Drunk Without Cause

Twenty-Eight.

Nessa stepped away from the group, hoping that no one would notice for a little while. Ilya was too busy flirting with Kiwi, and Emi and Keely were too busy sitting awkwardly away from one another, occasionally bantering without even meaning to. It provided the perfect opportunity for Nessa to leave.

He didn't mind Ilya's room. He thought that it suited him very well — extremely sexual and messy. But he did mind the lack of Venice, Ilya having said something about him being in his own room. Nessa wanted to know why.

The hall wasn't very long, four doors staggered along it. Ilya's room, his mysterious sister's old room, Venice's, and the bathroom. Nessa stopped in front of one of the closed ones, bracing himself as he knocked. There was a long waiting period, before the knob turned by an invisible force, and the room was revealed.

Everything was oddly bare, Nessa noticed that first. Nothing on the walls, almost nothing on the floor beside a few stray articles of clothing. Then there was Venice, stood with his hand still on the doorknob. He did not have a bucket hat on, his hair a bit messy, as though he had been laying in bed. He wore one of his usual ridiculously ginormous grunge shirts, and today it was paired with some equally as ridiculous cargo pants.

Nessa liked the way his bangs lay in disarray, parting enough to actually show off Venice's face more than they usually did. Those eyes should have been creepy, but he didn't think that they were. Just as everyone always told him that his own eyes were nothing short of beautiful, but he didn't think that was true either. Eyes were subjective, but the emotions within them weren't. Maybe the problem was that Nessa's eyes had too many, and Venice's had none.

"You're all alone." Nessa mumbled when Venice didn't say anything. "Even though Ilya managed to talk us all into coming."

"I was trying to get some sleep, I'm not very awake right now." Venice admitted, stepping out the way. Hesitating for a moment, Nessa took him up on that silent offer, entering into the shadowed and empty room. The curtains weren't very effective, so the late sun was still pushing through. But his light switch was untouched.

"You're always helping me." Nessa turned back to him, watching as Venice closed the door and walked over to his rumpled bed. "Is there anything I could help you with?"

Venice sat down, blankly staring up at Nessa. "I really don't do anything."

"Yeah, you do." Nessa told him, sitting down beside him. Not without plenty of space between the two, though, because Nessa knew that Venice did not like proximity — and nor was Nessa much of a fan. He could fake it when he had to, but he preferred space. "You're the only one who gets it."

It was a bit hard to tell why Venice chose the words that he did when Nessa couldn't read his emotions. On the surface, it seemed that he had none. But of course he did, because he was motivated by trauma every bit as much as Nessa was. "Gets what?"

"Gets that I'm not what everyone thinks I am."

"What might that be?" Venice asked. "What are we supposed to know about you?"

Nessa trained his eyes on the door. "Nothing. But everyone always wants to know what's beneath the nothing, and it's annoying." He sighed. "I think that the world is breathtaking. Everyone always wants to know why."

And that was when, for the first time ever, Venice furrowed his brow just enough for it to be noticeable. When Nessa saw that, he couldn't look away after. "It's a valid question. There's nothing beautiful about it."

"There's everything beautiful about it." Nessa protested, resting his hands on the pockets of his mint overalls. "I think therefore I am, it exists therefore it's beautiful."