It had been a quiet day: calm, peaceful perhaps, but the silence lay not in reflection of that, but because neither of the two had quite gotten down to talking about it yet, and they both shared the notion that if they started talking then they would soon have to come across it, because that was what was really on their minds, not menial bullshit about the weather and what kind of cereal they had in.

Matty wasn't sure that the basis of getting things sort out to tell everyone else was really the best basis to make a stupid, likely life changing decision, because he knew now from experience that things all went wrong when he was open and honest about his feelings.

And perhaps he could insist that they kept it secret for a while longer, because in all honesty, Matty was scared, scared in ways he could barely even begin to comprehend for himself, but the thing was that there was indeed a melancholic kind of beauty in fear, and in putting things off, in avoidance and silence, and the silence was interrupted solely by the tapping of Matty's fingers against the keys on his typewriter.

He'd found himself so very desperate to wrap himself up and hide away inside his own writing, regardless of the very obvious flaws he found within it, because there was such a comfort in writing, there was control, you had the power, you put the words down as you wished, and spun them to portray what you wished; you held the powers of perspective and impression, and Matty felt somewhat stumped without that.

He wanted to write this out, wanted to plan their fucking conversation, wanted to idealise the outcome in unnecessary eloquence and comparisons that held no real meaning, he wanted to paint it out like a clear blue sky: easily depicted but much rarer when it came to reality. However, as he thought about it, Matty came to realise that all he had done for the past few days was write about George, and even as he looked over his old works from months prior, he found such obvious little pieces of George in them that had somehow managed to pass him by before.

As the day dragged by and the skies grew darker, and he leaned further back in his chair, and the half finished cup of coffee on the edge of his desk grew cold, he came to conclude that in reality, George already knew the most of it, and what he feared most within it all was speaking it all aloud, because there was something just about saying it that made it feel so real, and he wasn't at all sure that he was ready for that kind of commitment yet, and he wasn't ready to face Ross and Adam, and wonder what they could think of him, twenty six, and fucking himself up over a crush.

Of course, they wouldn't dare say anything, because Ross, especially, was far too concerned with Matty's mental health for anyone's good, but perhaps, Matty was just far too disinterested in his own mental health, perhaps he'd crossed the line where brushing things off just didn't cut it anymore, but the thing was that Matty would forever be hesitant to ever admit anything of the such aloud unless someone got up and physically drew the line out for him.

Because words meant so much and yet so little in the reality of things. Words and conversation served their worth and purpose in matters of fantasy and art, in typewriters and sunrise, but not in uncomfortable glances shared by the oldest and most familiar of friends, and the heavy bearing weight of a sunset that came all too quickly.

Matty had figured by now that he simply couldn't work in spontaneous confessions and gathering himself all together, but as he looked over his work from the past few months, from before this had all happened even, he found that George and his feelings regarding him lay so very prominent throughout it all, and it would be perhaps easier just to share it with him, share the kind of feelings that he had on those days: real and expressed quickly, and not stored away and recalled from the back of his mind as he sat across with shaking hands.

But that was the thing, Matty just didn't let people read his poetry. He didn't let people in, because when it came to his work, it was honest beyond belief; it was phrased artistically, and it was caricaturistic in places, and in others fixated more so on romanticised descriptions of menial tasks than anything substantial, but it was honest, and it was a part of his honest self that he kept locked away.

And in all honesty, he wasn't sure that he could share anything again.

It had been different before; so long ago now he'd been confident and excited, and loud, and the kind of person who everyone said hello to at parties, the kind of person that even fucking went to parties, who overshared, and over expressed, and just wanted to be heard, wanted a response and wanted to provoke emotion in others.

It had been George. Not George directly, never George directly, but just... December, and how he'd developed these very different kind of feelings that suddenly felt so important and so raw that he couldn't throw them out at everyone that walked past, because this was suddenly something so personal and so private, and in all honesty, something that had scared him at first, and perhaps scared him even now. Just in a different way.

Matty stopped for a moment, just daring to wonder if the solution did indeed lie directly within the problem itself. He dared to wonder if this was how to get himself back; the self that he'd once known, that he wanted people to know him as, because in all honesty, Matty missed that version of himself. He didn't want to be a recluse, he didn't want to be on the verge of a mental breakdown in Tesco, and he didn't want to be scared of looking his best friend in the eye.

It wasn't the solution, but it was certainly the start of it. That quickly became something that he was very certain of, because it was within revisiting his older works, and finding the light and life, and happiness within the lines that made him sick to his stomach for what he'd let become himself, because he wanted to go back; he wanted to go back and live that life again, do things over properly this time, and perhaps a second attempt was just the next best thing.

He sat at his desk just looking over his poetry, deciding which were significant, which would mean anything, which could help him at all, but in time found that they were all significant, and everything mattered, if not so much alone, but in unison, this was perhaps all he had left of himself, and it was that which really scared him.

Finally, he turned to the few lines constructing his current piece: paper still held in his typewriter:

'I'm scared not of us, not of who we've been, not of the mistakes we've made, but who we could be, and how that feels so out of reach, with lack of answer or solution, and how we're just worlds away this time around.'

And even supposedly unfinished, it suddenly felt like more than enough.

He paused for a moment when it came to titling the piece, because it was just those few words that seemed to hold so much, and perhaps in comparison, the title didn't need to be nearly as complicated, perhaps all the title needed to be was simple, and honest, because what really was it about? That was a question he could answer in seconds.

'George'.

-

He was making a point of ignoring any messages sent to him by Adam and Ross, because it was getting to the point where their patience was drawing uncomfortably thin, despite them being the ones who were insistent that everyone should be extra careful around Matty regarding his mental health. George seemed to think that forcing him to talk about something he was uncomfortable with wasn't going to help things at all, but George wasn't at all sure as to how much of this was Matty being uncomfortable or just him being reluctant.

Because he didn't want to be reluctant, he was pretty sure that he was fine with it all, but the more he thought about it, the more he came to conclude that he was in much the same boat as Matty, which really wasn't good for either of them, because Matty needed dragging out of that boat and back to shore, and George was simply no help to him in that.

He spent the day trying not to think about it, and not avoiding Matty, but sitting in the living room, with the TV on in the background, only half thinking about how he had work tomorrow, and how that seemed to mean so little all of a sudden. The only thing with it was that he just didn't want to leave Matty alone, and he doubted that Matty would want to spend time with other people, but he didn't doubt that Ross would come over anyway.

He'd spent the day taking pictures of random shit for Instagram, kind of an indirect attempt to assure Ross and Adam that neither of them had died, but they just weren't replying yet, which perhaps wasn't the best light to frame himself in, but they'd come around to understand eventually, because as weird as the notion felt, George knew that things wouldn't be like this forever.

It was eight thirty six by the time Matty left his room, body shaking as he made his way into the living room, noticing George curled up on the sofa and swallowing hard. George was yet to notice him, or at least let him know that he had, and Matty just didn't want to think about that too much at all, instead just trying to compose himself a little more as he sat down on the sofa beside George.

He caught George off guard: having preoccupied himself with his phone, and organising all of his apps by colour, because that was definitely something that he needed to do. And at first, George only vaguely noticed Matty at all, just the slight dip in the sofa beside him, and his hair out of the corner of his eye.

"Are you... even watching that?" Matty's voice shook as he gestured awkwardly at the TV. It was at that moment that George found no further excuse to hide himself away, and put his phone down, looking up and following Matty's gaze to the TV, which was something that he'd forgotten was even on by that point.

"No." He shook his head, reaching for the remote and turning it off for Matty. "I mean... if you want it on, that's fine, I-"

"No." Matty interrupted him, letting out a sigh and leaning back against the sofa, "it's better off." He then reached out and placed the folder of his poetry on the coffee table: something George hadn't noticed before, and once he had, spent a good minute or so just staring at in an attempt to figure out exactly what it was.

