Work Text:
The clock in the nightstand marks 4 AM in bold red letters, edges blurred, a stark contrast to the darkness in the bedroom.
With tired eyes, he looks at the damning numbers. Bright, bold, taunting him. He could blame it on daylight savings messing up his already messed up sleep schedule. He’ll probably offer that to Tilly as a meager excuse for his pronounced eyebags in the morning – well, in a few hours, since it’s morning already.
He sighs, tosses, turns. Sits up and rubs his tired eyes. The blinds are shut but he can still hear the faint noise of a car speeding up down the lane. Debates whether to get up, make some coffee and start with his day, or toss and turn some more.
A stray thought crosses him mind, and he reaches to grab his phone from the nightstand. Screen’s blurry as well, and he rubs his eyes some more. There’s the notification for the alarm that’s supposed to go off in three hours (strategically set up to go off again twice more), mocking him with the reminder of his interrupted REM cycle. The three calls he ignored yesterday are still there, too. Dutch, Hosea and Dutch, in that order. And, of course, not a single text message.
He has half a mind to toss it away, because somehow the crash and possible crack will surely make himself feel better, but then realizes paying for the replacement of the screen will be a hassle. And Tilly would worry he’s gotten himself into another mess if she sees both his eyebags and a cracked phone screen.
Instead, he puts it down somewhere in the mattress. He’s heard many times about the dangers of it. It’s a fire hazard, it causes cancer, it’s terrible for your sleep habits. He doesn’t really see it’d make a difference to leave it on the nightstand or a few inches to the left right by his head. Only downside when he loses it in the sea of sheets and blankets and gets late to places because he turns off ten alarms.
Fuck, he’s tired. He’s awake now, vision edges still blurry ("you’re getting old" "no he’s not"), and he can feel his head clearing up and engines getting started for the day ahead but he can also feel the tank going on reserve. He’ll have to take a nap if he wants to survive through the whole day.
He’ll just have to figure out where, exactly.
There’s no point in trying to go back to sleep. Pillow wasn’t even comfortable and inviting anymore. Warm and kind of rank because he hasn’t listened to Tilly’s speeches about changing the sheets once a week. He hopes the dust mites are having a party and munching on his dead skin cells as appetizers.
He reaches for the cord and pulls the blinds open, half braced for the sting of light day to hurt his eyes. But of course, it’s fucking four am, so the only light attacking him is the one from the street lamp down the lane. He gets up and grabs yesterday’s discarded t-shirt from the mess in his so-called desk, deeming it clean enough to wear at least for breakfast.
Getting started on coffee and looking in three different cabinets for the peanut butter he knows Tilly is hoarding, he makes himself a PB and jelly sandwich. His phone is in his last dregs of battery but he still takes the time to browse the tabs opened in the explorer, mostly references for half finished sketches and a dozen other more with timesheets and curriculums for classes.
Grabbing a pencil and a notebook, sipping on his bitter, stinginly hot coffee, he distracts himself drawing under the admittedly terrible light of the kitchen fluorescents. Tilly won’t be awake for a while, and he won’t be needed anywhere until at least 9 am, so he just loses himself in it.
He doesn’t know why he sleeps with the blinds shut down, as closed as they can be without a sliver of light crawling inside. It’s not like he wasn’t used to other sleeping arrangements, where time was scant and precious and he could pretty much sleep through anything. Including Tilly’s raged shrieks at John because he had done something stupid again. Or John being simply John.
Never a Dutch tirade, though. Always wide awake for those.
He just started doing it one day. Shutting off the outside world.
He stays there for a while, ignoring the constant reminders of his phone about its battery life, which with no doubt will make his life harder as the day goes on.
“Arthur?”
His neck hurts as his head snaps up. Instinctively, he turns the notebook down.
“’morning, Tilly.”
She notices, of course, but doesn’t say anything, eyes dragging up from the sudden movement on the table to his face. She notices that, too, a frown appearing in her brow.
He has half a mind to make a joke about his ugly mug, but Tilly’s quicker than his wits at this hour.
“It’s not even seven am, what are you doing up? You were home late last night.”
A question, a reproach, her worrying tone. He can’t fault her for any of it, because he knows she loves him.
“Just got up, couldn’t sleep anymore.”
“Huh- should’ve tried some more, silly.”
“Yeah- you’re probably right.”
She puts a hand on his shoulder, warm with sleep, and squeezes as she walks by the table to grab the coffee pot. There’s a pause there, and he can tell she wants to say something else.
He’s waiting for it, staring down at the blank page.
The seconds tick slowly, hours pass by, until he hears the cold coffee draining down the sink.
Tilly gets started on a new pot, and he turns the notebook back up.
When she sits down, a hot coffee mug in her hands as she waits for the poptarts to jump from the toaster, he doesn’t bother hiding his sketch again.
“Any news?”
“Nah- you?”
“Haven’t checked yet. I guess not.”
“I should-“
“No, you’ve done enough.”
A pause, he looks up at her, a quirked eyebrow.
“I didn’t mean it like that- you really are doing enough.”
It’s not like he harrumphs, or that he grumbles, but he supposes Tilly would describe it like that.
They sit quietly. Tilly eats her breakfast, he draws. Another ping from his phone informs him his battery is at less than 5% and he should connect it to an energy source or maybe he’d rather just activate battery life saving mode. Three hours left if he chooses that option, apparently.
The notification is ignored. He starts another sketch.
