Chapter Text
It was unusually cold the morning you and your partner went to the museum, that's what sticks in your memory whenever you think about that weekend. How bloody cold it was. You had been asking him for months to come with you so you could revel in your love of history and share your nerdy side with him. One Friday evening, after buttering him up with some of his favourite freshly baked cupcakes, he finally relented and agreed to go the next day, but not without warning you he would probably spend most of the day bored. You kissed him on the forehead in thanks, and playfully teased that he would enjoy it and learn a thing or two in the process! He rolled his eyes at you, grabbed you by the waist and pulled you in for a deep kiss which left you giddy. You grinned when he let go all too soon, leaving you wanting more.
You went to bed that night snuggled up next to your partner, excited for the following day's intellectual adventure. You woke up bright and early to catch one of the first trains into London from the sleepy town the two of you were living together in, yet somehow managed to only get onto the train with seconds to spare. Your partner hated your tardiness. You were wrapped up warm in your favourite cat themed scarf and thick Sherpa lined tights, a lovely outfit for a museum trip in your opinion. With a quick stop at Starbucks at your partner's insistence and a short walk from the station through the busy spring streets of London, you finally stood outside the National Museum.
You could barely contain your excitement, your partner teased you for behaving like an excited child, but he seemed happy you were happy. Well he smiled at your antics at least.
"Let’s get this over with then!" he joked, as he took your hand in his with a smile on his face and lead you both to the front doors. The lobby of the museum was huge, as befitting any London museum. You love the grandiose buildings the city holds, nothing like what you had in your boring town. The museum was already filling up with tour groups and international school trips, triggering the social anxiety you often felt in crowded places. You hate having to squeeze past crowds but your thirst for knowledge meant you hate missing out on any displays and information plaques even more, so you forced yourself to suck it up and manoeuvre around the bustling hubbub of people.
The first thing that caught your eye was an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus in the front lobby area; you dropped your partner's hand and beelined towards it, having loved ancient Egyptian history since you were a child. That was your second time visiting the museum, the first was over 15 years ago. Visiting a touring exhibition about Tutankhamen on a school trip sparked what would become a lifelong interest in Egyptology. As soon as you came home from the trip you insisted your parents buy you books on the topic, they were children’s books admittedly, but as you got older you immersed yourself more and more in the subject through books, documentaries, YouTube, everything you could get your hands on. You almost applied to a degree in the subject but at the last minute changed your mind to choose a general history degree, not wanting to limit your options in future by specialising in a subject so early on; always playing it safe with life decisions.
You reached the sarcophagus, gently squeezing past a group of tourists who were blocking your view so you could see the inscriptions on the object up close. You looked back and loudly whispered your partner’s name to urge him to hurry over and share your excitement at seeing a real ancient Egyptian artefact up close. It wasn’t like you hadn’t seen them before, they're scattered all over historical sites and museums across the UK and the world, but your excitement at seeing any artefact never ceased. Each time you saw a new ushabti, sphinx figurine, or a piece of delicate ancient Egyptian jewellery made you as excited as the very first artefact you ever saw. It was real proof that these ancient civilisations existed, it made you feel more alive knowing you didn’t exist isolated and alone in this bubble of time that is the 21st century. There was life before you and there will be life after you.
Your partner reached your side in a few long strides, and glanced over the object on display. You eagerly read the information board describing this as the sarcophagus of Sasobek, northern vizier of Egypt during the reign of Psamtek I. You observed it in wonder, contemplating how different life was in ancient times. You imagined how hot the sun would be on your skin in Egypt; envisaged the deep red colours of the sunset painted across the skyline of the River Nile, how bright and fascinating the night sky must have been before any pollution and how different the positions of the stars would have been thousands of years ago. Your mind wandered back to your plan of visiting Egypt in a few years time, an idea you re-visited often with your partner who seemed less and less interested in going each time you mentioned it. You had hoped he would be more enthusiastic by the time it came to actually booking the trip.
Shouting from across the room disturbed you from your reverie. You looked across and saw a middle aged woman getting rather angry at an apparently disappointing gift shop employee.
"That's the third time this week Stevie! You're late. You're wearing the same clothes as yesterday and you look like you haven't slept in a month. I don't care what's going on in your life, but fix it!" she shouted at him in a thick east end accent.
You thanked the gods you didn't have a boss like that, you were often late to work and usually turned up looking a little dishevelled yourself. You glanced at the man in question, he did look a bit worse for wear, his dark curly hair flopping onto his head and even from half a room away you saw he had the worst bags under his eyes you'd seen on a man in weeks, apart from the ones you saw on your partner after he stayed up all night to "game".
