They were all there, gathered around him. There he lay, motionless, glassy eyes gazing at the distant stars that he would soon be joining. He was gone, and they hadn't yet closed his eyes. His fingers were clenched around white sheets that smelled of lemon. His dull, pink lips were still parted; and his last words continued to echo through the stiff air. They wept, and George was nowhere to be found.

~

10 hours earlier...

It was one of Matty's better days. It was a day he felt no pain. He'd played a small show that morning over the radio, and had decided to go out to lunch with his band mates afterwards.

"Ten thousand people tuned in! Can you believe it?" Matty asked excitedly, taking a rather large bite out of his grilled chicken sandwich.

"Matty, we've played bigger gigs than that." Ross chuckled, but the curly haired lad didn't care.

"Still, it was over a radio show! The number never dropped under ten thousand! Ten thousand people listened to our show!" He stated.

"I'm just saying-"

"Ross, let it go. Let the guy be happy." John interjected, resting his hand on the dark haired man's shoulder. He was wearing that yellow jumper that John loved so much.

After the show, the boys had been scheduled for a photo shoot, and Ross had insisted on wearing that turtleneck jumper. None of the guys had changed out of their shoot's clothes yet, and honestly, nobody wanted to. They were comfortable, and casual, yet formal at the same time. They were perfect.

"Yeah, what Johnny-Boy said. Let me be happy." Matty smirked, shoving a few fries into his mouth.

"You're such a pest." Ross sighs, taking a sip of his soda. George watched the situation amusedly while Adam seemed preoccupied with his phone.

"You love me." Matty smiled, finishing up his food and then nuzzling his bouncy curls on George's denim-covered shoulder. Now that he was done with his food, he really rather wished George wasn't wearing the jacket or flannel at all. Matty kind of just wanted to indulge himself in George's magnificent chest, but there was a slight inconvenience stopping that from happening: the fact they were in public!

"You're a prat, Matty. Pratty Matty." Ross chanted, causing John to laugh. Matty looked between the two skeptically.

"So, are you two like together or something?" The curly haired lad asked suddenly, causing George to nearly spit out the tea he had been mid-drinking.

Ross and John looked at each other nervously, before slowly nodding. In unison, they muttered "we are," and then bowed their heads embarrassedly.

"That's so cute!" Matty squealed, and George just rolled his eyes. "How long has this been going on?"

"Since the first leg of tour started up. Pretty much since I tripped walking off the bus." John admits, and Ross nods along, adjusting the sleeves on his jumper nervously.

"Well, I'm happy for you." Matty smiles genuinely, and then looks to George. "We're together too."

"Yeah, everybody knows that." Adam grumbled, causing everyone to turn their heads and look at him.

"What's your problem, mate?" George asked, and the green eyed man just stared at him. After what seemed like an eternity, he scoffed and stood up.

"I can't believe you all are so fucking ignorant to what's going on." Adam snaps, causing everyone to stare at him in shock. Normally, Adam's the cool and collected one of the lot of them. He never raised his voice, and he's always been kind and compassionate towards them.

"We're not being ignorant, Adam. Believe me, I'm the one who knows I'm dying the most. I'm the one who's feeling the blood rush through my brain. I'm the one suffering momentary confusion and sensory overload, and blacking out, and just genuinely feeling shitty, but I'm okay today. I'm so okay today. In all honesty, if I didn't know any better, I'd say I'm bloody healed. Matty Healy is Healed: what a headline. I'm not being ignorant, Adam. I'm just trying to enjoy my time and not fret over it all the time." Matty stated, crossing his arms indignantly.

Adam huffed out an agitated breath, throwing his phone down on the table, revealing just what he'd been so preoccupied with: looking up prices for funerals. What the actual fuck.

"You're dying, Matty! At any given moment, you could cease to exist and you're just sitting here eating bloody chicken! How much planning have you put into your death, huh? Do you even have a suit to be buried in?" Adam asked, and suddenly George was growing quite defensive.

"Hey, Adam, what gives you the right to decide what Matty does and doesn't do in his final days? You're right, he can die at any time, but that doesn't mean it should be the only thing he's thinking about. Any of us could die at any minute. It's life, dude, and right now, he's fucking living." He snaps, pulling the smaller lad against him. Matty sighed, wanting all of this fighting to end.

"Fine, George. Fucking be his savior, whatever. But you know how they say curiosity killed the cat? Well, ignorance killed the man who didn't keep an eye on his cat." And with that, Adam stormed from the restaurant, presumably heading back to the bus.

The remaining four remained seated, staring at each other. After a few moments, Ross cleared his throat.

"Somebody's gotta go after him." He stated before rising to his feet. "I'm so sorry our lunch had to end this way." And then he left the restaurant, John trailing behind him. This left George and Matty, who remain quiet and glancing anywhere but at each other.

"I'm so sorry about that, Matty." George spoke up.

"It's whatever." Matty stated, resting his head on George's shoulder for a third time. "Death is sudden, George. Nobody ever really has their own funeral planned. We've just gotta cut Adam some slack, it seems. He has been the quietest throughout this whole thing, so perhaps he's taking it the hardest."

"Yeah, maybe." George mumbled.

After a few more minutes of the pair just sitting in silence, Matty cleared his throat once more.

"I guess we should be getting back, huh?"

"I guess." And so the two of them leave, George setting a large sum of money on the table just before they too walk out the door.

~

Adam was in hysterics when Ross and John found him. The shade to his bunk had been closed, but harsh sniffling could be heard from inside. Slowly, Ross pulled back the cover and found his friend weeping, tangled up in his off-white sheets.

"Adam, mate, you okay?" He asked, running his fingers through Adam's soft brown hair.

"Does it look like I'm okay?" Adam cried, voice scratchy and raw.

