He knew that it was a gradual fade: the changing of states of consciousness, slowly falling asleep, and slowly waking up again, both in such a matter that it was pretty much impossible to pinpoint the exact moment when you stopped being asleep and started being awake again. It was just that a lot of the time, things didn't feel like that; he felt drowned out, washed away downstream as everything happened far too fast around him and left him choking for air and struggling to stay afloat.

Waking up that morning came as a very sudden moment. The morning after Matty had let it happen, let things fall into place around him, placing his trust in George - George who seemed to look at him and indeed understand like not much had happened between them at all, as if four months had evaporated into thin air, but of course, the thing was that life didn't really work like that.

Waking up came with sudden realisation, with his heart pounding in his chest, cold sweats, and his head pounding against his skull: his whole body seeming to scream at him from the inside.

There was the dropping sensation in his stomach - regret, confusion, a mess of everything and a struggle to breathe as he pulled himself away from George, who lay still soundly asleep on the sofa. Matty was just able to make his figure out amidst the thick blanket of darkness that had fallen over, and eventually smothered his living room. He desperately wanted to reach for the light switch, to fill the world with the comforting warm glow of yellow light: a falsified sense of safety to bide him by until the sun rose back over the horizon once more, but he couldn't do so as to not wake George up in all of this.

Getting George's attention was the last thing he wanted to do in all of this; he'd already done too much, he'd already let him get too involved. He'd fucked up - he could see that now, somehow, through the pounding of his head and his heart that seemed to encompass and swallow his body whole.

He was fucked. So fucked. And he'd let this all happen, because this was always his downfall - getting too close to people, letting them understand him, letting them hurt him, letting them use the deepest corners of his mind and his most guarded secrets against him. Last year, he'd made the mistake of thinking that George was different, but he certainly wasn't going to let himself make that mistake again.

He'd gotten comfortable with the idea of everything, eating dinner together, going out together, talking, laughing, and falling asleep together, and to repeat something exactly and to expect different results the next time around was the kind of insanity that Matty needed to push himself away from.

He'd let George get comfortable with the idea of them again - let him think that he could fix this, and that putting him back together in his own image would be a good idea, because Matty knew that he was more than what George saw of him, and as much as he wanted things to be okay, and as much as George mattered, with the deep kind of ache at the bottom of his heart, he wasn't the entire world, and it was of course how they'd gone wrong last time. Matty had given too much to him, let George take too much away, let him redefine him in his own image, let Matty adjust, and let Matty fall, as trust crumbled, as trust always did, because promises lasted only in people's heads, and not in reality.

Matty made it across the darkened living room as quietly as he could, shaking all over as he pulled open the bathroom door and locked himself inside: reaching for the light and falling down to his knees against the wall as the room was illuminated around him.

The harsh white glow of the light was cruel to his eyes, and sent a piercing sensation too his head: it was too bright, it was too much, especially intertwined with the mess and the headache of it all that he was yet to sort out. Yet, he found solace in the fact that he was alone, solace in the light, solace in the locked door between him and the rest of the world, he was safe here, even if just temporarily, because he couldn't trust George like he wished he could. He couldn't trust anybody, not really.

He sat there for a few moments, attempting to steady his breathing as he began to sort through his thoughts and just make sense of the past few minutes, because before, so very few minutes before now, he'd been asleep, curled up and everything had been okay. No, everything had been locked away in the facade of okay - he'd gotten caught up in pretending, he'd gotten satisfied in the steady climb up the cliff that he'd one day find himself tumbling off - turning back was harder, and it had his whole body screaming at him, but it was what he had to do, he could let everything he'd known before repeat around him, things had to change, even if he wasn't entirely sure that he was strong enough to do so himself.

He'd woken up so suddenly: his heart seizing in his chest in a moment of panic, and triggered in such a deep layer of sleep that Matty failed to recall exactly what, if anything had brought it on. He wondered if it was perhaps the suddenly slap in the face return to reality, and the few moments where he'd forgotten the events of the past few days, where he'd forgotten how they'd gotten to this state again, and it was the gasping and struggling breaths as his head was pulled above water just once he'd gotten to the point where he was perhaps content in drowning and watching the world grow dark around him.

It couldn't happen again, not this time. He was determined to be more than George's Matty, because what did that even mean? It left him with a heavy feeling in his heart, with a tear across his chest, with sobs caught up in his throat as everything came back into focus all too soon.

His breathing finally began to steady, and he found himself finding a slight comfort in the bright bathroom light, and the small room around him, feeling an odd kind of safe that perhaps didn't add up exactly perfectly, but didn't matter so much in the scheme of things. As he came to think straight once more, he found himself stretching his legs out across the bathroom floor, and taking in himself, and the fact that he was still in his jeans, as they'd fallen asleep there together, as he'd been the one to prompt that, and as George had let him.

What could George think of all of this? Did he want to let everything fall apart again? Was he planning just to bring him back to a state of vague mental stability and then leave again? Was this all temporary, or would he never leave him be? Matty couldn't quite decide which he hated more.

He then came to realise that as he'd fallen asleep in his jeans, his phone still lay in the pocket of them, and perhaps on instinct, as opposed to desire, he reached for it and turned the screen on.

It was three twenty seven in the morning.