Tilly reclaims the bathroom and starts her day.
She’s mentioned before her eight AM philosophy class and she mentions it again before she leaves, pressing a quick kiss to his no doubt less than fresh mop of hair.
“Call me if you need anything!”
“Will do, miss.”
He doesn’t point out he should be the one saying that, being the elder brother.
After a while, he tears the page out of the notebook and folds it in half. He walks back to his bedroom, discarding it on top of the others on his desk, the same eyes all over again watching him with concern and mirth and even love, sometimes.
After a shower, he figures he should get going, too.
After walking out the door, his phone finally dies.
He curses, never mind he’s the harbinger of his own demise, and resolves to a day without notifications or music or quick google searches.
He can’t even check the bus schedule but he knows it by heart and he’s old enough to still have a watch to check the hour. An old Casio Hosea gave him for his birthday when he was fifteen. It’s been through showers, swimming, a ten step flight downstairs and at least twelve moves. Resilient and durable and ugly, with that chipped glass and discolored strap.
“Hey Arthur.”
“Hey kid.” Lenny can’t be older than Tilly. He’s never asked, but they look the same age to him. Every now and then he finds Lenny waiting for him in the mornings, sometimes eating his own breakfast. He takes the chance to have a smoke while he finishes up his BLT.
“I just texted you, thought you weren’t coming in today.”
“Sorry, phone’s dead.”
“I have a battery bank if you want.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I got my charger on me.”
He doesn’t, or at least he’s pretty sure it’s not in his messenger bag. Probably somewhere in his desk. If he really tries, though, he should be able to find one in Dutch’s office.
They go in, he busies himself with some unfinished tasks from the day before. Oil check, oil change, another oil check. Charging batteries. Some more complicated stuff that requires he goes under a truck not unlike his old one.
His phone still sits dead in his bag, and there’s some kind of peace to it, until he hears Dutch’s boisterous voice booming inside the shop. Then, he remembers the three calls that went straight to voicemail. Remembers also how he had no new texts.
In a stroke of genius, he decides making a dash for it before he’s found. He’s possibly had up to three hours of decent sleep, which isn’t nearly enough to deal with Dutch.
There’s places he needs to be. A class he was looking forward to, the fancy notebook with the nice paper sits heavily in his bag. He’s proud of some of those pieces.
He also has memorized this bus line to heart. Mary attends evening classes. He has another smoke as a heavy tiredness sits in his muscles, unable to care about the smell and his appearance and the oil stain on his face as he wonder if she’ll be home. As he wonders if she’ll let him take a nap at her place. It’s closer than going back home.
She opens the door, clad in her home wear outfit that “no, of course it’s not proper to go grocery shopping in, I have to change first”. She looks gorgeous, even with no make up on and her hair still a little messy. It looks like she slept in. Even when her frown burrows, he finds her beautiful, even more so.
“Couldn’t you have washed up first?”
“Missed ya too, Mary.”
“I thought you were mad at me.”
With a shrug, he ignores the barbed words.
“Can I come in?”
“…why?” He can hear the pause. The way she eyes him up and down again as if measuring his filthiness and intentions in one sweep.
“Need a nap.”
Looks like he passed some kind of test, because she steps aside and lets him in.
After a nap, a much needed one, another cup of coffee, and an embarrassing attempt at kissing her that thwarted all other intentions he might have had, Mary announces she has to leave and therefore he should, too.
“…Kinda need a charger too, Mary.”
A put upon sigh.
He makes her wait, and he knows he’s being unfair to her by making all these requests, specially when she needs to leave soon, but part of him enjoys being a part of her life even if it’s a messy and complicated one that she’d rather cut entirely off.
There’s those text messages from Lenny, three from Tilly asking about work and if he’s going to class and a meme of a dog that reminds him of Copper. Another two missed calls, Dutch, Hosea. In that order.
“Thanks, darlin’.” The endearment slips out even when he knows she hates it by now.
“Gotta go. Thanks for- thanks for the coffee.”
He goes to class, oil still smeared on his face, after a quick sandwich lunch scarfed down with another coffee cup and a smoke for dessert. He submits his work, sits at the back, draws some more, takes some notes. There’re doodles scattered all around his notebook, dogs and horses and wolves. Little hearts when he can’t help himself.
Mary did look beautiful that morning.
It’s over before he wants it to. He’s only taking a bunch of classes he’s sure he can’t fail, freeing his schedule for more important business. So he goes back to work.
By the time he’s home, tired, head pounding and heart broken, with his phone chiming at a 4% battery life, Tilly is there reviewing her own class notes.
“Hey! How was your day?” She’s smiling.
She looks so happy, he should ask her about philosophy or English literature or her credits or whatever essay she’s working on.
Her smile turns when she sees him, and he kind of hates that. Doing that to her, ruining her joy.
“No news?”
He shakes his head, dropping his bag as he slumps in the sofa.
“Saw Mary.”
He knows what she thinks about her. What everyone does.
“Ugh- again? Arthur, come on, you can’t keep-“ She stands up, joins him in the couch, looking all over his face and picking up on the telltale signs of exhaustion and heartbreak.
“’m tired, Tils.” His head finds her shoulder, and not even three cups of coffee can keep him awake much longer.
“Go to sleep- it’s okay.”
She’s kind, his sister. She could have kept berating him about his choices.
Instead she leaves him be, strokes his hair.
“-check on John for me? ‘case he calls.”
“I will, honey.”
He falls asleep.