The air was warm, and the world presented itself in technicolour. She looked beautiful out there, with her auburn hair trailing out behind her and glistening in the sunlight. Such beauty was surely to be desired.

But even in all the sun's warm, even in the most perfect of summer illusions, Matty remained reserved, eyes to the floor, head firmly upon his shoulders. Perhaps it was better like that.

He wanted to watch her, to fall in love, to feel something, but the world just wouldn't work like that. Instead, he fought with his mind and laboured with his worst thoughts, drawing each and every worry out like a spool of tape, yet still, none saw a single end.

Matty was only vaguely aware of the conversation that surrounded him; Ross and Adam's somewhat menial discussion floated through the air around him, before drifting off on the breeze. He was thankful, at least, that they knew he wasn't listening, and they bothered not to push him for an explanation. Their worries did tire him endlessly, but it seemed as if they at least served their purpose from time to time.

It took all his will to force his attention onto Charlotte - smiling and laughing across the school yard. He put words like 'beautiful' into his own head and hoped for the best, for a world in which it was all easy, and his head was constructed of four simple walls to lean against, and not an incomprehensible maze - forever winding and twisting away.

Comfort settled in around him: the world's biggest trick yet, as Matty began to cling to his lies, to the familiarity of them, to the safety in knowing that all he had to do was pretend. Yet forever, fate had another trick up its sleeve, and before Matty could quite think about what was happening, his whole world was pulled out from under his feet, and he was left stumbling and falling as his attention was forcibly yanked back to his friends' conversation.

"What are you thinking about?" Ross stared him down, as if the notion of his own business was long dead and buried. "Looking like that..."

Matty threw his shoulders up into a shrug, chancing a fleeting look across the bench towards Ross. "Nothing much..."

Adam so kindly, snorted, in response; Matty loved his friends, he really did.

"What?" Matty demanded, eyes widening as they swept over to Adam.

"That's not a nothing look. That's a... something's really bothering you look." Adam seemed to regard the matter with amusement, lips curling up into a smile: one that Matty was hesitant to trust.

"Yeah." Ross added, a little more sincerely. "I mean..." He turned over his shoulder, shooting a glance across at Charlotte. "It's not her is it? You said you weren't bothered."

"Yeah, like twenty thousand times." Adam agreed, eyes growing widen with curiosity.

Matty wondered, for the briefest of moments, just what his friends' current speculations as to his current situation could honestly be; he reckoned at least that they might amuse him.

"Yes and no." Honesty served Matty well, as long as it stood hand in hand with ambiguity. He stared his friends down with more force than he could have believed in.

"What does that mean-" Adam began to wonder aloud, but Ross didn't quite let him get that far.

"Oh." The smugness of Ross' smile was beyond unnerving.

"What does that mean?" Matty mirrored, folding his arms over his chest.

Ross drew out a sigh. "I saw you, you know? The other day." His preface, at least, seemed relatively harmless.

"Yeah?" Matty, foolish at best, prompted for him to continue.

"Outside the bookshop." Ross clarified, drawing his words out slowly, as if carefully poised between every breath. "With... someone."

"With someone?" Adam's eyes widened, glancing between Ross and Matty with nothing beyond excitement. Matty hardly appreciated the gesture, but still, he reckoned it could have been worse.

"Not... with..." Ross explained, cheeks flushing a little. "Just... there... together... but..." He shot his eyes up to Matty's. "Not exactly someone I thought I'd ever see you with, and I'm a bit worried if I'm honest."

"Ross, what are you on about?" To his merit, Matty was at least honestly clueless: from Adam's suggestion, his head was settled on this incident being one that related to a girl.

"I think it was George Daniel." Ross leaned back, leaving the impact of his words to hit his two friends like merciless bombs from above.

Adam was the first to react, jaw dropping wide. "Fucking hell, Matty." He turned back to Ross. "You're not serious, are you? Him and fucking... he's... what does he even do now? Drugs?"