And he really didn't know what to do with himself, because as much as he wanted to, he knew it wasn't realistic that he could stay locked in the bathroom until the sun came up. He found himself in the odd situation of needing help, of wanting someone get him back together again, but not trusting anyone enough to do so.

He scrolled through his contacts on his phone, all very few of them, and in doing so came to notice that he had a new text message from Adam, just three hours ago around midnight. He found a falsified sense of security in his hope that Adam would be asleep now, and that he could view the message and contemplate the matter of replying to it for a good few hours to come.

'Why don't you want to talk about what really happened at New Year?'

What really happened? Matty's heart began to thud in his chest. What could he mean? He couldn't know. He couldn't possibly know. George wouldn't have told them - he would have known if George had said anything. This was different. This was Adam trying to piece things together him, and in all honesty, Matty didn't know what to think about it.

Five minutes passed by as Matty continued to stare at the message on his screen: reading it over in his head hundreds of times, and each time with a slightly different tone to it, and with a slightly different meaning. Matty was interrupted in doing so by what he had least expected - another message.

'Matty, I am awake, and I know you're awake.'

Matty's heart sunk in his chest and he threw his head back against the bathroom wall, because what the fuck was he doing awake? What the fuck was he doing awake, and doing checking to see if he'd read his text message? He highly doubted that Adam was sat in his own bathroom on the verge of some form of mental breakdown like Matty was - they'd be even less use to each other then.

'Matty!!!' Adam sent a third reply this time, and Matty came to accept that he couldn't just keep reading everything, because he knew him, and there'd be a point where he figured out that something was wrong, and then he'd probably call George until he woke up and get him to actually do something to sort him out. Matty couldn't face that - not now, not anymore.

'Sorry. I'm half asleep.' Matty knew that it was unlikely he'd be believed even as he sent it, yet he found himself doing so regardless.

'No you're not. Why don't you want to talk about it? I know something else happened.'

Matty took in a shaky breath of air as he read the message over in his head at least twenty times.

'But you don't know what it was that happened.' Matty had to confirm, had to stop his head from sending this all spiralling out of control, because that wasn't what he needed, not now, fuck, especially not now.

'I don't. And I know you won't tell me, so I wondered if you would tell me why.' His response was instant: all too fast, and Matty didn't have enough time to think this all through at all. He wanted just to turn his phone off and hide himself away in the bathroom forever, but he knew that wouldn't get him anywhere, because he'd made the mistake of letting his friends know him too well. There was, however, a part of Matty that wondered if that was such a bad kind of mistake at all.

'You've been thinking about this all, haven't you?' Matty chose to avoid the question, struggling even to answer for it himself in his own head, let alone find the confidence to share it with Adam.

'Yeah. It doesn't quite make sense that's why. We're missing something, and things aren't going to go back to how they were if we don't figure that out.'

Matty felt his insides curling in on themselves at the thought of things going back to how they were before.

'I don't want things to go back to how they were before.'

It seemed that his response left Adam somewhat stumped, as it took a good minute until he replied that time. 'You don't? Why not? You were happy before, everything was alright.'

Matty let out a sigh. 'It wasn't quite like that. I was happy to an extent, it was a steady decline, and if we go back to how things were before then things are going to get bad again. Things need to be different this time and no one else seems to understand that.'

Adam's response was once again prolonged. 'No one else can understand that because no one else knows what's going on inside your head or what actually happened. You need to open up about things. Tell me what you want to be different this time.'

Matty thought for a moment: unsure himself. 'I want everyone to stop acting like they know me and making decisions for me. I want everyone to stop letting things just fall apart. I want to talk about things, especially with George, but I'm not brave enough really.'

'We all want to talk about things, Matty, you're the one stopping the talking.'

Matty thought for a moment, 'I'm not ready yet. I can't talk about things yet. I don't know what I want, and I'm scared.'

'But you will eventually?'

Matty sighed, hating the reality of it all, but finding himself forced to accept it regardless. 'Yeah. I have to.'

There was again a slight wait until Adam responded. 'What are you doing awake? I started watching Game Of Thrones and I feel like I've already given up my entire life to it.'

Matty let himself smile at that, making a mental list of reasons why he couldn't just reply with 'that's nice, I'm having a mental breakdown in my own bathroom'. 'I woke up in the middle of the night.' Was what he went for instead.

'Then go back to sleep. Get George to sing you a lullaby or something if you have to.'

Matty found himself wincing slightly at the mention of George. 'I can't. He's asleep and I can never get back to sleep after I wake up.'

Adam's reply was almost instantaneous. 'Then wake him up, he'll understand. You're not good when you're alone, especially in the middle of the night.'

'I don't want to. I can't. You don't understand.'

'You're in a state, aren't you?' Matty hated how he knew, how he'd let him in this much, how his friends could read him like this, because as much as he needed them to, he just couldn't face the reality of it.

'No.'

'You are. Wake him up.' There was a demanding tone to Adam's message that had Matty shaking slightly.

'I don't want to talk to him. I'm in a state because of him, because I keep thinking about New Year.' Matty admitted, finding himself coming to regret it before he'd even hit send, yet doing so anyway.

'You have to talk to him. He's just George, why are you scared?'

'You just don't understand.' Matty let out a sigh.

'You're right. I don't. You need to talk to me or you need to talk to him.'