"I'm not good at... talking, you know?" Matty began to fill the silence again after a minute or so, over gesturing with his hand, pulling at his clothes, and was generally unable to keep still. "And I... I feel like I don't really know what I was feeling at all anymore, like it's all a mess in my head and that doesn't translate into English anymore. But I write things down, it's like, I read over these and I... it felt weird, because I've such this massive part of myself and I only recognise it now, and I don't want to push people away, and I don't want to be scared, because this was what started it, it was my feelings for you that made me think I had to keep things locked away, and I'm not letting myself think that anymore." He turned to George, catching his gaze, "I want you to read them."

George's eyes widened: looking between Matty and the folder on the coffee table. "Is that? Are those your poems?" He held the words so tentatively between his lips, because despite everything Matty was saying, he still couldn't quite get himself to believe that Matty would ever come to this, and he had accepted that there were perhaps just things that he'd never know about him.

"Yeah." Matty bit at his fingernail. "All of them." He added, stretching out across the sofa, "since like November. I'll explain them if you need me to but I want you to read them."

George nodded, suddenly overcome with a wave of anxiety, because this was it - this was everything, this was everything Matty had kept away from everyone, and he wasn't sure what exactly had lead him to trust him with it, and as much as he disagreed that he was worth such trust, he certainly wasn't in the position to question it.

The first one was entitled 'Something In My Heart', and was dated with the twenty fourth of November - a date Matty and George had spent together at a party, hosted by someone that Ross' girlfriend sort of half knew.

-

'There's something in my heart.

Something that feels wrong.

Something in the way we are.

Something in who we've become.'

Matty had been feeling off that night, perhaps more so down to the excessive amount of alcohol he'd consumed, because she'd had a lot of fancy wine, and it was his main weakness in life, and then there'd been a point where he bet George that he could drink more than him, which seemed fine at face value, but Matty had neglected to remember than George was about four times his size.

He'd found himself sat down in the living room, and he'd noted how the girl had a pretty nice house, even with the mess covering it; it was kind of spacious, perhaps excessively so, but it lacked a feeling of emptiness, although Matty was sure that was down to the sheer amount of people in it.

It was a big party, one where Matty didn't know the majority of the people there, and Matty hadn't been to one like it in a while, which was likely what had him feeling out of place, or at least that was what he had pinned it down to in the moment.

He wasn't at all sure if he was okay or needed to go home or anything, because he didn't feel sick, not really, he just felt oddly trapped within his own head, in a room full of crowded people, lost within the space spanning no more than three metres around him. And that was perhaps something worth worrying about, but he was drunk, quite a bit drunker than he usually got, and alone, having needed to sit down for a moment.

He hadn't felt at ease until George reappeared in the doorway: spotting Matty instantly, eyes scanning across the room as if he'd been searching for him, and he had, but Matty had never assumed as such. George always knew what to do with Matty, or at least he had.

Matty let George pull him up from where he was sat, take the wine glass for him and place it on the windowsill for someone else to deal with, and guide him out of the house with his arm around his shoulders. There'd be instant comfort and relief with the simple matter of touch, because George felt warm and safe, like home, something that meant the world, and meant as such in ways he couldn't quite explain. It was something deep within him: upturned and slightly out of place.

They ended up sat outside in the garden, and Matty had again noted that this girl, this vague friend of Ross' girlfriend had a real nice garden, with pretty flowers - properly weeded and everything. She'd probably be pretty angry if he puked on them; Matty hoped that wasn't going to be issue, but the thing was that he wasn't so much physically sick, just out of sorts in another way: cold and churned up inside.

George was in no hurry to ask for Matty to explain the world to him, and for what was a good twenty minutes, the two sat in silence underneath the stars, which would have been nice if it wasn't November, and in turn, fucking cold, but it was better than being in there. Suddenly Matty felt okay again, and he just wasn't sure as to whether it was the fresh air or something else, something like... someone like George.

Matty had ended up moving closer to George to stay warm, and he'd silently complied as Matty attempted to move his legs apart and slot himself between them: back against George's chest, and George's arms twisting around his sides and into Matty's lap. There was just something natural within it all - it was just them, Matty And George.

"I feel weird." Matty was the first to speak, and only came to do so in a tone that resembled little more than a whisper. "Like..." He paused as he searched for the right words, kicking at dirt with his shoes as he did so: George finding no need to hurry him. "It's not like I'm sick, because I've drunk a bit much, I mean, I have, but that's not it... I don't think?"

"You've not drank that much." George assured him, and Matty couldn't be sure that George even knew how much he'd drank, or if he did, how he could have possibly been monitoring it, but he found that he trusted him too much to do anything besides take his word as gospel. "Bit more than usual. We all have I mean, there's a lot to drink."

Matty nodded: head rubbing slightly against George's chest. "Big party." He mumbled, picking at his fingernails, hands in his lap.

"Mmm..." George pulled his arms closer around Matty. "What is it then?" He prompted for him to continue.

"I don't know..." Matty mumbled, brushing his hair out of his face, "something like, emotional, inside, but it feels physical somehow, but it's not a physical thing it's just... I don't know. I feel kind of better now, but it's still there. Feels real, like overwhelming like real, like more real and physical than a feeling should."

George nodded, reaching one hand around Matty's arm and giving it a gentle squeeze. "If you don't want to be here we can go home. I'll get a taxi-"

"No." Matty shook his head, finding that he was entirely sure of what he wanted to do, but the one thing he did know was that he didn't want to move right that moment, because there was just something about George that was so incessantly calming, and it was just something that Matty couldn't quite dare to comprehend. "Not yet."

"Okay," George gave a nod, leaning forward to rest his chin onto the top of Matty's head.

"Fuck off." Matty muttered, grinning. "Stop being tall."

George pulled away, smile mirroring Matty's. "Stop being tiny."

"I'm not!" Matty's eyes widened, turning back to face George. "I may be small, but I'm not tiny!"

"Whatever you say." George assured him. "Whatever you say."

Matty found his heartbeat increasing slightly, and his whole body tingling all over as a result. "Feels like it's in my heart." He added, not at all sure whether he'd intended it to be aloud, but in hindsight, it didn't matter that much at all.

"Mhmm?" George raised his eyebrows. "The thing?"

"Yeah." Matty gave a nod, taking a moment to just assess himself before expanding on his point. "In my chest at least, like part of me, properly."

"What does it feel like?" George found himself wondering, "like, what kind of feeling is it? Happy? Sad? Good? Bad?"

"It's not..." Matty paused for a moment, stumped for a moment. "It's just not, I mean... it's not good or bad, it's like something more than the concept of good and bad entirely, if that makes sense." George pretended he did, for the sake of making Matty feel a little less lost with himself. "It's separate from all of that... it's just... I feel weird. Something's off, something's wrong. But not necessarily wrong in a bad way."

"Mmm." George gave a nod, finding Matty looking up at him expectantly, somehow wishing to find all the answers in him, although the both of them were just so very well unaware of the unrealistic nature of that.

"Can you even have the good kind of wrong?" Matty began to pick the edges of the rips in his jeans, leaving the question open for George to answer.

"I guess you can. I mean, you could think that your family were going to die in a fire in a day's time, and then they didn't, so you'd be wrong, but that would be good that they didn't die."

Matty only gave a shrug in response. "I guess." He stretched his legs out, looking up at the sky, noting how it had grown cloudier than it had been when they first went outside. "Can we go home now?"

"Yeah, come on, I'll get us a taxi." He got to his feet, reaching for Matty's hand as he pulled him up, and it was like that, as their hands brushed that the very same tingling sensation shot through Matty's veins once more. But in that moment he found himself far more preoccupied with getting out some girl's garden and home, into his bed; he could deal with it in the morning, but of course, he never did.

'Something stronger in my heart.