You heard the unfortunate man babbling back to the woman, “Donna I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s been happening to me lately. I’ll try and do better, I promise.” He sounded apologetic, you felt sorry for him. The poor guy looked like he was going through a shit time.
"Yeah whatever, I don't want to hear it, Stevie. And you’re on inventory tonight. Again,” she replied to the worker indignantly before walking away.
You didn't hear anything but thought you saw the tired man mutter something to himself, no doubt unsavoury words about his boss. You turned your attention back to the artefact that caught your eye moments ago, not wanting to make it obvious you were watching their spat, but noticed your partner was gone from your side. You looked around the room and found him sitting on a nearby bench, hunched over his phone. It must have been less than five minutes since you walked through the doors, and he already looked bored... He could at least make an effort. You rolled your eyes and carried on through to the main museum, knowing he would follow you like a duckling if you left the vicinity. And he did.
Walking through the building excited you again, seeing so many display cabinets filled with historical artefacts quickly made you forget your souring mood. You stopped at a grand staircase heading to the upper floors which had a large sign adjacent to it detailing what was currently on display on each floor. You analysed the sign and took a picture of the basic map to refer to later.
“Where do you want to head to first?” you asked your partner breezily as he had finally caught up to you.
“Wherever you want, I don’t mind,” he replied a little shortly, his tone not hiding his boredom.
“Let’s do it logically then, bottom up,” you responded forcibly brightly. You know it’s only a minor thing, but his lack of interest so soon kept coming back to put a dampener on your otherwise good mood. You don’t want to let it affect you, after all this trip is for you, not him, but nevertheless it irked you how he never seemed truly happy when you’re happy anymore. He rarely made an effort with you these days. You didn't want to cause an argument, so you tried to ignore your feelings and headed off in the direction of the closest exhibit on the ground floor. You won't let it become another one of those days.
But unfortunately it did. The rest of the day took on a similar theme to that first sarcophagus in the lobby. Your partner entered each new room displaying exhibits from different eras of history, but his interest waned each and every time. He must have sat on half the benches in the museum by the time you reached the part you were most eager to see, the Ancient Egyptian exhibit spread across the entire third floor of the museum. You hoped for this one he would show genuine enthusiasm, he knew how much you love that period of history.
He and you had had a rocky relationship to say the least, early on you had caught him chatting online with a few girls he had met on the dating app he said he had deleted after you and he made it official. You'd found the pictures accidentally after what had been a very loving Sunday morning in bed together. He insisted it was a stupid mistake made out of loneliness, you rarely saw each other during your university days. He said he was sorry. He said it wouldn’t happen again. So you got over it, you put it down to the long distance, the trials of immature love. You thought now you lived together he must be sure enough about you not to cheat. Now you'd been together a few years he must be sure about you, right? But that nagging feeling, wondering if he's hiding something else, never went away. And he had been spending so much more time on his phone lately... You were seeing the same signs as before. But you pushed the thoughts out of your mind as you stood in front of the first display. This wasn’t the place to ruminate about such things.
Your partner joined you and you began to tell him about the Old Kingdom of Egypt, carefully toeing the line between lecturing and providing context to the artefacts. As you walked around the exhibit he made an effort to look at every object you pointed out to him. You were just starting to feel like this trip was in fact a success when halfway through floor three you saw in the corner of your eye he had suddenly become preoccupied with his phone, facing away from you, hiding the screen from you. And whilst you were admiring a beautiful ancient Egyptian necklace telling him how amazing it is that the colours are so bright after so long, you noticed he silently wondered off to sit on another bench. You finished looking over the objects in the display cabinet in front of you, before you approached him with the intention of asking, 'aren't you coming to look at the rest of the exhibit?' But as soon as you get there you saw he quickly closed the app he had been on and opened up a different one. It wasn’t the first time you noticed he would quickly change apps as soon as you approached, and with his general lack of interest throughout the day your anger got the better of you and you blurted out, "Why do you keep closing whatever app you were on to go on something else as soon as I’m close by?"
“What?” he said, bewildered. A wave of nausea washed over you as you worry maybe you're poking the bear unnecessarily, or was he faking his surprise?
“What I asked. Why do you keep closing apps like you’re hiding something when I get near you?” you asked, swallowing involuntarily in anticipation of his reaction, your heart rate increasing.
His face darkened, he looked down to lock his phone as he muttered “For fucks sake” before he looked back up at you. The anger dripped from his voice as he said louder “I’m not hiding anything. We’ve been over this. You’re overreacting. I’m not doing anything.” The conviction rang clear. You wanted to believe him, but you couldn't shake the feeling that something is off. So you kept pushing.
“Show me your phone then,” you held out your hand, palm facing upwards.