Matty let out a groan, hating this all, but taking a moment to consider his options, and found himself considering George struggling to understand the mess that was going through his mind in relation to this all, and then Adam's reaction to what had happened in December, and came to decide that of those two, he could much easily face George.

'Okay. I'll talk to him.' Matty placed his phone back into his pocket and unlocked the bathroom door.

Stepping into the living room, he turned the light on, watching George's sleeping figure twitch slightly in response, but not enough to stir him from his sleep. Matty had to admit that there was not a part of him that wanted to do this, that wanted to go through with this, because George always knew the right thing to say to make him feel okay, and Matty always wanted to let him.

Yet all he feared was being pulled apart and giving everything up, and having everything out there, even in the hands of people he loved, because he was selfish, and he wanted to keep some secrets to himself. He wanted this to work out okay in the end, but only his kind of okay, and that came in a very specific form.

He stood by the sofa for a good few minutes, watching as George moved slightly as he slept. He looked peaceful, he looked happy, he looked like he'd be much better off without him, and of course he was, but he just didn't want to admit it yet, he didn't want to tell Matty that he knew he'd been right all along - that he'd leave eventually, and the eventuality of that was persistently drawing closer, and how it'd always be as such.

He contemplated just letting what remained of the night slip by around him, letting the sun rise again, and letting the world fall around him and responsibility face up to itself in his place, but he knew that wasn't a liable option in this all, because he'd made the fatal mistake of getting people to care about him, and now he was paying the price.

Matty was just stood there in the darkness for a good ten minutes until George's phone on the coffee table began to vibrate loudly, startling both Matty and George: causing Matty to jump back onto the sofa, and George to jump up and reach for it, rubbing his eyes as he did so.

"What the fuck... Hann?" George muttered aloud as he held his phone in his hand, glancing momentarily at Matty curled up at the other end of the sofa before he answered it. "Sorry, it woke you up. Forgot to put it on do not disturb."

Matty gave a vague nod in response, not feeling himself particularly inclined to correct George in his beliefs, and trusting that Adam would do so for him, because what was this? Some kind of check up call? He wasn't a kid - he didn't need checking up on. Of course, he had ended up neglecting to wake George up, as Adam had worried that he had, so perhaps there'd been logic behind it, but of course, Matty didn't care for that.

"What's going on?" George answered the call, sighing deeply as he leaned back into the sofa. "You fucking woke me up. It's like... fucking four in the morning..."

"Matty..." He quite honestly wasn't sure quite where to begin. "Matty, he... he was in a mess and we were texting and I told him to go to bed but he said he couldn't so I told him to wake you up and talk to you instead. He didn't want to but I eventually made him promise, I was just checking, and I guess he didn't..."

"Why what happened? When was this?" George's eyes widened, leaving Matty to only imagine the details of Adam's side of the conversation.

"About fifteen minutes ago." Adam explained, now at the point of just wanting to go to bed himself. "Where is he? Is he with you? Just talk to him, please. I'm sorry, but I felt like he was going to only end up doing some stupid if he was left alone with himself."

"Yeah..." George glanced in Matty's direction as he spoke: attempting to read the situation off of his body language alone, even in the low light of the room. "I understand, he's sat next to me, it's okay. I'll talk to him, you get some sleep, okay?"

"Yeah, see you." Adam hung up the call, leaving George to place his phone back onto the coffee table, and reach for the lamp beside them, illuminating the room with a gentle, warm, kind of comforting glow.

George ran a hand back through his hair and rubbed his eyes, adjusting to the light and the situation, before getting himself comfortable at one end of the sofa, finding himself facing Matty, who was still yet to do anything besides sit and bite his nails.

"I guess you know what that was about." George finally opted for: his voice slow and soft, regarding Matty with care and an extra kind of caution that Matty really couldn't help but dislike.

He gave a nod in response, pulling his eyes over George's figure, and the way the light casted shadows over his face, and finding himself just staring for a moment, because there was just this thing about George, and that thing was that he was beautiful.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" George continued to ask, before letting a few moments of silence pass by between them. "I wouldn't have minded. At all. I just want to be here for you, Matty, come on, I-"

"I didn't want to." Matty finally chose to speak, meeting George with wide, kind of hopeless, tired eyes. "I don't want to talk about things, because it doesn't even make sense to me, and what I can make sense of, I know you don't want to hear it. I'm okay, really, he was just making a fuss."

"Matty, you refused to leave your house for four months, I think it's not absurd that he'd make a 'fuss' out of you being upset." The words had left George's mouth before he had time to think them over and consider their impact upon the man sitting so timidly before him.

"I fucking wonder why that was." Matty gave a deep sigh: his tone anything but angry, seeming more tired than anything else - fed up, depleted, with his eyes fixated upon the ground.

"I'm... sorry... I fucked up, you know-" George stammered out, shaking his head.

"We didn't talk about things, it's fine, you didn't think you were doing anything wrong when I thought you were. We just didn't talk about things." Matty brushed it off, his tone much slower and calmer than it usually was, which had George particularly concerned.

"Maybe we should. Talk about things properly, and start with why you woke up now and what exactly it was that happened." George met him with a smile, "maybe we should be open about things."

Matty bit his lip, considering just how to respond. "I'm scared."

"Scared?" George raised an eyebrow, and found himself subconsciously moving closer to Matty.

"Scared." Matty repeated, with a nod this time.