Growing with every word from my tongue.

Fed by intoxication, a parasite, a fever.

But it feels just like turning the light on.'

-

"Feels just like turning the light on?" George pointed to the last line of the poem, eyes fixated on Matty, who had briefly explained that the poem was in reference to that party, and how he'd taken him outside when he'd been feeling off.

Matty gave a gentle nod, shifting closer to George on the sofa, and taking a moment just to read over his own work. "Yeah, it's like... the feeling, I had this sort of innate feeling that it was something weird, not bad, but left me feeling the bad kind of weird in the end, more uncomfortable with the part of myself I couldn't quite understand more than anything else. But then that's... it feels like, when you come home at the end of the day, and it's winter, it's dark and cold, and you get inside and turn the light on and suddenly you're home, and everything evens out to be that little bit more okay again."

"And..." George trailed off, toying with the idea of exactly what it was that Matty was referencing. Of course, he knew what it was, but there was a line he was drawing in regards to admitting it unless Matty was the one to confirm it. "The feeling?"

"I might have been a bit too drunk really, I don't know, but it was to do with you, to do with how you made that something into something else, I felt better as soon as I was with you. I think that was the first time I really felt something for you, or at least the first time it got to a point of vague coherency, I mean, of course, then I mostly had no idea." Matty found difficulty in looking George in the eye as he spoke.

There was a silence that followed, and Matty was the one to break it once again within thirty seconds or so. "It was quite a while ago now. I want to be that same kind of comfortable with you again." He found that he maybe should have thought that last part through a little more before letting it out, but it was too late to change that now.

George found his body tensing up slightly, as he pulled himself back out of the night and into the moment, into the slight gap between the two of them, and the way the past few months had put it into motion. "I want that too."

-

'Winter:

It's the warm feeling inside a cold room.

The sky turning from black to blue.

The time of year when everything begins to die.

But being honest, I've never felt more alive.'

It was the seventeenth of December: a Friday night. A Friday night spent at home; the first time in a good few months. It was something they were comfortable with, used to - the practice of late nights and parties and getting pissed, but always getting home together, getting home safe. It had been that way since they were sixteen, when they'd made it home after being kicked out or forced to run from the police in the early hours of the morning. They tended to be making it back home not long after midnight these days, and George would comment on how they were getting old, whereas Matty knew that they always went home when he started to feel off, with that same unsettling feeling inside of him.

It had gotten to the point where George could tell when he was feeling off, and George, being George, always insisted that they went home immediately, despite how much Matty did his best to express the fact that he was fine really - maybe he wasn't, maybe he was - in all honesty, he wasn't really that sure. He always felt better when they got home, but he'd figured by now that it was half to do with the familiarity and peace and quiet, and half to do with George.

It wasn't that Matty didn't like going to parties anymore, because he did, and he was perfectly fine; he liked drinking, and talking to people, dancing and ending up looking like a prat, because that was all a part of it, really. It was just the knot that seemed to form in his stomach ever so often, and Matty had always wished that he could even begin to understand it, but in reality, the moment he put two and two together was the moment that it all got so much worse.

That was the thing, Matty hadn't had a proper 'crush'... feelings for someone, anyone in a few years now. Not properly anyway, not like this. Because this certainly had the crush thing down, because it was just, quite honestly, crushing. And easily the last thing he needed, having only just sort of vaguely come to terms with the fact that he was just a little bit less than straight - at least this made him very sure of his feelings towards guys, but he wasn't sure he could handle looking at his best friend of over ten years and just wanting to snog him.

How close they were didn't help - it didn't help at all, because the last thing Matty wanted to end up doing was pushing himself away from George over his stupid fucking feelings, but there was only so much he could do when practically spooning each other was just a normal Matty And George kind of thing.

That particular night they had decided to stay in, well George had decided that they should stay in and Matty had decided that he was too pretty to argue with. There was a party - there always was a party with the friends they had, but it was hosted by some girl George had once dated when he was seventeen, and had made a point of being insistent that they couldn't possibly go because he was still upset over their breakup after six years, and not because he'd noticed how Matty was acting off again that evening.

Matty never wanted George to worry and adjust their lives about his stupid fucking feelings, but of course, George was unaware as to just what it was that always got Matty in such a state, and likely thought it was something substantial and not just so painfully ridiculous.

They had ended up ordering Chinese and sitting in front of the TV, sitting practically on top of each other, because George had grown to notice how perfectly Matty seemed to fit in his lap, and he had never been sure what to think of that, but there wasn't a notion in his body that this was a bad thing at all.

They ended up like this most nights, sat together, curled up under the pretense of excuse, like it was something that they had to do to be like this with one another, because as close as they were, they were crossing dangerously close to it all being very questionable. The kind of thing that Ross and Hann would ask about, even though they'd all been best friends since they were about twelve, because perhaps cuddling for hours everyday and sleeping on the sofa because they didn't want to sleep in separate beds was not just something that best friends did.

"You getting tired?" George came to ask, noticing the way Matty's eyelids grew heavier, his head nestling back into George's chest. Matty let out an incoherent mumble in response. "And you wanted to go to that party." George gave a snort at that.

Matty opened his eyes then, looking up at George as if there was something else to his words. "I did." He insisted, because somehow they were still at the stage of masquerading a bitter kind of truth behind faultily constructed, yet increasingly persistent white lies. "I did."

"Well, I don't want to have to carry you out of my ex-girlfriend's house after you've passed out on the floor." George shook his head, of course caring far more about Matty than the ex-girlfriend, but his sentence had all the emphasis in all the wrong places.

"We could have gone out somewhere else. I like getting pissed, you know, it's Friday night." Matty began to pick at the frayed edge of the rip in George's jeans. "I wouldn't be sleepy if I was pissed."

"I'm pretty sure it's alcohol that makes you pass out, you know?" George smiled, reaching his hand down to where Matty was picking at his jeans, and curling his fingers around Matty's hand, finding that Matty froze and pushed back against his touch instantly. "And it's not like we don't have a whole cupboard full of drink."

Matty gave a nod: meek, and cut off, as every cell in his body fixated upon the way George's hand was curled around his, and the way George seemed so reluctant to pull away.

"We could open a bottle of wine if you want?" George suggested, fingers now brushing gently against the back of Matty's hand.

"Yeah, please." Matty managed to stumble out: focusing very little on the wine itself, as he found that he wasn't actually that fussed at all, but so very much on the fact that George would have to move away from him to get it, and Matty was pretty sure he was going to stop breathing full time if George didn't move his hand away.

It was ridiculous. Matty knew it, of course, and sat rather awkwardly with his legs pulled up against his chest as George made a quick trip to the kitchen. He wasn't even sure that he really wanted a drink, but he reckoned that this had to be one of those situations that could only be helped by getting drunk, or at least he hoped as much, because he didn't know what he was going to do otherwise.

After a minute or so had passed, George returned, placing a bottle of red wine down onto the coffee table, along with two wine glasses. He sat down beside Matty, already leaning up against him as he poured them a glass each. Matty found himself instantly reaching for his drink and downing half of it in one go.

George raised his eyebrows at Matty over his glass. "You alright?" He met his gaze before taking a sip of his own drink.

"Not all of us are sophisticated forty year old mothers of three, George." Matty rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his glass, placing it back down on the table with a little too much force.

George snorted at that, leaning back in the sofa and watching as Matty poured himself a second glass. "I'm not letting you just get drunk, you're not just downing that one."

"Why not?" Matty poured himself a second drink and held it awkwardly out in front of him. "What's the point of drinking if not to get drunk? It is going to happen. If you didn't want me to get drunk then you should have suggested we bring out the Ribena."

George rolled his eyes, placing a hand on Matty's shoulder. "Just don't drink it all in one go, alright. It'll make you feel shit." Matty shot him an 'I don't care' kind of look. "You're drinking like you're fucked up and you want it to fix all of your problems. So you tell me what's going on or you calm down, alright?"