“No,” he said firmly.
"Why not?" you asked, exasperated.
“No. You should trust me.”
You felt on the defensive and practically shouted “I do trust you, I just…” your train of thought fizzling into nothingness as you couldn't think of a logical reason to explain wanting to see his phone whilst simultaneously arguing that you trust him.
“You just what? If you have to see my phone it means you don’t trust me. And if you don’t trust me then what’s the point even being together. So no, you're not seeing my phone," he said dismissively. You whispered his name and tried to plead to him with your eyes, holding out your hand even closer to his body, hoping he would just give you his phone.
“I’m not doing this here,” he said, his voice colder than ice. He glared at you for a few seconds, turned his phone screen back on, then looked down to mindlessly scroll on Twitter, blanking you. You could feel the familiar wetness of tears pooling in your eyes, it felt like you cried almost daily these days. You didn't know what to say so carried on standing there staring at him, folding your arms across your chest defensively. It was the icing on the cake when you heard him laughing at a funny video whilst you, his girlfriend, stood right next to him silently crying. A few moments passed in the tense impasse.
“Well?” he demanded icily as he turned to look up at you. You looked away, unable to meet his gaze, and slowly walked towards the final display in the section you had been so excited to see, now ruined by this argument.
You sometimes wondered if his behaviour was... abusive. If how he treated you was wrong. But when he was good to you he was so good, and you never want to lose that. You'd googled abusive behaviour before, but everything he does could be explained away, he wasn't like that. You're making a big deal out of nothing. Maybe you're the problem, maybe you are over thinking. Maybe he's right.
You stood there trying to will the tears to go away and pushed down your feelings of hurt. You’re not sure how long you had been staring at the first artefact to grab your eye and give you something to focus on when suddenly a voice from behind you said "That’s the ushabti of Taweret, goddess of childbirth and fertility."
You turned and saw the man from the gift shop earlier standing right beside you. Up close he looked a lot cuter than you initially thought. You worried how long he had been in the room, and hoped he hadn't heard the disagreement you had earlier, or your crying… or if he could tell you had been crying by the redness of your now dry eyes. What if he was only talking to you out of pity? Shit, now your thoughts were spiralling and you still hadn't said anything back. You looked away from him trying to hide the state your face was in, using your long hair as a curtain, and sneakily wiped beneath your eyes to clear up any moisture left on your face. You usually hate making small talk with strangers but you felt sorry for him after his earlier spat with his boss, so you decided to make an effort.
“Yeah it is. Although she’s usually shown as a hippo she's been associated with crocodiles and lions too," you inwardly cringed at the random fact your brain decided to recall for you to blurt out. This man must think you're a nerd as well as feeling sorry for you now. You expected him to give an uncomfortable smile, but instead he beamed at you.
"That's right! She was a household deity, helping women in labour and warding off evil spirits who wanted to harm the mother or baby. She also guarded the paths to the underworld, helping the souls of the dead to pass safely to the field of reeds, if they were worthy of course".
You were impressed by his knowledge and had to stifle a little giggle at his enthusiasm. He was sweet, and the smile on his face cheered you up a little.
"That's some impressive knowledge, where did you learn that?" you asked, knowing full well he must know some of it from the information board beneath the figurine you hadn’t yet read.
"Oh you know, I read," he replied, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks.
"Must be a lot of reading! I did a history degree and I didn't even know that," you answered truthfully.
"That's amazing! I'd love to do a degree in history, better still in Egyptology. Don't really know why I didn't to be honest, would have gotten me to far better places than working in a gift shop." He looked glumly around the room in longing.
"Made the wrong choice at uni?"
"Not sure really, I think life just got in the way. It's a bit hazy really," he replied, a befuddled look on his face.
"You still could you know, do a degree in Egyptology I mean. It's never too late. With your impressive knowledge, have you thought about becoming a tour guide?" You tried to bolster his confidence.
His smile got even wider, and he stuttered ‘I... I I have actually. I applied a while back but they turned me down, said I wasn’t personable enough, whatever that means. But if you want I can give you a private tour of the whole museum, after hours!"
“That would be fun, but sounds a bit like a date,” you awkwardly laughed, not sure if the stranger was implying anything by the 'after hours' part.