"Scared of what?" George asked, eyeing Matty as he sat there, fidgeting slightly.

"Most things." Matty's response was delayed, and a great deal quieter than usual. "I feel stupid, I feel embarrassed, you know? About December, because it was everything to me and nothing to you, and that's why I don't want to talk, because it's awkward, it's uncomfortable, it's embarrassing, and I don't want other people to know."

"It wasn't nothing to me." George shook his head, looking horrified at the mere concept. "Don't say things like that."

"Like what?" Matty glanced up at him, watching as he moved closer again. "The truth?"

"It's not the truth. You never knew how I felt, never let me talk to you, so I gave up eventually." George gave out a sigh. "Regret that, of course, but... I... don't know, I made a fucking mistake, Matty."

Matty gave a nod in response and moved closer to George, resting his head against his side. The two sat there like that for a few minutes, as George found himself running back to December in his mind, and Matty was tossing and turning thousands of possible things to say in his head.

It was eventually Matty who broke the silence, and he did so in the way that George had least expected, as it was the way in which he'd asked him to - the way that would make things easy, and the way that'd help the both of them. "I woke up after three. I'm not entirely sure what happened, I just started freaking out suddenly... I... was thinking about us, and how this is like... I'm scared of things going back to how they were because they fucked up like that. I'm so scared of things fucking up again. It has to be different this time, but I have no idea how. But I woke up, and I started panicking, I couldn't be around you, I... I'm scared of letting you understand me again - I think I really don't want to, but of course I do, I'm just terrified of the mere concept of it... and... I ran into the bathroom and I think I started crying at one point, I just kept thinking that I'd ruined everything again because it felt like December, I woke up and it felt like how we used to be and how that used to feel right, but now it fucking feels wrong, it made me feel like I couldn't breathe. I'm sorry..." He trailed off, "fuck, I'm sorry, I guess I'm upsetting you, I-"

"Matty." George reached out and placed his hand tightly around Matty's wrist. "You're not upsetting me. I just need to understand. Carry on."

"I saw that Adam had texted me after I looked at the time on my phone and I looked at the message because I didn't think he'd be awake and then he was and then he made me talk to him, and he kept saying me to tell him why I reacted like I did to all of this, and I couldn't tell him, and I..." His voice descended into mumbled whisper against George's arm. "I don't want them to know... it's just us. It's... our thing... I guess... was... I... I'm... I know I'm fucked up in the head, I just hate how everyone seems to think they can think it and understand how I feel."

George gave a nod, leaning into Matty as he did so. "I'm sorry I make you feel like that. I just care about you. So much. However you want to define it. I think it's more complicated than that, if you know what I mean? And it's okay, I'll tell Adam and Ross to fuck off if you want, just don't push me away, please? I don't think I can handle that."

Matty didn't respond at first, and the two only sat in silence for the two minutes that followed.

"Why did you kiss her?" Was what it came down to, at five past four in the morning, what it had come down to all along.

"I was drunk and she was pretty, and I had this... fuck... the thing was, I never told you, I never told anybody this, but... I was scared. I was scared, you know?" George met his gaze and found himself trailing off slightly.

"Scared of kissing her?" Matty didn't seem to quite get the point George was making. Or perhaps didn't want to - he wasn't even sure himself as to which of the two it was.

"Scared of... how things would work out with us. I was scared it was going to fade away into nothingness, I was scared you'd get bored of me or something, and go off with someone else. I was scared that nothing would ever come of it, and I began to think that there really wasn't anything there in the first place. Stupid, I know, but I just... I got insecure, for some fucking reason. And I'm not good at making decisions when I'm drunk, and I wanted to prove a point, I guess to myself that I was more than just... your George... if that makes sense? And it's not like you didn't kiss some girl at that party too. I saw that, you know? It kind of fucked with me..."

"It was New Year, she was the person closest to me. You know, New Year's peck on the lips for good luck and all that bullshit, not New Year's snog in the fucking toilet with the door unlocked, and she's not even that fucking pretty. When it comes to picking girls to fuck off with for four months and make me hate you with, you could do prettier."

"It was a mistake, look, we both... we both kissed girls at that party, and... I... it didn't mean anything, come on." George let out a sigh, wondering where they'd be now if Saffy had never managed to slip into the equation.

"If it was a mistake then why did you fuck off and date her for four months. That's a third of a year, George, that's a third of a fucking year-" Matty repeated, his voice growing louder as he grew confident in what he was saying, because suddenly there wasn't such a great desire to lock it all up inside him anymore.

"To prove a point to myself. Again. Didn't work out, though." He let out a sigh, coming across as regretful, but finding that he was really only regretful in letting this happen.

"What was the point?" Matty dared to ask, "that you wanted to 'prove'?"

"That I didn't have feelings for you, and that you didn't mean the world..." George trailed off, biting his lip, "but of course, you do... and..."

"I can't let this happen." Matty shook his head, "it can't work out like that, again, I can't lose you, George, I can't-"

"Matty, look at me," George pulled Matty in to face him, and found that he was practically sat on his lap at this point, but it was surprisingly the last thing on their minds. "You're not going to lose me, I promise you that. Fuck, why would you think that I'd let that happen, especially after all that has... I..."

"I just know." Matty choked out, shaking his head, but moving so that he was sat in George's lap, now with his back to George's. "I just know."

