Feeling.

In The Sea

Fuck.

That's Bright's first thought when he wakes up. He groans, and the sound causes throbbing pain to start in his brain and spread throughout his entire body. No one ever tells you how much worse hangovers get when you're older, but damn. They are terrible.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the sun shining in through his blinds. He's too old to be doing this. Why can he hardly remember getting home? How did he get home? He feels around in his bed. He's alone.

Okay.

He reaches for his phone on his nightstand and sees a text from Tay.

Buddy. Call me when you wake up.

He looks back over at his nightstand. A half empty water bottle. That's a start. Sitting up in his head, he reaches for the bottle and chugs it in two seconds flat.

Tay answers on the first ring.

"Bright?" he greets, and his voice is a mixture of tense and concerned.

"Oh, no. What?" Bright asks, and his voice is hard and scratchy.

"I wanted you to call me before you did anything else today because I have a funny feeling you don't remember last night."

Bright nods. Yeah. That's about right. "What?"

The pit at the bottom of Bright's stomach hardened. He knew this was about Win. It had to be. Win's the only thing he thinks about.

"So, Tine broke up with you," Tay says. Bright closes his eyes, leaning his head against his headboard as he waits for more information. "In front of quite a few people at The Apan. And you took it very quietly. And he left. And then I drove you home."

Tay pauses, and Bright can tell there is more. "Out with it," Bright says brusquely, because he just needs to know.

"You told me a lot in the car. And normally, I'd just let it be drunken rambles and move on. But I'm going to bite this time."

Bright feels like he definitely should have taken some aspirin before this conversation.

"You are not over Win. Anyone could have guessed that. And it sounds like you really hurt him last night. And you know, he doesn't really deserve that. He is doing his best, and you're kind of punishing him for getting help."

"What?"

Now he's lost. Punishing him?

"He's trying to be better, and you need to step to him level. You can't try to pull him down to your level. You two… are great together. You always will be. When you guys get it together, you will be a force to be reckoned with, Bright. But you need to focus up. You weren't interested in anything with Tine, but you dragged him through the mud to make yourself feel better. Win deserves better than your drunken rants. You're off today. Sleep it off, and come back sharp on Monday. Because you're better than this."

Bright takes in all this new information. Tay's voice is warm and full of love, even if his words are stern.

"Wait, Tay. What did I say to Win?"

Tay grunts uncomfortably. "I don't know. But you told me how much you loved him and how he loves you for the entire drive home last night. So it must have been something."

Ah, crap.

Bright hangs up his phone and considers crawling under the blankets and sleeping for the rest of the day. But that's not really going to help. So instead, he gets up, shuffles into his bathroom, and quickly locates the aspirin in his medicine cabinet. After dry swallowing a few pills, he drags himself into the shower to try to wash this feeling away.