Arthur hummed vaguely, because she was right, the rules didn't change that often, and was it really so bad if he just didn't go? If he wanted to burn everything down he really ought to just do it as quickly as possible. The comforting weight of being a fuck-up; things would be easier if no one had to pretend to believe that he was better now.

"But I'm supposed to go," Art said, with none of the real urgency he was supposed to feel about this; the laudanum could shield him from the urgency but not from the fact of it. "And if I don't go they'll all know I'm —" he made a vague gesture with one hand that was meant to encompass quarter life crisis, or maybe just that he was high. (That they would also know he was high if he turned up to work like this had not occurred to him.)

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