"You can never be certain of anything." George sighed, reaching for Matty's hand. "Please, trust me. You can trust me, can't you?"

Matty gave a shrug, pressing his head back into George's chest. "Can we talk about this in the morning?"

"It is the morning." George told him, "four in the morning."

"The proper morning." Matty mumbled, closing his eyes, "after proper breakfast... and proper things, like that."

George nodded, letting Matty curl up against his chest. "Proper things like that." He felt Matty's face move to accommodate a smile as he spoke, and George just hated to think that Matty had picked up on the slight skip of his heart in his chest.

-

It was George that woke up first the second time around. This time being around nine in the morning, at which time the sun had already risen and lit their house with an oddly consoling glow.

He moved away from Matty as gently as he could, leaving him to sleep for a little while longer, as he at first sat on the other end of the sofa and simply checked through his phone, letting out a sigh of relief as he saw he didn't have any new messages, because as much as he loved his friends and family, there were just certain days for certain things, and there was something that had already decided for him that this was a 'Matty day'.

Matty continued to sleep as George showered for what was a good fifteen minutes, and then made his way into Matty's room, which he knew was maybe something that Matty wouldn't have been entirely okay with, but he'd just wanted to close the door properly really, but had then spotted Allen curled up on the bed, which gave him a perfect excuse to make his way inside.

Allen perked up at George made his way into the room, jumping off the bed to bark at his feet and be generally really adorable. George had to be a little offended at the fact that Matty had gone and gotten a puppy without him; that had always seemed like such a Matty And George thing... something they'd end up doing some day, well it had, before everything went wrong.

George ended up sitting on Matty's bed with Allen for a moment, just thinking back, how things had been ages ago, not last year, but the year before that, before things had gotten complicated and they were just friends, and there were no fucking feelings and caught up fears, and Matty didn't want to stay cooped up inside his house and avoid the world.

It had all changed, everything, and there was just no cause or exact moment to pinpoint - it was just gradual, almost like it was natural, almost like it was something they could never prevent, because it was almost just something that was supposed to be. Except it wasn't, of course it wasn't, because things didn't work like that. They just didn't.

George got up to leave the room five or so minutes later, Allen following him as he did so, and made it to the door, before the contents of Matty's desk couldn't help but catch his eye. He knew more than anything not to look, because if there was anything Matty needed to keep private until he finally chose otherwise, it was his poetry, and still, despite that, George was tempted.

There was just the hope of some kind of fucking insight into what could possibly be happening in all of this from his point of view, but he knew that what he needed was for Matty to trust him again, and if he found out that he'd read his work without permission then there was very little hope of that ever again. He took a moment, and then a deep breath, before walking out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

-

By the time Matty awoke, George was making breakfast, having already fed Allen, and it was closing in on ten o'clock. Matty stumbled into the kitchen, seeming to have just woken up, judging from the disheveled, half asleep state he was in; George was far too invested in buttering a slice of toast to really notice Matty until the shorter man was at his side.

"Hey..." George looked up, turning to him and taking in the still half asleep nature of his appearance. "Sleep alright?"

Matty gave a nod, before leaning into George's side, and pulling his free arm over his shoulders: a gesture which surprised George, but one that he was not at all opposed to in the slightest.

"Is this alright for breakfast?" George took a moment to really think straight after the very sudden change in Matty's attitude towards him within the space of a few hours.

"Yeah..." Matty offered him a smile, his tone rather quiet and muffled slightly, and was the last hint of conversation until the two were sat properly at the table... with cutlery and everything.

Matty leaned back in his chair, looking down at the spoon George had given him in confusion. It took a moment, but in the end, he let out something that really did resemble a proper laugh, catching George entirely by surprise as he did so. "What the fuck do I need a spoon for when I'm eating toast?" He held it up, thrusting it across at George, who had sat across from him.

George took it from him with a smile, before giving a shrug. "It's proper breakfast, you need proper cutlery and everything, don't you?" He placed the spoon down between them, before taking a sip of his drink, and biding by the time as Matty sat there looking a bit bewildered, any hopes of response seeming to fade away in the air around them as moments went past.

It was a good minute or so before Matty did speak, but when it finally came to it, he did so with an unexpected kind of confidence, and his lips curling up into an awkward kind of grin as he met George's gaze. "I say a lot of shit at four in the morning, you know that? Don't have to take it seriously."

"Oh...?" George raised his eyebrows at that one, attempting to extract the entire world simply from the way Matty was looking at him, but of course failing when it came to such endeavours.

"What?" Matty regarded him with confusion, stopping eating entirely in the light of his response.

"I don't know..." George trailed off, rubbing at his eyes before continuing. "Are you talking about just the breakfast or you know... writing off everything else you said?"

Matty let out a sigh, looking George directly in the eyes, "I don't know. I need to think about things, really."

"You yourself have said that thinking about things excessively doesn't really get you into the best state." George found the words leaving his lips before he could think things through, and that they did so with an unpleasantly snappy tone to them.

"That's excessively. I know the difference." He gave a shrug, "come on, don't look at me like I'm a fucking kid or some shit."

"Don't look at me like I don't know you, Matty." George shook his head, "you seem so... fucking split when it comes to me, like there's the Matty that pulls my arm over his shoulders for no reason, and wants to fall asleep on the sofa with me, in my lap, and then there's this Matty that talks to me like he just wants me to fuck off, and says he can't trust me at all. I mean, what is it?"

