Tony leaned back against the frame of his unmade bed, shirt half-buttoned, collar wrinkled from where he'd tugged at it earlier in frustration. The room was a mess—half-empty beer cans crowding the floor like they'd multiplied, ashtrays filled to the rim, a window cracked open just enough to let the smoke crawl lazily out. The speakers buzzed softly with The Kooks, their newest track filtering through the room like a low-grade soundtrack to a very average breakdown.

The bottle in his hand tipped slightly as he swirled the contents without looking. His fingers were stained from rolling cigarettes, one still tucked behind his ear, forgotten. The air smelled like a bad decision stretched out into hours—cheap vodka, burnt paper, whatever was left of a spliff, and that strange undertone of wet clothes drying indoors. Bristol in spring.

She sat sprawled out on the carpet, cross-legged like she was meditating but with none of the peace. Her notes were shoved to the side, ink smudged, pages torn where she'd scribbled too hard. Her schoolbag looked like it had been kicked around. A few textbooks had met the floor earlier, the casualties of academic burnout and Tony's unsolicited commentary.

He glanced down at her, smirking. "You're going to sleep on the floor, you know that right?"

She didn't reply immediately. Her fingers brushed over the top of the vodka bottle, testing its weight before she took another swig. The alcohol stung her throat, but it felt like a temporary escape from the chaos in her mind. She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly—like she had an answer ready but was too tired to voice it.

He took another drag of the cigarette he'd finally remembered, letting the smoke curl out through his nose before speaking again, voice low, always so casually detached, like emotions were something only other people bothered with.

"It's my house, spoiled brat."

That smirk was still there, even now—especially now. The one he wore like armor, or maybe a weapon. He watched her as she drank, as her gaze stayed pinned to the floor like it held some kind of answer to a question neither of them wanted to ask. Her wrist was inked up with highlighter streaks, the badge of war from cramming all week. She'd been here for three hours and hadn't smiled once, which he found impressive, in a fucked-up kind of way.

He rolled his neck, let his head thump against the wall with a soft knock. The pain was barely noticeable. A mosquito bite of sensation. He wanted a cigarette and a knife to cut the static in his chest. He wanted Michelle to text him, or not text him. He wanted everything to matter more or less than it did.

"You're not actually going to pass any of those exams," he said idly, blowing smoke toward the ceiling, "but you'll cry about it and call it ambition, and I'll pretend to be impressed. So... business as usual."

His words were like a hammer, hitting harder than intended. He could see it in her eyes, the irritation rising. She had a short fuse when it came to her studies, and he knew exactly how to light it. Her grip on the bottle tightened, and her jaw set a little harder, the muscles tensing as she braced herself against the weight of his words. She shifted, tilting her head in a challenging way, but didn't respond. Instead, she threw her backpack onto the bed with a sharp motion, letting the contents spill out as if it were a statement.