Arlen is quite exhausted today. He’s always hated Valentine’s Day.

The library is clean, he supposes, which is all well and good, except he can’t exactly bring himself to be proud about it.

No, instead he feels a sort of… bone-deep exhaustion. The sort that follows you to an early grave and keeps digging. Today, Arlen decides, he would rather not be doing anything at all. And really, he is quite put out that it is not the day’s plan for him to be doing so.

Today, Lady Fate seems to have it out for him, and here’s why—

Take the library, for instance. Normally, on Thursdays (because of course it would be a Thursday, if there would be any day to be exhausted), the library would be completely dead, just like most other days. A patron, or two. Maybe. If he were really pushing it, perhaps three.

Arlen assumed he would have a whole day to be relaxing and drawing and meandering about as he pleased. But oh, woeful sorrow—this was not the case. No, not at all.

Today, the library had thirty-three patrons. Thirty. Three. Because apparently someone had the religious insight to post on some “social media” platform that the place was “haunted”.

On any other day, Arlen might have been overjoyed. Might have even texted Jack about it, gleefully like a schoolgirl with a crush, if it had been a normal sort of occasion.

But it was not. So Arlen was not, in fact, overjoyed, and would have throttled the lot of them if he hadn’t been able to get ahold of his usual peppy behavior and welcome them in with a smile.

It was a near thing, though, to be honest.

As another thing, that is perhaps really what is troubling him—

He… can’t capture what he’s drawing right. Not at all.

And perhaps it’s simply because he needs to familiarise himself with it more, but that comes with it’s own set of issues and fears that Arlen isn’t quite ready to consider yet.

He’s been trying for a couple days, though, and every time, it seems to come out worse than before. So he’s taking a break from that.

He’s taking a break, and he’s frustrated.

Frustrated because he feels like he’s letting his past win, Frustrated that he can’t draw like he used to. Frustrated that he hates art so much, when it used to make him so happy.

Frustrated, most of all, that he has to think about his ex’s stupid face instead of how he was going to love someone and be loved by them in return on a day so special.

It’s all too much. Which is why he finds himself, rather stupidly, sitting alone.

Staring at the painted ceiling of Ye Bochord, which towers so high above him, old and worn, in threat of caving in within the next decade from years of being loved so deeply, because truthfully, they didn’t have anywhere near the patronage or funds for remodeling.

And that frustrates him more. So he lies there some more, frustrated. Until he’s grumpy, because he’s sore, and embarrassed, because he feels like a child.

But he just… wants everything to work out. With art. With Jack. With the library. With all of it. And with love, most of all. Very stressful amount of wanting, in Arlen’s opinion, but he supposes that’s normal.

Maybe.

Eventually, of course, Arlen has to get up.

So he does. Quite unhappily, he must add. And shuffles back over to his desk.

And crumples all his drawings and chucks them in the trash.

And cries in the bathroom for a little while.

And then ah….

Pulls all his drawings out of the trash. And flattens them back out. And curses at their imperfections some more, but finds that after pulling them back out of the trash, they really weren’t so bad as he remembered.

Maybe he just needed to lose them, to remember what it was to love them.

He orders himself chocolates. And eats them as he’s rather obnoxiously sat criss-crossed on the checkout counter, stuffing his mouth full like he’s never been anyplace civil before.

Then, just for the ******** of it, he orders himself flowers, too. He’d always loved the idea of getting flowers from someone, and maybe it was time to stop waiting around for someone to love him, and love himself instead.

Maybe it was time he start treating himself like something worthy of love, and the love would follow after.

Maybe instead of Arlen waiting on it, it was waiting on him.

Arlen didn’t want to keep it waiting any longer.