"More than drugs really." Ross folded his arms across his chest. "Deals them too, I've heard. Or at least... his... his..." He struggled to quite find the right world.

"His gang?" Adam finished for him. "Yeah, they're some fucked up people I've heard."

"So, Matty..." Ross turned his attention back to his friend, sat still, silent, with his eyes to the ground. "If he's... pressuring you, or if he's... harassing you... or if he's-"

"He's not doing shit." Matty pulled his gaze up, throwing his eyes like grenades: burning and tearing holes into Ross' skin. "He's..."

Matty's chest tightened, unsure how to quite put his head back into place, how to make sense of everything hitting him all at once. Suddenly there was this sincere divide, between what he thought and what he knew, walking hand in hand with the world in which he sat around with Ross and Adam worrying about his ex-girlfriend, and the world in which he'd fallen from the bridge in the forest and George had caught him and held him in his arms.

He'd spent days insistent and dedicated solely to keeping that from his brain, to pushing such thoughts and feelings as far away as they could possibly get, but it was then, on that Tuesday morning, that everything came crumbling in.

Matty sat there: heart searing, head rocking with full-body tingles. For there was no denying the way it had felt. When George had held him like that. When the world suddenly seemed to fit as if made out of jigsaw pieces and not just broken shards of glass.

He craved that kind of sense, despite what it brought with it. For the true nature of those feelings belonged to something that Matty dared not to answer to. Especially not with his friends' eyes upon him, as he sat still and silent in the school yard.

"He's nothing."

The words hurt; there was no denying it. Yet still they parted the air, and for a brief moment, Matty remembered what it was like to breathe easy.

Still, both pairs of eyes watched him, distrusting, wound up in a spiral of confusion. They wanted answers, they wanted explanations, they wanted the kind of solution that Matty was yet to even draw up from the explosion inside his chest.

Fate seemed to pity him, at least, and the bell sounded for the end of break, giving Matty ample opportunity to leap to his feet, and lose himself amongst the crowds of students, not even entirely sure as to what class he had next, but certain at least that he had to get away somewhere, to get away somehow.

Familiar footsteps dragged him through the bushes, and to a familiar smoking spot in the end. Yet what he'd sought in recluse, threw him back no such pleasure, for before him were uncomfortably familiar eyes, and the forever harsh burden of a knowing look in bubbling and stewing away from within.

"Well..." She drew out a sigh, pressing her back against the dusty brick wall: forever looking that same kind of beautiful as she had before. It just meant nothing at all, perhaps as he held it up to everything else, or at least to that just one specific feeling, to how it had been with George's arms closed around his chest.

"Charlotte, fuck, sorry, I-" Matty drew out an apology: for that was all that seemed appropriate. In fact, his whole morning seemed to frame itself as one big inconvenience.

"I came here for you." She explained, voice melodic even, as if she'd planned it, planned it all. His eyes chased any form of emotion across her face, but there was nothing at all. Nothing really. "I saw the way you were looking at me."

He wondered if one day he'd be tired of pretending. Tired of an endless spiral of lies. But that day was at least not today.

"Did you?" Matty took a step forward, struggling to paint seduction and intrigue on a broken frame of a face. The truth at least remained throughout, that he had looked at her in a certain way, but although his eyes may have been upon her, his mind was elsewhere entirely.

Matty pulled his arms around her, and banished all thoughts of George from his mind: desperate to shut her up, to shut his mind up too. For there were just some things that he dared not quite explore, and perhaps the way he'd been looking at 'her' served as a perfect reflection of such.

Running out of ideas, stumbling over his own string of consciousness, he kissed her, and decided to be done with it.

She guided the kiss, pulling her fingers up to his hair, melting him under the warmth of her hands, dragged over every inch of exposed skin. Charlotte met his eyes like she owned them. And perhaps for that morning, she did.

