Man on the Inside

13

It is tomorrow and Brontë wishes it wasn't.

He fell asleep quickly, awkwardly, and slept fitfully. It was clear Art just wouldn't be able to fall asleep next to him- even though he'd clearly set up the room so that they'd share a bed. He'd plied Brontë with alcohol until he had loosened up and let forth inner desires he had hid and ignored and repressed, Art had made him bare his soul- and then he'd walked away. Something had changed, somewhere, somehow. Brontë couldn't figure out what he did wrong.

When he awakes, Art isn't beside him, but it's also late morning and the sunlight piercing his eyelids is the only thing forcing them open. When, through a horrid headache, he does get his eyes open, he sees the other side of the bed; and it's made, perfectly, down to the pillow being fluffed as if nobody had slept on it.

The reasonable assumption is that Art didn't sleep there, but even if Brontë didn't have this vague feeling in the back of his mind that he recalls a weight beside him, he can smell the subtle bergamot of Art's cologne. He closes his eyes, unable to really appreciate it for the headache.

He feels like shit on all levels. Dying right now would be easier than dealing with the mess he knows for a fact he made. And he made a mess of the mess, too. He didn't just try to sleep with Artemy fucking Volkov, he was rejected by him, and he's not- if you asked him, Brontë would tell you he was straight. It's not like he even learned anything from that whole thing. Not about Art, anyway.

He hears the door handle jiggling, and sits up straighter. His heart skips a beat until he confirms that it's Art coming in. His skipped beat remains held, paused in his throat, as Art ambles in, sunglasses casually on his head and walking about as if nothing happened, as if the world hasn't shifted. Brontë's insides feel like mush and so does his brain.

Art's carrying a bag of groceries. "Hangover?" he says like Brontë's supposed to be normal about this.

He pretends to be normal about it. "Uh. Yeah?"

"I dunno what generally works for you, but I got everything I could think of. Panadol, you've already got water there, I'll make some food in a minute that'll hopefully fix things slightly."

He throws the Panadol as he says it, and points to the bedside table, where Brontë hadn't even looked. His phone is there, next to a huge glass of water.

"Wait." Brontë can't quite clarify what isn't right in his head immediately, and Art waits patiently for the long second it takes him to figure it out. "Why are you- doing so much? It's okay. Sit down."

"I experience excruciating boredom very easily," Art says as he's taking groceries over to the kitchenette, "and I would rather die than relax most of the time."

Brontë wonders if that boredom hit Art before the two of them got anywhere. If he just wasn't interesting enough. But he doesn't ask that. He doesn't want to bring it up.

Instead, once Art's back is turned, Brontë looks at his phone, and he's glad he made it so that notifications don't automatically show, because he has seven texts from Nimm. Last night, she'd sent:

Hey. Tell me the plan when you've got time.

How's it going? Are you alive?

And in the morning:

I'm certainly going to hope you're alive. Let me know by tonight if you're not.

I hope something very interesting is happening and that's why you haven't got back to me yet...!

Just because I need to know you're alive.

And also because I want to know what's happening.