Matty finished his toast, and leaned back in his chair. "I don't know, George, I don't know, I'm a mess, that I fucking know, and I'm sorry, and you have no obligation to stick around-"

"I am sticking around." George shook his head, "fuck, I'm sorry, I know you're... you're..."

"A bit fucked in the head?" Matty offered when George failed to come up with something.

George shrugged, "don't say it like that."

"That's how it is, though." Matty trailed off, watching as Allen appeared at the doorway from the living room. "Did you feed him already?" He glanced across at George in confusion.

"Yeah, when I got up." George gave a nod.

"I never asked you to feed him..." Matty trailed off, running a hand through his hair.

"Sorry?" George was rather uncertain as to exactly what Matty had meant by that.

"No it's..."

"He's your dog, I know, not ours... I didn't know that would-"

"George, shut up." Matty looked up at him, shaking his head. "Thank you." His tone softened, "I just didn't expect you'd do that. I don't know..." Matty got up and made his way over to Allen. "Need to take him for a walk as well. Might as well get it out of the way, in case it starts raining later, I mean, it could... I just..."

"I'll come with you." George offered, getting up from the table and putting their plates into the sink to wash up later.

"It's... it's... fine." Matty stumbled over his words, and focused his attention on petting Allen instead.

"Matty." George let out a sigh, "I know you don't like going out on your own. And here I am, wanting to walk your dog with you, because I like dogs, and I like... walking... them? And I like... you..."

Matty stood up, a smile slipping over his face, "you're an idiot, you know that, right?"

"Shut up." George rolled his eyes, before letting his gaze fall to the ground, attempting to hide his blush in all of this, but in the process of doing so, failed to notice how Matty made his way over to him, until his hand was on George's cheek, pushing his head up to look at him.

"George..." He trailed off, realising his hand was still on his cheek, and pulled it away frantically as his cheeks began to turn red. "I... thank you. I do trust you, you know? Course I do. It's just me... it's myself I don't trust, especially with you."

That kind of confession stunned George into a dark, cold kind of silence, that demanded a forceful reply that meant something, and not the sting of overwhelming silence as he found himself stuck watching as Matty walked off to shower.

-

It ended up raining anyway. Matty looked ridiculously cute with his hood up, though, so George didn't really mind at all, even despite the bitter kind of cold wind that came with it: a pathetic excuse for spring, all around, as they two were quite the pathetic example of fixing a relationship.

George found himself thinking about how odd they looked amidst the park full of mothers with children and people who looked like they generally had their life together better than one giant of a man and one who looked tiny in comparison, dressed largely in black as they walked an even tinier puppy. And as if Matty had decided that they'd hadn't already soiled people's expectations of them enough, he stopped for a moment to light a cigarette.

George smiled at him, taking Allen's lead from him as he struggled to light the cigarette one handed. He tried not to think about the way their fingers had brushed one another so gently for the next few hours or so, but he wasn't sure that he was really in the position to be making promises.

"Thanks." Matty muttered, then finding himself struggling to get it to light in the rain.

"Here." George leaned closer to him and shielded the lighter with his free hand, blocking in from the rain for long enough to get it to light.

"Thanks." Matty repeated, in much the same tone as he had the last time, except wearing a much larger grin this time around.

"What?" George blushed as Matty's grin seemed somewhat persistent in the matter of not fading.

"Seems like those giant hands of yours are useful for something after all." Matty burst into laughter at his own joke, leaving George to roll his eyes as he did all he could to suppress his laughter, but of course, failed in the process.

"Shut up." George shook his head, before a smirk began to creep onto his face "anyway, you know what they say about people with massive hands..."

"That's big feet, George." Matty shook his head in disbelief as they continued to walk through the park.

"Are you saying that I don't have massive feet too?" He even considered putting the effort into appearing offended at the notion.

"No, I'm just saying that maybe it doesn't relate to the size of your dick, at all." Matty ended up being rather blunt about it all.

"Who said we were talking about my dick in the first place?" George offered him a grin.

"Oh fuck off, I know what you were saying-"

"You know what they say, Matty, big hands... big... lungs...?" He ended up stumbling for something to say, which really detracted from any original point he may have had.

Matty just looked up at him, completely in disbelief, "what the fuck are you on about?"

"My massive hands, come on, Matty, mate, you brought it up." George continued as if there'd never be absolutely any other connotations to their conversation.

Matty only let out what was undeniably a giggle. "Brought it up."

George groaned, shaking his head in disbelief, "are you literally twelve years old?" Before he could wait for Matty's reply, he found his phone vibrating in his pocket, displaying a new message from Ross in the group chat that had been made yesterday.

'How is he doing? What happened last night?'

George found himself groaning aloud at even the concept of returning to thinking about early that day, because by now, he'd gotten himself into a nice comfortable position with Matty, well not physically, but he didn't doubt that Matty would let him - they were talking, smiling, joking, as if there had been little between them at all, and George found himself not entirely convinced that just mentioning how it had been earlier that day wouldn't jinx their situation or whatever.

'This morning.' Adam corrected him as George continued to stare at his phone screen.

"What is it?" Matty asked, glancing up in George's direction: voice all bewildered and innocent, oddly quiet, as if he was crawling back inside his shell again.

