowing that you ruined me too. You've destroyed everything you ever touched, and you couldn't even die without destroying me too. Your oldest, best friend. Maybe the only one who ever loved you. Maybe I'll go to prison, but I doubt it. But yeah, I knew that it was wrong to kill you and I did it anyway and I'm going to carry that wound in my soul for the rest of my life. Because of you. How does that feel?'

'I, fuck, I let you down, but do you really hate me that much?'

'I really hate you that much.' She bends down and kisses him and gets blood on her lips and there's tears in her eyes and he breaks all the way through the armor.

BoJack cries, in ugly choked sobs, and it's like the last fifty, sixty years didn't happen, he's free and he's crying and this time his mom takes him in her arms and even as he's blacking out he knows it's not really his mom and he doesn't deserve to die happy and that makes it even worse.