“Yeah, if you like!” he looked positively delirious with happiness, that’s not how you hoped he would react, making you feel even worse. You shouldn't have commented that it sounds like a date; you scolded yourself for always making things awkward.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that seriously... I actually have a boyfriend... he’s sat over there. Not that he’s very interested in all this,” you said as you gestured around the room. You wished you could have gone on a private tour, you love museums and learning about history without any other visitors would have been be wonderful. But you didn't want to make your partner angry in his current dark mood. He hadn’t cared for 3 years if you chatted to other men, so maybe he wouldn’t have cared at all, but his reactions were unpredictable, and you couldn't take the chance. The gift shopists smile had dropped into a small frown, and you felt terrible as you hate disappointing people, so added “Under different circumstances I’d have loved to have gone on a private tour with you! You seem very smart Stevie,” and gave him the friendliest smile you could muster, having finally recalled his name.
“Stevie?” he asked, puzzled.
“That’s your name right? What your boss called you?” you replied just as puzzled.
“Oh you saw that earlier... No, my name’s Steven, with a V. Donna always gets it wrong, I think she does it deliberately,” Steven shook his head in disapproval.
“That must suck, your boss sounds like a mean lady.”
“Yeah well... Things could be worse," he looked downcast again. You weren't sure what to say, and could feel the conversation coming to an end.
“I’d better head back to my partner, he might be wondering where I’ve got to,” fat chance of that, you thought bitterly to yourself.
“Yeah alright. Well it was nice meeting you!” he smiled.
“You too, Steven with a V,” you gave him another smile as you turned to leave. As you walked over to your partner, feeling Steven’s eyes bore into you from behind, you noticed he doesn't seem to have lifted his head at all. Lo and behold he was on Twitter again when you reached him. You wrapped your arms around him from the side and gave a chaste kiss to his head, apprehensive if he would shrug you off aggressively or would respond in an equally affectionate way. It was 50/50 these days. He did the latter, and snaked his arm around yours then kissed your hand. You apologised, even though you felt like it should be him doing that, but you always seemed to blame yourself for these incidents. Maybe it was all your fault after all.
Jonathan replied “It’s okay. So... where do you want to eat?”
Of course she’s taken, she’s bloody beautiful and smart and passionate about history, why wouldn’t she be taken...
It was coming up to 5pm, time for the museum to shut. Steven was busy preparing to close up the shop, but his mind had been preoccupied with you all afternoon. He sees you walking back through the entrance hall towards the exit, hand in hand with your boyfriend. Your smile lights up your face and the two of you start to giggle like a couple of love sick teenagers. You pause at the sarcophagus in the centre of the room and Steven watches as your boyfriend wraps his arms around you from behind in a close embrace. He wants what you have so badly, he's never experienced a love like that before. Maybe he never will. He looks back down to continue checking the end of day stock when a shrill screech erupts from you. Steven looks up once more to see your partner tickling your neck, holding your face in his palms before kissing you. He has to look away again; it hurts how jealous he feels of the two of you being so in love and happy, without a care in the world. He wished he had that special bond with someone. You two seem perfect together. That bloke's lucky to have you...
By the time Steven had completed the inventory stock take and left the building the sun had long set, the few stars that dot the polluted night sky were clearly visible and a cold wind was making its way through the streets of London. In the darkness Steven fishes out his phone and dials the familiar number he always does as he walks down the steps of the museum to begin his journey home.
"Alright mum? You ok? I've had a right mare at work today. Bloody late again and my name tag fell into the toilet, Donna had a right go at me as well. I don’t know what’s happening to me lately, I feel like a walking zombie. But I met this lovely girl today; she likes Egypt as much as I do, can you believe it! Shame she had a boyfriend though. I wish I could meet someone like her. Anyway I'll try you again tomorrow, yeah? Love ya".
The light on Gus' tank was the only thing illuminating the fifth floor flat of Steven Grant. Flecks of sand litter the wooden planks of his open plan apartment.
"Bloody sand gets everywhere. Hello Gus, had a good day? Of course you have, you're a fish.” Steven grabs the half full bottle of fish food kept next to the large tank. “Here's your dinner mate," he sprinkles a pinch of fish flakes that swirl around the surface of the water; Gus nabs all of the tiny pieces within seconds.
In his small kitchen, Steven gathers the ingredients from his fridge to prepare himself his single portion vegan dinner. Tonight's meal was a vegan chilli. He whips it up in no time then sits on his sofa surrounded by Egyptology books and settles in for another night alone. After washing up his single plate, single knife and fork, and single pan, he was ready to prepare for bed. Steven came home to an empty flat every night, his only friend after Gus was the golden man who performed not far from the museum that he would chat to after work. Thoughts of you kept pushing themselves to the forefront of his mind as he prepared for bed. He worried he would never find that special someone to call his, he’d never even been on a date. The final step in Steven's nightly routine was a peculiar one. He sieved sand in a semi circle encompassing his double bed, put a long strip of tape along the crevice of his front door, and finally he attached an ankle restraint to himself, before lying down and attempting to stay awake.