Matty shrugged, twirling the glass around in his hand. "Just feel weird again."

"I've noticed." George added, taking a sip of his drink. "That's something you should probably talk about."

Matty leaned into George in response, letting him put his arm around his shoulders. It wasn't the act of being this close to George that made him feel weird, it was just everything that lay behind it, just everything Matty felt like this could and couldn't mean.

It felt better now, easier now; he'd been right about the wine, especially after another glass or two, and he wondered if George would notice the chance, he wondered how that'd change things, but what he didn't do was say anything at all as he fell back into his lap again, ending up half between his legs, half looking up at him: an awkward mess of limbs, really.

George finished his glass of wine and reached forward to place it back down on the coffee table. "You look like you're about to pass out." He noted, running hand back through Matty's hair.

"No." Matty insisted, making a point of opening his eyes wider. "I'm fine. You're not my mum, you can't make me go to bed."

"You can sleep here again, if you want..." George trailed off, hand stopping amidst Matty's curls, tangling his fingers around them. "We can. I kind of don't want to get up either."

"Why are you the mum?" Matty grumbled, letting his eyelids droop again. "I'm older than you, just because you're taller doesn't mean shit. Just because you go and get the wine doesn't mean you're the mum-"

"Matty, mate." George let out a laugh, "what are you saying?"

"You're not the mum... in us... there isn't a mum. I think that'd be weird." Matty continued, leaning back into the touch of George's hand in his hair. "It's like when people ask gay couples who the girl is? There isn't a girl, that's kind of the point. Like there isn't a mum, that's... I mean..." Matty closed his eyes properly then.

"I'd be the mum. You'd be the girl." George finished for him; this was something Matty instantly perked up in response to. "Come on, Matty, you would be the girl."

"I'm not the girl. That's the point, that there's not a girl, and that's why it's..." Matty trailed off, biting his lip: that was why it was different, difficult, because if George was a girl, or if he, himself, was a girl, then things wouldn't be quite so complicated at all.

"You're prettiest." George finished for him, resting his chin against the top of Matty's head. "By far."

"Boys can be pretty too." Matty insisted, pulling away slightly. "That's the thing, George, I am a boy, and that's why it's different. If I was a girl then it wouldn't be weird, and it wouldn't be on my mind like this. And it should be fine, the idea of two guys, a normal thing, that I wouldn't even have to think about, but it isn't like that."

"It's not weird." George told him, meeting his gaze and leaning their heads closer once more. "Nothing's weird about this."

"This." Matty repeated back at him: eyebrows raised slightly.

"Matty." George gave him a knowing look. "I know you're not a girl. It's not weird."

"Yeah, but it's not really a Matty And George thing anymore, is it?" Matty glanced away, wondering just exactly when George had come to understand exactly what all of this was about.

"Says who?" George placed a hand on Matty's cheek, grabbing his attention within instants. "Surely we have authority on what is and isn't a Matty And George thing?"

"Yeah. I guess." Matty found himself blushing and so very aware of George's hand on his cheek, and in that, it was George's lips on his that took him by surprise.

It was short, gentle, but meaningful. The first and only time they had kissed - it had been down to wine, but it wasn't something either of them came to regret, at least not until the New Year.

'Each night is growing longer,

But this time I think I want them to.

Each night we cross all kinds of lines.

But this time I think I just want you.'

-

"That night." George bit his lip, looking at Matty beside him and found himself overwhelmed with the fact that they really weren't so far away from how things had been then. "When I kissed you."

"Yeah." Matty nodded, looking away and biting at his bottom lip. "That was..." He trailed off, not really sure what to say. "How did you know? I never told you. How did you know what exactly I was talking about."

"You were staring at my lips and talking about who would be the girl in a hypothetical relationship between us." George's lips fell into a smile. "You're not nearly as discreet as you think you are, Matty."

"Why didn't you tell me that you knew before?" He asked, looking up at George with confusion, "and keep asking me to tell you what was wrong?"

"I wanted to hear it from you." George explained, leaning back and letting out a sigh. "Kind of nervous, honestly. I didn't want to rush you into anything. Didn't want to rush myself into anything either. I also for a while wasn't sure how I felt about it."

"But you ended up feeling the same?" Matty's eyes grew wide.

"I kissed you, didn't I?" George spoke like that was enough, but the both of them knew that it really wasn't, for that night was something they'd never really spoken about at all. In fact, the whole of December was so severely under-discussed, George came to wonder how they'd ever come that far at all.

-

'This:

This is for sleepless nights and days wasted too.

This is for the man I am and the boy you once knew.

This is for the mistakes we have and will always make.

This is for all of my give and all of your take.'

It was the twelfth of January, and Matty had almost spent two weeks alone now. Two weeks of wasting away inside himself and his own bedroom. There had always been a part of him that knew it was the worst thing that he could have done, but he was never the best when it came to making healthy decisions, but neither was George, it had seemed, so at least they were in it together - so far apart, and anything but together, but bearing the same burden, just under two different roofs.

So much and yet so little had occurred in the past two weeks; Matty was pretty sure something inside him had stopped that very moment it had all happened - that very moment he'd walked in and saw George kissing her. It had gone off like explosions, like fireworks in the back of his mind, but it was anything but celebration - it was fireworks, if you had fireworks for funerals, and things like that.

It was running, and getting home, and locked doors keeping him safe and friends he regretted giving keys to, and people trying to get inside, not just the room but his head, people who thought they could make it all better - people who thought they could understand. And George, George with his sad eyes and his apologies and his hushed explanations, but it was the last thing he wanted to hear, and George was just the last thing that Matty wanted to see.

So he left. He left their home - what had been their home, and although Matty had wanted him to, he couldn't do anything but cry - cry and cry for days, like it was the only thing he could do, like there was no end, like there was no escape route, like George wouldn't be coming back, as he'd been assured that he would.

But Matty had been right for the longest time.

It wasn't even just the kiss. It was just the emptiness in the house, and Matty's inability to exist on his own, coupled with his inability to let anyone know how much he'd been affected by all of this. It was just lonely nights and lonely days spent staring at the shadows projected onto his bedroom walls: making angels and demons out of the way the light twisted around his closet.

Ross had let himself inside that day: having taken to visiting daily for the past week, because he'd noticed the state Matty had ended up in, but still found himself not entirely sure what he could do about it, or as to what he could do with George either. George hadn't locked himself away, but seemed to regard Matty with an unnatural kind of bitterness and largely refused to mention him after moving in with a girl he barely knew - really, he was just moving away from Matty, but Ross reckoned that only made it feel worse.

He made his way to Matty's bedroom, finding that Matty, was as he suspected, curled up in bed: eyes drifting off out of the window, gaze vacant and cold - it was the kind of thing that hurt to look at, especially for the fact that Ross couldn't, for the life of him, understand why, or even how to fix it. There was a definite unwillingness held by both Matty and George, Ross was just optimistically confident that it would fade within a week or so. Of course he didn't know it then, but he was so very wrong.

"Matty, come on, get out of bed, won't you?" Ross gave a glance in Matty's direction before pacing around his room, stopping momentarily at his window and pulling the curtains further to let more light in. "It's one in the afternoon." He felt the need to fill the silence he received in response.

"Don't want to." Matty mumbled against his pillow, closing his eyes and attempting to block out the bright midday sun, but struggling in doing so.

"Why not?" Ross let out a sigh, sitting down on the end of Matty's bed and looking over him in disbelief: attempting to possibly piece together just what could have let to this. "What's going to happen if you get out of bed?"

"Life." Matty scoffed at the prospect, turning on his side to meet Ross' eyes.

"Life's going to happen whilst you're in bed, mate." He assured him, "life's happening right now. You're just missing out on it, and not to put a downer on everything, but it's not like any of us are going to live forever."

