Man on the Inside

23

Brontë could've gone home, he supposes. It's not like he needed to wait around. He considered joining them in the protest, but the noise was already too much for his ears, it probably would've cramped their style, and he would've struggled to get out of cop mode. He saw a few officers already hanging around- none of which he recognised from a distance, but still. Charlie hadn't even wanted to tell him about the protest, so he figures he's more helpful not being there.

He spends the time trying to determine one thing, and that's where he's going to take Art. He hasn't properly taken someone on a first date in forever, so he isn't exactly in practice. He loved Debbie, platonically he now knows, but his thought process wasn't so different with her- it was just the reasons he wanted to impress her, and the options he had available to him. Their first date was thrift shopping and then a pub where he got drunk enough to kiss her, even though the reasons he wanted to were external, not internal. Funny how that's not too different from that first day in Canberra with Art- the only exception being that he kissed Art despite every external reason not to. Because he was drunk enough to listen to what he really wanted, instead of ignoring it.

The problem is that nothing he can imagine could impress Art. He's shocked Art even thought about taking him back, in any way, at all; he has nothing to offer. He walks around the museum for a bit, examining each piece of art that he fully believes Art could've created with his own two hands if he wanted to, and he wonders what Art could possibly see in him that's so rare or hard to find, that he seems so desperate to keep it.

He tries to ignore the possibility that Art isn't as desperate as he seems. If Art wants to use him somehow, to get some kind of in with the cops, would Brontë even stop him? He chose the right target, if so. Brontë's never given half a shit about being a cop, and he's sick of pretending he ever did. Nimm's been right the whole time; something is different about him from other cops, and it's not just that there isn't a stick up his ass. It's that he functions off morality and not rules, not any longer. Art's done nothing but the right thing.

Brontë's sitting at a coffee shop now, listening to the first smatterings of rain on the window, staring at the coffee in his hands. He got a different one to what he usually did- he kind of wanted chocolate today, so it's a mocha, and he can't stop thinking about how that's what Art thinks is so obviously giving away his secret. I cheated. Double shot long black. Yeah, of course it makes sense that Art couldn't just deduce that. How would he know what Brontë did or didn't feel like, at the very least? Not everyone even has a preferred coffee order, and it's all bullshit, the reasons Art gave. Brontë managed to guess his closely, but Art's now claiming he never even guessed Brontë's at all.

Brontë just can't wrap his mind around why he lied, let alone how, and it's then that he gets the call from Nimm.

He was hoping to speak to her, because he feels like she deserves to know how her plan went at the very least- among the thousands of other reasons he has to talk to her- but he immediately feels the drop in his stomach when the very first thing he hears is her heavy sigh. "Hey, Neil. Bad news."

He closes his eyes, braces himself. This isn't how she'd open with most of the bad news he fears from her. "What's wrong?"

"Probably not what you expect," she says. He wonders what she thinks he's afraid of- if she knows it's about her, or if she's thinking that he's still worried about Anastasia Volkov. Art's efforts alone would've been enough to reassure him, but he has yet to express how genuinely he appreciates her effort to help, too. "Can you come on down to the station?"

He looks at his watch. It's been almost two hours, and he doesn't know how long these things last, but surely Charlie and Ricky won't be that far off of calling him. "I mean, it depends, I- I've probably got to pick up my kids soon, but they are in the city, so it's not like I'm far away."