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2:17 in the morning is not an ideal time to be awake, especially when you've spent the last 3 and a bit hours tossing and turning in sweat soaked sheets. Unfortunately, this isn't an unusual occurrence, even two years after quitting the Daily Mail night shift to go into politics with Fergus, his sleep schedule is still, well, fucked.
Groaning, he switches his light on, attempting to wrestle himself out of the constraints of his duvet. He's tempted to give up, to simply get up now and just…not sleep. But the ache of exhaustion is stronger than that temptation - every bone and muscle is sore and desperate for a good night’s rest. Everything apart from his brain, which is buzzing away like a half-dead bluebottle: loud and obnoxious.
Inside his kitchen, there is the dull hum of the fridge, dirty plates stacked in a heap above the dishwasher, and a crumpled tea towel on the floor where he splashed some water by accident that evening. The floor is effortlessly cool against his bare feet, and he smiles gently to himself when he feels himself shiver. He loves being cold, always has done. When he was younger he was the type of boy to wear shorts year round, and he would now, if he didn't feel embarrassed by the possibility of anyone seeing him in shorts. They just didn't seem to fit his frame now that he was an adult, they always ended up looking like an awkward joke.
He sighs and flips the switch on the kettle, flinching at the noise. Why is it that ordinary things always sound a thousand times louder in the dead of night? Maybe it's a bonus though, as its roar coaxes his thoughts into settling. There are herbal tea bags in the cupboard, and the box says ‘sleepy chamomile infusion’, and he sincerely hopes that it will help.
His hand brushes against the burning shell of the kettle as he makes the tea, and he mutters a quiet, half-hearted “fuck” before running it under the cold tap. Staring at the red mark on his skin, he wants to cry. He is alive. The pain is at least something, a feeling, other than the numbness of definitive awakeness.
Sipping the tea, he stares down at a post-it note - one of Fergus', he always plasters them everywhere - which has a caricature of Mannion towering over a weasel like Phil, which had been drawn during a particularly trying meeting about Silicone playgrounds. Fergus was, oddly, a competent artist, and would use any opportunity to show off his skill. Once, Adam had joked about how Fergus should draw him, but it hadn't quite landed, and Fergus had just blushed as if he was guilty of something.
—
It's been twenty minutes, but the thought of returning to the tangled sheets seems too daunting, and he gives into the childlike urge to lie on the floor. Icy, hard floorboards press into his back, and he knows that it's not going to help his already atrocious posture, but he's past caring. It's quite nice, really. Not comfortable, but reassuring, like when someone puts out their hand to help pull you up, even if you don't really need it. That had happened, last week, somehow he'd ended up sitting on the floor during a squash game with Fergus, and Fergus had offered Adam his hand to stand up. He'd taken it, and it was cool, clammy, solid, like the floorboards.
He wonders what the rest of Fergus' body feels like, surely it can't all be that cold. God, how he wants to find out. How he wants to see parts of Fergus that no one else has, how he wants to just melt into him, to join himself to him. To be his and to be him.
To belong and to be one.
Tears don't come naturally to Adam, but now they're streaming uncontrollably down his face, his warm and puffy and tired face. Pulling himself off the ground, he lets out a half strangled sob, pressing his hand into his eyes as if it would make any difference. As if his palm could stop something so violent, so desperate to unleash.
He curls up underneath his duvet and chokes and shakes until the sheets are soggy, until he'd fully drained himself of emotion into a dried up husk that cannot feel and does not want to. Deep and unstable, his breaths come from far within to try and soothe him.
He is a dead thing when the clock strikes 3, but at least he is asleep. At least he has escaped his reality.