Matty gave a shrug, turning onto his back, "good."

Ross raised his eyebrows in response to that. "Good?" He inquired further. "What's good about that?"

"Don't want to live forever." Matty let his eyes open wider: fixating his gaze upon the emptiness of the ceiling, taking in the variations of off white as if they were the glistening white gates of heaven up above. "Don't want to live, really, at all."

Ross swallowed hard, without a clue what to say to that at all, even come April, he still hadn't quite figured out how to address that certain little comment. He'd simply sat there: eyes wide and bleak, blood growing cold inside his veins.

It was Matty that broke the silence, on the reasoning that he was the one that had started it, after all, or something like that. "What would I do if I wasn't in bed? What's the fucking difference really? No one cares about me anymore."

"Matty, that's the biggest lie I've ever heard." Ross assured him, shaking his head in disbelief, "I care about you, your family-"

"Not what I mean." Matty cut him off, kicking the duvet away from his body, and it was only then that Ross had felt thankful that he'd been sleeping in the same clothes he'd been wearing for the past few days. "George doesn't care about me."

Ross bit his lip, "course he does. He's your best friend," he wasn't entirely sure if that was true anymore, but it wasn't just like he could have agreed with Matty.

"He was. Fucking doesn't anymore, does he?" Matty scoffed, turning back to face Ross. "He'd be here wouldn't he? If he did?"

"Matty, he's only not here because you refused to acknowledge his existence!" Ross insisted, watching as Matty finally sat up, leaning back against the headboard. "If you want to see him, then I can get him to come over."

"I don't want that though." Matty shook his head, "doesn't care about me. Not properly."

"Tell me what's going on." Ross had gone past the stage of asking politely, but now needing to know what was going on. "Come on, Matty, tell me what's going on."

"Nothing's fucking going on. He's just a dickhead, and I'm an idiot." Matty turned away, letting his gaze drift off out of the window and into their sorry excuse for a garden. Well, his.

"Matty, come on, obviously-"

"How would you know?" Matty finally raised his voice, turning and looking at Ross as if he'd assumed the world's most preposterous thing known to man, and not what was essentially, as much as Matty wished to deny it, the truth.

"Okay." Ross bit his lip, accepting that he'd have to change his approach. "Fine, if you're absolutely fine and nothing's going on then how about you get out of bed and do something?"

Matty turned and hit him with a look. "Do what?"

"Whatever you want. Something. Anything." Ross looked pleading, and so desperately unaware that Matty's whole life had always seemed to revolve somewhat around George. "Write something?" He suggested, "come over to mine."

"I don't want to go outside." Matty bit his lip, wondering if he was being too blunt, but finding rather quickly that he didn't really care.

"So you'll work on a poem or something?" Ross gave him a look, "I think maybe you should. Might make you feel better."

Matty shrugged, "I guess." He began to bite at his fingernails. "I don't know what to write really, though. It'll be shit."

"Not everything has to be good, nothing everything has to even be seen by a single other human being." Ross glanced across at Matty's desk, eyeing the pile of paper beside his typewriter with curiosity. "You're writing for yourself and not other people. About other people maybe, but not for them."

And Matty had rolled his eyes at Ross that afternoon, but sat down and poured his heart out that evening, but in place of better, he'd found himself looking down at the honest truth in black ink and coming to hate every fibre of his being.

'This is for parties and one night stands.

This is for your fingers wrapped around my hands.

This is for late nights and early mornings merged into one.

This is for what I've let it all become.'

-

"I'm sorry." That was all George could say for a good while after reading it over for the second time. "Fuck, I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." Matty eventually came to respond: pulling his legs up to his chest in an attempt to hide away inside himself, because it had been different before, when his poetry had fixated on the time they had spent together, the things George knew, and not what he was yet to discover.

"I honestly just..." He let out a sigh, head in his hands. "I honestly just, don't even know why I kissed her... I just. I don't think I... I even thought you really had such strong feelings about me, it kind of got to the point where I thought I was just overcompensating inside my own head, trying to keep myself sane."

"I was bad at dealing with it." Matty admitted, biting at his bottom lip. "We were bad at talking about things. Still are, I guess. I don't like confrontation, I guess."

"You do." George broke into a smile, "oh come on, you do."

"Not when it matters. Not when it's with people I really care about, not when it could go wrong." Matty glanced across at George, holding his gaze for a moment. "I overthink things."

"I know." George gave him a smile, heart skipping a beat as Matty leaned into him.

"It's not really the kiss. I mean, I just... it was at first, but it was how you went to live with her and date her like nothing had ever happened." Matty's voice grew very quiet: little more than a whisper into George's side. "That's what I never really understood."

"It wasn't the best relationship." George admitted, putting his arm around Matty, half scared that he'd suddenly move away from him at the mention of Saffy. "I needed to get away from you at the time. I'd fucked up and I couldn't face how much it had affected you, and then I kind of could only go to her place, because everyone else would ask questions, whereas she doesn't know you, doesn't know us, you know? And then, I mean we got intimate and I sort of ended up staying there. I missed you, I always missed you. It just got to the end of February and I really didn't think that you would ever want me back."

"I always wanted you back. I was just scared, and I never wanted anyone else to know what had happened." Matty looked away, not sure if he was that comfortable with it even now.

"Do you still not want other people to know?" George asked, meeting Matty with concern set deep within his eyes. "Because you don't have to talk about things-"

"I do." Matty came to conclude. "I think I do. I'm just scared. It kind of makes things different, doesn't it?"

George was ready to ask how, but stopped himself, "good or bad kind of different?"

Matty shrugged, shaking his head. "I'm not sure."

"Well..." George paused for a second, thinking it through before continuing. "I'm pretty certain that this is going to be a very good kind of different."

"How certain?" Matty looked up at him: eyes wide as if he trusted him with the world, and George still couldn't feel worthy of that.

"How certain do I need to be for you to trust me?"

"Certain." Matty took a moment to respond, but seemed very confident in his response once it had left his lips.

"Well, what if I said I was very certain?"

"Then I guess I'd just have to trust you."

-

'Two different people in two different homes:

There's me, and then there's you.

There's your head, and then there's my heart.

There's how we changed and how we grew.

But I don't want to grow if we just grow apart.'

It was Valentine's Day. The fourteenth of February, really. It didn't mean anything - it was the same as any other day, and Matty found himself insistent on that: so very insistent as he sat in his room, head in his hands, trying not to cry, trying not to think about the falsification of the value of love and romance, trying not to think about things that once were, the kind of life he once had, the kind of person they'd both been.

It was bullshit, because Matty had never cared before. But then again, Matty had never really felt about someone quite like this before, but he hadn't exactly been in a rush to accept that. What was the use in coming to conclusions that could only knock him down? What was the use in looking for the answers in the kind of questions that would destroy you?

And really, what was the use in Instagram stalking your ex-best friend/sort of maybe vague romantic interest's girlfriend on Valentine's Day? Matty, of course, knew it was a bad idea, and that everything in his life that related to George these days was something he had to get Adam or Ross to talk him out of. But not telling him that George was actually dating her wasn't a good decision on his friends' part, so they owed him one fuck up on the basis of that, at least.

Because it wasn't like they hadn't known, because of course they had, because the entirety of her Instagram was pictures of him, pictures of them, pictures of her looking pretty - the 'right' kind of pretty, the way that pretty girls were just girls, and not how pretty boys were always pretty boys and never just boys, and how George had said that didn't matter, but it obviously did. It was like how George had said that he was sorry - he obviously wasn't.

It was just the thing, though, that whenever either of them had gone through a breakup or just anything like that, they'd always turn to each other, and find the solution in dumb jokes and days indoors, and movie marathons, and excessive amounts of alcohol, and none of those things seemed to work nearly as well when you were on your own, because Matty had never accounted for the day that he'd be hung up and heartbroken over George himself.