George shook his head, not entirely sure what to say, and more than tempted just to leave it, and tell Matty it was nothing, regardless of whether he'd believe it or not, but the thing was that they knew he'd seen those messages, and as had been proven so far, both Adam and Ross were very persistent when it came to making sure Matty was okay. George couldn't blame them; it wasn't like they meant any harm by it, they just wanted to be sure.

"Ross." George chose to answer Matty first, glancing up from his phone and meeting his eyes. "Asking about you." He continued, noting the nervous look in his eyes.

Matty gave a nod, his eyes drifting off, and letting out a muffled, "mhm..." He then proceeded to make his way to a bench just a few metres down the path from them.

George glanced back down at his phone, seeing that Ross had sent his previous message again, just now with a somewhat aggressive number of question marks. Still, he followed Matty to the bench, sitting down beside him, before he even considered replying.

"What's he saying?" Matty's curiosity got the better of him within seconds, he, however, didn't keep his gaze fixated upon George's long enough to wait for the reply, and instead leant down and let Allen off his lead. "Be good." He whispered, words directed at Allen as he ran his fingers through his fur as the puppy began to sniff around at their feet.

George couldn't help but smile at Matty and Allen; he could tell that Allen made Matty happier than anything else and he was just so very thankful for him, for the both of them.

"George?" Matty waved his hand at him, leaving him to blush in realisation that he'd been staring.

"Fuck, sorry..." He shook his head, pulling his phone back out of his pocket, this time to see six new messages - five from Ross, and one from Adam. "Jesus." He commented aloud, causing Matty to raise an eyebrow from where he was sat, but he didn't inquire as to what had led him to such an exclamation, and instead only brought his cigarette up to his lips, and let his gaze fall over the horizon, and wonder just how quickly such brilliant blue skies had turned so grey. At least the rain looked as if it was beginning to clear now.

Before George could even attempt to type out any form of reply, Ross had sent another message: 'I know you're reading this. What's happened, for fuck's sake???'

He decided that at this point it was better to text Ross back, just to let him know that neither of them had died or gotten injured in the space of the past few hours, before explaining the situation to Matty.

'Nothing's happened, mate. We're fine, we're out walking Allen.'

With that, George locked his phone and placed it down onto his lap, before directing his gaze to Matty, who looked up at the sky as if he was finding himself up there.

Matty had a kind of vacant look in his eyes as they scanned across the horizon, head fixating upon counting the variations in colour and every single shade of grey up there, watching the way the sun looked out from behind clouds: cautious, and almost uncertain in its motion - retreating at any moment without warning or reason.

"I guess Adam told him about what happened this morning, and then he's worrying, and I didn't reply to his first message instantly so he assumed the worst and sent seven more." George let out a sigh, turning his phone over in his hands as he spoke, but not quite daring to actually look at what response his message had prompted.

"You have a Matty's mental instability discussion and advice group chat or some shit?" Matty finally tore his eyes away from the skyline, glancing at Allen who was sat just a few metres away from them.

George let out a sigh, because that was the thing, they kind of did, and he really didn't want Matty to take that too badly, but still, he didn't want to lie to him. "Well..." He began, and Matty shot him a 'you're kidding me' kind of look. "Ross made a group for me, him, and Hann... and in it... you are discussed somewhat-"

"Oh fuck off, let me see it." Matty shook his head in disbelief. "What a load of bollocks, honestly." He took a drag of his cigarette, before glancing towards George expectantly. "Let me see it."

"Uhh..." George, understandably, wasn't sure that was the best of ideas. He glanced down at his phone, and read the messages that had been sent in response.

'Something obviously happened. You have to be honest with us.'

'We're just concerned.'

'George, you can't just ignore this.'

'Maybe he's just put his phone down.'

'Or maybe something's happened.'

'In the space of two minutes?'

'I still have a right to be concerned, I mean, you know what Matty's like.'

George swallowed hard - 'what Matty's like'. The idea of Matty seeing this just didn't sit right within him, and he wasn't entirely sure what to do about that, and wasn't entirely sure how this whole thing had gotten into sides, because it was never like that, and it never should have been. It was just Matty, needing some help, but what Matty didn't need was this mess.

"I don't know if you do want to look at this." George bit his lip, so cautious of phrasing something wrong and fucking things up somehow - not that it was really his fault, or Matty's either, it was just the way that he thought, and how he jumped to conclusions within seconds. "They don't... I don't know... I feel like they have this wrong idea of you, like you're incapable of looking after yourself for two seconds."

Matty snorted, finishing his cigarette and putting it out with the heel of his shoe. "Honestly, they're about right." He muttered, not really to George, just aloud, not really not anyone. He used the moment of silence it had left them in to catch George by surprise and take his phone from his hands. It was perhaps something he shouldn't have done, but he just needed to know.

"Matty-" George protested, reaching for his phone, but found Matty shuffling away from him, and rendering himself out of reach.

"What am I like?" Matty's voice was shaking slightly: seemingly more upset than angry, which had surprised George. He glanced up at him. "George, what am I like?"

George shook his head in response, "you're not... like... anything... you know what I mean."

Matty didn't seem too bothered by his response at all, and was instead far more concerned with another message sent from Ross. 'George, you can't keep ignoring this.'

