It’s cold. That’s the first and almost only thing I notice as I wake up. I shiver, muttering under my breath as I pull the blankets closer to me. As they bunch towards me a bit too freely, however, I realise why it’s cold- he’s gone.

I roll over, blinking sleepily as the empty pillow beside me comes into focus. When it does, I shut my eyes again, breathing out heavily and fluttering the bedsheets in the process. He always has to leave. Well, it’s not like I’ve never done it to him- but I don’t, not anymore. I thought he said we shouldn’t.

I don’t know what makes me reopen my eyes. I could just as easily fall right back asleep. A little worse off, sure, but still asleep. Maybe it’s because I don’t really want to go back to sleep, maybe it’s the fact that the spot where I saw him last, naked and sweating in my bed, one arm across my back, the other beneath his pillow and both eyes on me, is still warm. Maybe there’s something that just tells me I should. I don’t know why I do, but I do, and for whatever the reason I look up from the bed and there he is. I smile, my slight anger replaced by a momentary burst of dazed happiness at his presence.

“Robert,” I try to say, but all that comes out is a gargled cough. He’s standing at the window, bathrobe slipped loosely over his heavy body to help keep out this blasted cold. He’s staring out my window at the street lamp that’s right outside, arms folded across his chest. I can’t see his face directly; only the side and a dim outline of his features are available to me in the dim of the room. It’s enough for me, however, and I smile as I watch him, too tired to make another attempt at speech.

I’m not quite sure what he’s looking at out there, but whatever it is, it must be as immobile as him. He barely moves at all, completely still as he contemplates the night. With his features illuminated against the window like that and my mind in this sort of state, I can’t help but pay attention to how beautiful he is. His beauty is only enhanced at night, when he’s completely worn out but in such a sleep-induced stupor that nothing really touches him at all. And I know that I sound like a complete queer when I say it, but he is. Beautiful. And I want him back here in bed beside me. Now.

I make a move to sit up, to call him over to me, to do or say anything, to tell him I want him. I might even tell him I love him. I say shit like that all too often. But I don’t even get the chance to be stupid this time; it looks like he might beat me to it. He hasn’t even moved from the window, but I guess somehow he knows I’m awake. Maybe it doesn’t matter to him. Whatever the case, he speaks, softly, flatly, and with a few well chosen words he makes all I’ve been thinking suddenly very obsolete.

“It’s not working, Simon,” he says. I don’t even have a chance to react, to question him, to argue or protest or tell him he’s wrong. All I can do is feel my mouth open and hear the silence that comes out. He glances at me briefly, more of a sideways flick of his eyes than an actual gaze. This completed, he sniffs, covers the distance between the window and the door before I even realise what he’s doing, and is gone even faster, slipping into the darkness of the corridor as he leaves both his clothes and me behind.

I don’t think I’ll be sleeping much the rest of the night.