Matty had never accounted for a lot of things, but he'd come to learn that everything did indeed have to fall apart, and the sense of permanence could never be anything besides overly falsified in a temporary lifetime. 'Til death do us part', because it always would, because things never mattered and things never lasted - the only thing you could be sure that you were stuck with was yourself, and the bitter voice of your ever critical conscience at the back of your mind.

Matty had tried not to be spiteful, tried to reason with himself and look at things from outside his own head, but the thing was that you could never really leave your own head. He just couldn't see how it was fair that George got to be happy with her, and he was left here, alone, inside his head, because of course, everyone else had fucking girlfriends as well, and this was the one day Ross couldn't come and get him out of bed and force him to eat something, and Matty thought he would have been relieved, but he was anything but.

Because he didn't want to be like this, in this kind of fucking state, and in all honesty, he wasn't at all sure as to quite how he'd gotten there, he just had no idea as to how he could possibly make his way back out again.

He just missed him. Missed him like hell - missed him like he was only really just learning what the world 'hell' did actually mean. But missed him with the overbearing knowledge that there was just so little he could actually do about it, because George didn't want him back in his life, not anymore, not now he had her. George didn't want him; no one did, not really anyway.

And more so, Matty just missed the version of himself who didn't lie in bed for days, and wish for tomorrow to come just for the sake of change, will on the next hour just for the sake of time passing, wish for the leaves to grow back on the trees just for the sake of something different to glance upon each morning.

He was depressed or something like that, but that was one of those words he couldn't just throw around and trust people to leave him alone with, because that was floating dangerously to the line where people would start to care, and his mum would get properly concerned and make him come back home and move in with her, and his friends would make him talk to them about things, begin to seek the answers to questions they didn't even know, and Matty couldn't stomach that.

More so, he couldn't stomach the way George would eventually hear about it through mutual friends: the way it would eventually drift back to him, and he would look up, open his eyes a little wider, and saying something pathetic and half arsed like 'oh', or 'I never realised he had it that bad.' And those were just things that George didn't get to think anymore, because George didn't get to think and he didn't get to know if he wasn't there, he didn't get to fucking fall in love with her and pretend to care about how it might affect him.

Matty wondered if George had even thought about how Matty might possibly end up hearing about it: wondering if George had even cared, wondering how much he'd changed in their time apart, and whether he thought it for the better or the worse.

And that was just the thing, people weren't like trees: when everything decayed and fell to the floor in the winter, you couldn't just expect it all to grow back again in the spring.

In the end, as the hours dragged on by, Matty found himself resorting to the only thing he could do in situations like this: resort to the typewriter on his desk, and look for the answers in everything he already knew. It was something Ross would tell him to do, and as much as Matty despised the idea of listening to clueless people who thought they knew everything about you, he knew that Ross was probably right.

And in the end, he didn't feel better after getting something down, but just that little less empty and that little less worthless. Not that it mattered so much anymore, because here he was, spinning his heart into words for the man he thought certainly would never read it.

'You are the leaves in autumn.

I am the snow in spring.

I think we've already forgotten:

How this ever did begin.'

-

Matty had been wrong, and yet the way George's eyes scanned over the poem didn't quite seem real - not really. He wasn't quite sure how, but began to suspect that it lay in the silence between them, and the way which that very silence seemed so uninclined to ever go away. Still, Matty found himself less than prepared to break it.

George was the one that did it in the end, after a good ten minutes had passed, as the two of them just sat there: so close yet so distant from one another, bodies together on that sofa, but their minds off elsewhere, off in a world in which they had taken pride and made a point out of leading two separate lives, and reflecting on how wrong they had been.

"Valentine's Day?" George pointed to the date with his index finger. Matty gave a nod in response. "And I spent the day with her."

"You spent four months with her." Matty corrected him, regarding him with a kind of look that George felt was so out of place upon his face.

"I know." George let out a sigh, "I shouldn't have cut you off from my life, but there's nothing we can do to change the past, is there?"

"No." Matty paused for a moment. "It fucking hurt though, you know?"

"I know." George repeated, curling his fingers tightly around Matty's hand, and feeling him shiver against his touch. "And I'm sorry. I really am, and this is me trying my best to understand and make it up to you."

Matty gave a nod, pausing for a moment, before looking up at George with an odd kind of look in his eyes. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Like what was it that was so good about her? Was she just insanely good at blowjobs or something?" Matty's voice grew louder and more expressive, but he looked away from George as he spoke.

George gave a snort in response: shrugging. "It was just the fact that she was there and pretty, really."

"But I'm here and pretty." Matty insisted, looking a little upset. "It was blowjobs, wasn't it?"

"Matty-"

"I mean, who's to say that I'm also not insanely good at blowjobs? I could better - you'd never know."

George just looked at Matty: eyes blown wide as he attempted to really take in what Matty had just said. "It wasn't anything to do with blowjobs."

"Oh..." Matty gave a nod, pausing for a moment. "I mean, thinking about it, I've never given anyone a blowjob-"

"Matty, you're not sucking me off to avoid talking about your feelings-"

"I think it would clear things up, though, wouldn't it?"

"Look, things fucked up before because we didn't do things properly, so we're going to do things properly."

And Matty just had to admit that George was right on that count. Matty wasn't sure blowjobs would solve much, in all honesty, but if he'd had George's cock in his mouth he could be certain in the fact that there was no denying that something had gone on, and he found himself just so desperate to cling to something real in all of this, because there was always this nagging worry at the back of his mind screaming that everything might just drift off again into nothingness before he could do anything to stop it.

-

'I think too much:

I wonder if I ever will forget you.

I wonder if there ever is an end.

I wonder if you think about things like I do.

And if we ever did become more than just friends.'

It was the twentieth of March, and Matty found his head weighed down with thoughts - the bad kind of thoughts, the ones he'd told himself he shouldn't have. The ones he couldn't have, the ones he couldn't let himself have, because he couldn't let things go too far; he had to at least be able to pretend he was okay, keep up the facade, and hide away behind it all.

Ross and Hann, who were really the only people he spoke to anymore, had figured it out by now, well quite a well ago. They knew that he was in a state - a fucked up kind of nonsensical state that wasn't doing anything to help anybody, but it was a state that didn't seem to hold any viable way out of it. It was just the matter of his family, and his mum in particular, who had taken to calling him much more frequently as of late, which lead him to suspect that maybe someone had said something to her, and that just wasn't something Matty could deal with.

He didn't want to be the failure of a son; he didn't want to be the person who couldn't fucking look after himself, because he could, he just wasn't - didn't see the point in it, that kind of thing. Or at least that was what he'd been telling himself, because deep down, maybe he couldn't look after himself at all, maybe he needed to go back to his mum's place, and just accept that he was a fuck up, and let all of the family look at him weirdly for the next ten years or so of family gatherings.

What was worse, of course, was the prospect of his family asking questions, and his mum eventually getting to the truth behind this all - the fact that this had all happened because Matty couldn't deal with the fact that his best friend had kissed a girl at a party three months ago now, just because they'd kissed once when drunk and maybe held hands a bit. Because what the fuck did that even mean anymore? December felt like it had happened in another lifetime, and Matty was beginning to believe that it had - it just didn't feel real at all.

Although Matty wasn't sure what real meant anymore. What anything meant, because the whole world seemed to blur into one big mess of poetry he'd never publish and days spent alone in bed, thinking of George, and other things he shouldn't.

He'd gotten out of bed that day, and he was at the unfortunate point in his life where he could consider that as progress. Although, he hadn't really gotten far, only making it to his desk, pushing the window open to smoke a few cigarettes as he stared at his typewriter and the white blank page, and how he really didn't have the energy left to write a thing today.