"This is bullshit." Matty bit his lip, scrolling up through the previous messages. "I'm fine, sort of... I don't know..." He turned to George, who was carefully moving closer to Matty again. "I'm alright, aren't I, George?"

"I-" George began to respond, but Matty cut him off, which was something that he found himself thankful for as George wasn't at all sure as to what he was actually going to say.

"Fuck." Matty thrust the phone back at George. "I'm... I'm alright when I'm not on my own. Everyone was right, weren't they?"

"Matty, that's not a bad thing, we all need friends-" George began to attempt to calm him down, but Matty didn't let him finish again.

"It's different." He shook his head, seemingly at himself. "I need someone. Like... that..."

"Like what?" George leaned in closer to him, phone halfway to his pocket, until it began to vibrate in his grip, and as he turned it over, display an incoming call from Ross. "Fuck." He muttered aloud, just staring at it, and wondering if he could make it all go away, because he really needed to hear the end of that sentence from Matty.

However, as George continued to stare at his phone with no apparent desire to react at all, Matty made a stupid decision, as he did best, and pulled it from George's grip again: accepting the call and putting the phone to his ear, all as George sat wide eyed, not entirely sure what to do. As there was perhaps this part of him that wanted Matty to talk to Ross honestly, this part of him that believed it would do some good. George just couldn't help feel that reality was inclined to dictate otherwise.

"George, what's going on-" Ross sounded rather fed up with the whole situation, and honestly Matty could relate, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to just let it slip away.

"What am I like?" He snapped, catching both George and Ross by surprise. "Ross, what exactly am I like?"

"Matty, what's- where's George?" Ross considered the possibility of Matty murdering George and reading through his messages, but deemed it impossible on the basis that George was about four times the size of Matty.

"He's sat right next to me." Matty gestured at George as he spoke, who found himself only able to watch as Matty potentially ruined his friendship with Ross. "What am I like? Come on, fucking tell me-"

"You're like someone who'd hide away for four months because their friend kissed a girl at a party without asking their permission first or some bullshit. Irrational. You don't make sense, you just do things." Ross had been left to assume the rest of the situation from what he didn't know, and it left Matty sitting there and just shaking his head.

"That's not what I'm like. That's not what happened. You don't know shit." Matty took the phone away from his ear, ready to press the 'end call' button, before George took it back from, putting the phone to his ear, and getting up so Matty couldn't grab it back.

"Sorry-" He began, but it was apparent that this wasn't just a 'sorry' kind of situation.

"What the fuck happened? You just let him read everything in that group or what? You know why that'd fuck with him, and now he's in a state-"

"Don't blame this on me." George raised his voice, but came to regret it instantly, "fuck, Ross, I'm sorry, this is stupid, we're not against each other... we need to calm down. He took my phone, and honestly he's not... he's not as much of a mess as you think he is. He's still just Matty, you know that, right?"

"Yeah..." Ross let out a sigh, seeming to regret the state things had gotten to just as much. "I just... We need to know what happened, that's what's creating this tension between us, it feels like we're separated in this, and that's just. Me and Adam should come over, we should just talk about all of this, face to face."

"Yeah..." George glanced across at Matty, who was putting Allen back on his lead. "Me and Matty... haven't really talked about it yet. I think... I think we really need to. I think we're getting there, though."

"Talk to him tonight. It doesn't make sense to me at all, so it's either something really stupidly insignificant or something so weird I haven't even considered-"

"It's not insignificant or weird." George shook his head, "it's... look, you're right, I guess we do need to talk about things. Properly."

"So you'll talk to him?"

"Soon. I promise." George let out a sigh. "Talk to you later, okay?" He hung up before Ross could reply, slipping his phone into his pocket and catching up with Matty and Allen.

"So he hates me?" Matty came to conclude, running a hand back through his hair.

"No, he doesn't." George made a point of being stern in his tone. "They're just confused about all of this, you know, and it's making shit... I get where they're coming from. He wants to know what happened at New Year."

"And... we're..." Matty's voice caught in his throat: eyes growing wide.

"We need to talk about it properly ourselves first." George didn't dare look at Matty as he spoke. "I honestly think it'd do you good."

"I don't know what I think... I mean... I need to think about it more-"

"Matty, that's the last thing you need to do. You're overthinking. You need to talk about things." George knew that it absolutely wasn't as easy as he was making it sound, but he did have a point in it.

"Talk about my feelings regarding you... to you?" Matty raised his eyebrows, and George's stomach did about seven backflips at the word 'feelings'.

"Yeah... I... I mean you could talk to Ross and Adam first I-"

"No... fuck... I don't want to tell fucking other people how I fucked my entire life up just because I have a crush on you and you went and kissed some girl and then dated her for four months. I just sound like an idiot. It's stupid, they're stupid feelings, I'm sorry, I-"

"They're not stupid." George told him, shaking his head. "I don't think so, and they're not going to think so either. If they do, I'll... I'll punch them, I swear."

Matty gave a laugh at that. "You wouldn't."

"I would." George reassured him with a smile, and they spent the rest of the journey home in silence, beside the odd small talk, and comment pointing out the state of someone's garden, because that was apparently something Matty did.

Yet, in all that silence, in all that time to think, it had never hit George that when Matty had spoken about a crush on him, he'd very definitely used present tense.

-

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