"No, but that's okay." Ross stated, placing a hand on his friend's shaking shoulder. "You don't have to be okay. It really is a troubling time, Adam, but you do have to look at it optimistically. Matty's suffering, mate, but today he's okay. We shouldn't be fighting on his first good day in a long time. We should be rejoicing! We should be making him feel so much more loved than he probably already does."

"I'm gonna lose my best friend, Ross." Adam's voice came out as a barely audible whisper, and then he was shaking harshly again.

"I know, buddy, I know. But, like, you don't have to lose him! If you just remember he's always with you like in your heart or whatever, he's never truly gone. The physical thing may not be here, but the mental image can never be erased. It can become blurry, and cracked around the edges, but never erased." The dark-haired man explained, and then Adam was placing his head in his friend's lap as the tears steadily streamed down his face.

"I'm not ready to lose any of that."

"You won't be, at least not yet."

"I guess you're right." The brown-haired man sighed, reaching for the water bottle down by his feet.

"I typically am." Ross smirked.

"Shut up." And then they both shared a laugh.

Laughing. It's such an odd thing to do when you're going through a hard time; but sometimes, laughing is just about the only thing you can do. To laugh is to feel joy, and it was pretty agreeable that this lot of people, practically a dysfunctional family unit, needed to feel joy in this moment.

~

Weekend.

It had to be the millionth time Matty had seen the movie, and about the thousandth time he dragged all of his friends to watch it with him. They did it, however, seeing as everything was all about Matty right now. If Matty wanted to watch his favorite movie with his best friends, then so be it, they were watching that goddamn movie with him.

Matty and George were cuddled together on the couch, Adam sitting at the opposite end and desperately making sure that his body didn't touch Matty's feet. He really didn't like feet. Ross and John lied on the floor, over top some of the blankets. All around the five of them, a ridiculous fort of pillows and blankets had been set up. Why? Because Matty had wanted a goddamn pillow fort, and his friends were gonna make that happen.

It was ironic honestly, the way people were extra nice to you when you were dying. But weren't you always dying? Isn't every single day we're alive putting you one day closer to death? Yes. So, why would people ever be mean to begin with?

The pillow fort was ridiculous. If Jamie happened to walk onto the bus, it'd be a very hysterical explanation, but nobody really cared. They were having fun. They were living.

Everything was going to be okay.

Or was it?

~

When the movie ended, Matty was the first to notice that Adam, Ross, and John had all fallen asleep. When Matty pressed the home button on his phone, he saw that it had grown quite late. He decided to get up and go outside, and George was quick to follow him.

The bus was parked at a rest stop, meaning the driver had decided to get a few hours of shuteye himself. So, the two of them had to sneak outside quietly. They climbed the sleek, black rungs of the ladder and lied down on the roof of the bus.

Admittedly, the stars were quite beautiful that night.

"I'm gonna miss the stars." Matty spoke up after what seemed like an eternity of silence. George's head perked up as he turned on his side to face his love.

"The stars will miss you." George stated, and Matty giggled.

"What does that even mean?" He asked.

"I don't know. I was trying to be sappy." George laughed, which only made Matty laugh harder. George's laugh was contagious, after all.

"You totally failed." Matty said after they'd settled down again. "Personally, if you'd have said that line to me, I'd have returned it by saying: you cannot miss the stars, because you will be amongst them. In fact, you'll be the brightest star of them all. You already are the brightest star of them all."

George rolled his eyes at that.

"You'd just say that because you're a bloody poet, Matthew. And actually, I've got something better and less cliché than that to say." He said, and Matty turned to look into his deep brown eyes.

"Then tell me." He dared.

"When you're gone, there will be no stars to miss. Without you, there will be empty skies. Every star that has ever burned will blink off, and if they don't, they'll certainly never shine as beautifully as they did when you were there to bathe in their beauty. A star's brightness will be pointless without a subject to shine down on." George spoke slowly, and Matty felt himself grow goose flesh.

"Fuck." He muttered.

"Fuck's right." George smirked, and then leant down to kiss the curly-haired lad. The kissing continued for what felt like an eternity, but as everything eventually has to, it did come to an end.

"I love you, George." Matty said, smiling up at his treelike boyfriend.

"And I love you, Matty." George said, leaning down to peck the shorter boy's lips once more.

After that, they continued to gaze up at the stars for a while longer. When a good hour or two had passed, they decided it would be best to get down in case Bert, their driver decided to wake up and start off to their next destination.

Matty was first to go down the ladder, and suddenly, the world seemed to be going in slow motion. His footing slipped, and he was falling, and George was watching helplessly as the lad fell from the bus, not able to latch his fingers around the rungs, and landed on the asphalt below with a rather harsh, and magnified crack. Matty's head had been the first to hit the ground.

~

They were all there, gathered around him. There he lay, motionless: glassy, dull eyes gazing at the distant stars that he would soon be joining. He was gone already, and they hadn't yet closed his eyes. His fingers were clenched around white sheets that smelled of lemon. His dull, pink lips were still parted; and his last words continued to echo through the stiff air.

"I've lost my head."

They wept, and George was nowhere to be found.

Crying, screaming, glass shattering: that was where George was. He should've gone down that slippery ladder first! It should've been him that fell! It should've been his head that hit the asphalt, leaving what appeared to be a bloody crater in the car park.

Matty was fucking dead, and it could've been so easily prevented. They shouldn't have gone on the roof of the bus to gaze at those stars.

Quickly, George made his way from the hospital and went to stand in the middle of the car park, wishing a bloody meteorite would wipe his existence from the earth in that moment. As he turned his dull eyes towards the sky, he found it to be empty. Or maybe George just refused to see a sky with stars without Matty by his side.

It should've been me, he thought miserably. But it wasn't.