Ross had suggested writing daily if he found it hard to speak to people - it had been an awkward kind of hope for the best suggestion, but Matty appreciated that he was trying nonetheless, because really, no one had expected that he'd fall into this state, and in turn he should expect no one to even attempt to help him out of it.

Really, Matty had only attempted to follow his advice because he'd looked so meek and pleading when he'd suggested it, and Matty had felt sorry for him. It didn't work at all, and he was getting to the point where he wasn't sure that anything would, because he most certainly was not going to a doctor, and he mostly certainly was not taking pills, because that was the final straw - that was acceptance and admittance of the fact that you were a fuck up in his eyes, and he wouldn't let himself go that far, despite how much everyone seemed to suggest it.

It was around four that afternoon that his mum called him; it was almost becoming daily now, and that was something Matty couldn't help but think about. Surely she must be worried, surely someone must have told her something, and he just didn't want to imagine what, and he didn't want to blame Ross if he didn't have to, although it had to be him, because he was the kind of person who did those things. He was only trying his best, really, only trying to make things better, and Matty couldn't hate him for that.

"Did you eat something today?" Matty widened his eyes slightly at the rather abrupt 'greeting' on his mum's part.

"Well hello to you too." He let out a snort, leaning back in his chair and setting his phone down on speaker as he lit another cigarette.

"Hello." She let out a sigh, "now come on, did you eat something?" There was a certain insistence in her voice that led Matty to convince himself of the fact that someone had to have been telling her things. "Don't avoid the question, Matthew."

He cringed slightly at her use of his full name and the change in tone that went with it. "I did, yeah." He thought back to the very crappy lunch he'd made himself a few hours ago. "I had a sandwich."

"And?" She grew more insistent.

"Just a sandwich." He bit his lip, waiting for her response, waiting for her to tell him to eat more, because really he knew that he should, but he just didn't feel like eating, didn't feel like doing anything. It was more than just George that had ended up affecting him now - he'd worked that out, but he didn't really have a clue as to what else it could possibly be.

"You need to eat more than that-"

"I know." He let out a sigh, "I know that, it's just hard, I don't know, I just... I'm not really very motivated to do anything at all."

"What happened when George left?" She asked, leaving Matty rather wide eyed, as he certainly hadn't seen it coming so quickly. "Come on," she continued in response to his silence. "It's to do with him, isn't it?"

Matty shrugged vaguely. "I don't know. I guess, I miss him-"

"What made him leave? What happened?" She prompted, and Matty wasn't sure that he could lie to her like he could lie to everyone else.

"He went to live with his girlfriend." Matty awkwardly avoided the truth, because what he said wasn't a lie, not really, but it definitely wasn't the truth.

"You've been best friends for over ten years, you think I don't know that he wouldn't just move out like that without something else happening?" And really, Matty just didn't know what to say to that. "Matty?"

"I..." He trailed off, shaking his head, "I don't really know what happened. We kind of had an argument, I don't know, I guess I ended up pushing him away. I guess I shouldn't have done that, but it's happened now, it's not going to change."

"Maybe he wants you back in his life again?" She suggested, but Matty found himself quick to shake off the prospect.

"No he doesn't." He told her.

"How would you know without asking him?"

"I think if he wanted me back in his life he'd come over and make that effort." Matty paused for a moment, "doesn't matter though, because I don't want him to. We're done. He's got his girlfriend, and I've got a puppy now, so we're fine - it doesn't matter."

-

'I wonder if the ache inside grew too strong.'

'I wonder if it's not just my heart but my head's that broken too.'

'I wonder if deep down I knew it all along.'

'Because you say that you're sorry but I don't think that's true.'

-

George's gaze remained rather vacant as he read through the poem for what was likely the tenth time. And in response to that, Matty found himself obliged to break the silence, despite how little he wanted to.

"I wrote that when I made myself hate you." He looked away, not wanting to watch the way George would react to that. "I convinced myself that being angry was better than being sad, although there wasn't much difference in the end. I think, I just, I don't know, it felt like an easier thing to talk to my mum about - hating you rather than loving you. Not love but... you know what I mean." He felt his cheeks burn up, and took a moment to compose himself.

"I know what you mean." George's words came as little more than a whisper in the silence that followed, but still they seemed to hold the power to echo around Matty's head for days.

"That was when my mum started calling me like everyday. I was annoyed that she was so worried about me, but I guess she had a point, I mean, I always knew that I was in a state, but I just didn't care, I mean, really I've only just started to care like properly. I don't know... it's weird..." He trailed off, finally sneaking a glance in George's direction. "She kept asking me if I'd been eating and stuff. I think Ross ended up telling her that I was in a state - that's a Ross thing to do, isn't it? And I guess I was kind of pissed, but I don't know, it was probably the right thing in the end."

"Mmm..." George gave a nod. "So you properly hated me?"

"I never properly hated you." He shook his head, leaning closer to George as if to prove his point. "I just made that up, I don't know, I made myself think that. It was like something I needed as like a defense mechanism, like I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't just this pathetic piece of shit."

"You're not a piece of shit. You're not pathetic." George's response was instant. "It's not your fault."

Matty bit his lip and forced himself to nod. "Okay, yeah." He paused for a moment, "sorry if I made my mum think that you're the biggest piece of shit that has ever lived."

George gave a laugh, "it's alright," he assured him. "She doesn't think that." Matty hit him with a questioning look, and George admitted to himself that there was just something that he might have to tell him. "Being honest," he began, catching Matty's gaze. "I rang your mum because I was worried about you. It wasn't Ross. I asked her to check that you were okay, and I hoped that she'd get through to you more than anyone else could."

Matty was rather taken aback and just found himself staring at George for a good ten seconds. "I didn't think you even cared. Well, not then at least."

George shook his head, "I always cared about you, come on, don't be an idiot."

And Matty wasn't sure why but it was just hearing George say that which really seemed to change everything.

-

'George:

'I'm scared not of us, not of who we've been,

Not of the mistakes we've made, but who we could be,

And how that feels so out of reach, with lack of answer or solution,

And how we're just worlds away this time around.'

The last poem George read was the one Matty had written just earlier that day; the one that had been so simply entitled 'George', the one that had been so blatant from the start, and the one that had Matty shaking slightly as George read it through for the first time.

"Worlds away?" When George did finally speak, his voice came out in little more than a whisper, which seemed to catch the both of them by surprise, as there certainly had been this part in Matty that was counting on George to be the emotionally put together one throughout this.

"Everything's different now, like, it's a whole different story, things can't go the way they did last time, it's all new, and as much as I'm thankful for that, it scares me." He stopped for a moment, putting more thought into simply taking a breath than was entirely necessary. "I don't know if there's a good kind of scared, but if there is, this would definitely be it."

George looked over the poem for what Matty secretly hoped would be the final time; his insides had the awful habit of clenching up whenever George read his work - it was like he was exposing himself to him, everything out there for him to see, and that was perhaps the thing that left Matty the most on edge. He knew, of course, that George wasn't the kind of person that would judge him, or at least he was doing a pretty good job of convincing himself as such, but that didn't shut up the voice at the back of his head which came into play every once in awhile with a 'what if' or a 'you never know'.

"Who do you want us to be?" It was, however, what George asked as finished rereading the poem, putting it down on the coffee table with the others, that left Matty the most nervous, because this just wasn't a question he could answer in a second without a moment's thought or worry. George seemed to read this all off his face, "if you don't know, that's okay, I was just asking."

"Mmm." Matty gave a nod, looking up to meet George's gaze. "I don't quite know."

George paused for a moment, glancing over the living room that slowly become theirs again - it was an unspoken but definitely mutual decision: held in the lack of distance between the two of them, and how the hurt of four months had mostly faded in just a few days. "No one's ever named a poem after me before. That's sweet, you know?"

Matty couldn't help but blush, bringing his hands up to cover his face in response, despite that fact that George had of course, already noticed, and of course, didn't care. "It's hardly a poem. Just something I kind of threw out earlier today."

"It means a lot, though. All of this does." He gestured at all of Matty's 'George focused work', which lay across the coffee table. "And surely it's the emotion and the meaning behind it that counts."

Matty gave small nod in response. "If you think so."

"I do." George paused for a moment, taking the time just to look at Matty, because he was just so... George didn't even know - it was like there weren't enough words in the English language to adequately describe him, because really, he was just Matty, and it was the emotion and George's association with him that put it all into reality. "I guess maybe I'm biased though - them being all about me."

Matty scoffed, his cheeks pink, "they're not all about you."

George raised his eyebrows, "there are a lot that are about me."

"Not directly about you, most of them, just... you were on my mind, and it linked in." Matty gestured vaguely with his hand in an attempt to further elaborate on what he was saying - it wasn't particularly successful, but George got the picture regardless.

"So I'm on your mind a lot?" George continued, not even bothering to hide the smirk that was growing on his face.

"Yeah..." Matty trailed off, cheeks growing redder, "something like that."

They sat in silence for a minute or so after that: Matty's red face hidden behind his hands, and the smile upon George's in plain view. It was George that broke the silence, his mind fixated back on the conversation of a few minutes ago, "so you said you don't know who you want us to be?"

"Yeah...?" Matty gave a nod, gingerly pulling his hands away from his face to look at George as he was speaking to him.

"Well..." George exhaled, running his next words through his head for the tenth time, because he had to be careful, because this really did matter. "I think I know what I want us to be. Or at least an idea..." He trailed off, looking to Matty before continuing.

"What is it?" Matty prompted for him to continue: unable to hide the way his voice began to crack and shake slightly.

"I think, well, I want us to have something again. Like in December, but not like then. Different. You know what I mean." George took a moment to catch his breath. "We need to talk about things though, and take it slowly, and have like boundaries and shit, like no kissing girls at parties. Like, no kissing other people, it's a thing, but it's not like boyfriends or anything yet, we should try things out first, take it slowly, do it properly." George turned to Matty. "What do you think? If you don't want to then that's fine, of course - what you want is what's important."

Matty was too busy trying to remember how to breathe again after George had said the word 'boyfriends' to respond quite yet, but after thirty seconds or so, he got there: voice quiet and jittery. "I want that too."

George smiled more than he probably had before in his entire life. "Well that's good because that would probably be pretty awkward if you said no."

Matty snorted, rolling his eyes at George. "You've spent the last hour reading my sappy love poems I've written about you for the past six months and you're worried that I don't like you back?"

"You were the one who was like 'I don't know what I want' just two minutes ago!" George exclaimed: voice suddenly growing louder as he attempted to defend himself.

Matty laughed, "I was only saying that because I didn't want to say it first." It was now George's turn to roll his eyes. "Fuck off, I get nervous."

"But you're not anymore?" George noted, because well Matty's whole demeanour changed from one extreme to the next in a matter seconds.

"No." Matty admitted, biting at his lip, "I'm not entirely sure why, I don't know, maybe it's the whole... talking about it thing, I mean, how much worse could it get. Or maybe if you can say the word 'boyfriends' then I can chill out a bit."

George laughed. "Boyfriends." He repeated, looking at Matty to watch his reaction, "come on, why does that affect you?"

Matty shrugged, "I don't know, I feel like it's naturally something that makes me nervous, the whole... I don't know... heteronormativity bullshit and how you know this would be so different if I was a girl or something. Like I said before."

"It shouldn't affect you." George told him, watching him with concern in his eyes.

"I know." Matty nodded, "it's like how I shouldn't freak out when you leave me alone in Tesco for a minute, but I just do. I want those things to change though, I want things to get better, be how I was confident before, last year, and we could go out to parties and shit."

George pulled Matty into his chest then. "Fuck, you can do it, you know? Honestly, it's hard for you, but it is going to be alright, promise."

"Yeah." Matty smiled into George's chest, "I know."

"And you're going to let me, and other people help you?" He asked, holding his breath as he awaited Matty's response.

"Yeah." Matty nodded, biting his lip, "you need to do like most of the talking for me, though, because I'm not very good at talking to people, especially not about things that mattered, and I haven't written six months worth of sappy poetry about how I freak out on my own in Tesco after a minute."

"It's not sappy." George told him, watching as Matty pulled away and sat down facing him. "It's not." He insisted, despite the doubtful expression upon Matty's face. "I'd want to read the rest of it, you know? If that's okay with you, of course."

"Yeah." Matty nodded, biting his lip, "later, I mean, there's a lot of it, and it's getting late now. And we need to talk this thing through for a minute, so like... no kissing anyone else or like other things than kissing," George nodded and waited for Matty to continue, "and you totally have to make me coffee like every morning, because that's a cute thing."

George rolled his eyes, "alright. And like, we have to be open and talk about things with each other, like properly." Matty nodded, meaning it this time. "And we should probably talk about this with Ross and Hann, you know? I'll do the talking if you want."

"Yeah." Matty gave a nod. "Honestly, what do you think they'll react like? I mean, would you have seen this coming? Our weird gay thing? Would that make things weird for them, do you think? Like if we're just hanging out and you kiss me or something?"

"It's not weird." George shook his head, "and come on, when have they even been vaguely homophobic once? Honestly, I think Ross is just going to shit himself over the fact that you want to leave the house again."

"I'm shitting myself over the fact that I want to leave the house again." Matty admitted, laughing a little.

"Wait..." George met Matty with a look that had him just that little bit nervous. "So you're saying that you want me to kiss you just casually, when we're hanging out with other people?"

"Yeah." Matty nodded: face turning a horrible shade of red. "And when we're alone as well, that's good, you know? Probably even better."

"Is it?" George raised his eyebrows, grabbing Matty by the hand and pulling him in closer before he could respond, before taking a second just to breathe and kissing him.

And then Matty promptly died.

Well not really, it just kind of felt like it.

"So..." George let out a laugh as he pulled away. "This is a thing."

"It is." Matty let out a giggle, falling back across George's lap and just gazing up at the ceiling for a moment. "I missed kissing you, you know? It was only once months ago, but it's still a thing."

"A thing." George repeated, following Matty's line of sight up to the ceiling. "I like kissing you too." He admitted, somewhat quieter, and much more to the silence of the room.

Matty couldn't help but smile. "Well, that's good, because if you found that you really didn't like kissing me then it might make things a bit awkward again, don't you think?"

George rolled his eyes, "shut up," but really, he couldn't help but smile either.

"I'm tired." Matty announced after a minute or so: eyes still fixated on the ceiling.

George gave a nod of agreement. "You should go to bed, then."

Matty shook his head, "don't want to leave you."

"I'll come with you." George found that he'd spoken before he could really think about it. "If you want. I mean, you do have a double bed, and I'm not letting you sleep on the sofa."

"And you'll stay?" Matty asked, voice tentative suddenly quiet again.

"Course." George smiled, "come on, we all know you got the better bedroom anyway."

"So this is what you're really doing..." Matty shook his head in mock disbelief. "You just want the good bedroom."

"Totally." George grinned at him before getting up from the sofa, and pulling Matty up by his hand, "come on, sleepy head."

"Don't you dare call me that again." Matty groaned, letting George practically drag him off the sofa.

"Alright, whatever you say, sleepy head." George laughed, ruffling Matty's hair as they walked into his bedroom.

"I hate you. I really do." Matty insisted, even going as far as to glare up at George as he said so, but in reality, Matty had never said anything that he'd meant less.

-

hey pals !!!! well this is a long as fuck chapter 14.5k words tag urself I'm literally dead it was worth it though i love this fic I'm a wreck

vote and comment if ur also gay for this shit because i am

love u guys