It was easy, to let himself crumble, to let himself melt, to let their lips meld, to let their tongues meet, to diffuse the line between her and him. He saw sense in it, for perhaps it was easier to fall in love with a girl when her tongue was in your mouth. For perhaps that was all he aspired to do.

Yet as she dragged her lips down over his throat, as if keening to leave marks. Matty spared a thought: hasty and unplanned, his mind fell through, to George, not to feelings, but to words, to what had seemed to form a warning, uttered with earnest beyond Matty's comprehension.

Matty let his eyelids flutter open, he fixed his gaze upon her, letting her lips sink into his neck. The thought was spared, but soon it multiplied, with the wrath of a disease, as if to destroy what good was left inside his chest.

Still, he wondered if this was cowardice; he wondered what it took to be courageous, what would make him face his fears. He decided that honesty at least, would have been a start.

Up in his head, Matty had faced Charlotte head on and told her simply that he didn't love her, that she was just a girl he'd kissed, and that although his eyes had been present, his mind had been elsewhere.

He would have answered his friends honestly, he would have stared Ross down like his words didn't mean a thing at all. He would have told them it all - from the weed in the store, from the copy of 'Christine', to the bridge, to his place, to theirs too, to how George had caught him, to how George had maybe even saved his life, perhaps even in more ways than one.

Still, he enveloped himself up in the moment, in Charlotte's hair, in Charlotte's smile, in Charlotte's lips. He did all he could, really, to kid himself that the air didn't smell of pine needles, and that through his ears came anything but the sound of the flowing of a river.

But for the now, for the hasty morning, with thoughts torn from his head like shards of glass, it would do. Fuck, it would more than just do.

It bided Matty out through the night: through rampant thoughts, through impossible dreams. Through every remnant of a twisted thought that might suggest otherwise about who he was perhaps inclined to love. He concluded instead that he didn't believe in inclination, or perhaps even love itself.

Truly it was that notion, and that notion alone that kept him sane: that kept dark eyes open and earnest as hours drew on as if by torture designed to tear a confession out from his bones.

Yet the miraculous illusion of life itself passing him by was forever destined to fall. And perhaps it even did so before it could quite get to his feet. For it was no later than nine the next morning when Adam turned to him in imploration, and everything stopped.

"It's back on?" The words were uttered with wide eyes: disbelieving, almost.

"What?" Matty's words were a feeble dictation of any inner emotion or whim.

Adam spoke with his eyes: across the room, towards a familiar girl, and a smile so false it could have been painted upon her lips. She waved.

"I guess." Matty brought his shoulders up to bracket his head, to hide himself away inside his chest.

"Thought you didn't care about her." Adam regarded the notion with little more than amusement; the ins and outs of Matty's relationships didn't bring him worry in the way it did to Ross.

Again, Matty shrugged, watching as she turned away, disappearing amongst the crowds of students, laughing with her friends, yet still smiling, that plastic smile. And for the briefest of moments, Matty did wonder if he ought to pity her.

"Why?" Adam posed what was easily the most obvious question, eyes boring holes into Matty's head. "Why are you back together?"

Matty drew in a sigh, letting his gaze drift down to the ground. "It just sort of happened."

"Yeah..." Adam watched him dubiously. "I mean, I hate it when suddenly I'm snogging my worst enemy without knowing it-"

"Fuck off." Matty told him, blunt at best. "That's- she's not my worst enemy. She's just a girl." And that said more than Matty could ever comprehend.

"Yeah, but..." Adam was determined to draw any form of confession from Matty's lips. "You don't love her." He insisted, like that meant anything at all.

Matty did so much as laugh in response - it did, in fact, take the both of them by surprise. "Who's in love with anyone at sixteen?"

Adam just stared, considering Matty as if suddenly, he didn't know his friend at all. He wondered how he might make contact with the new person that stood beside him in Matty's shoes.

For this new Matty, whatever it was that had changed within him, seemed entirely distant, as if lost up in entirely the wrong mind; Adam pitied him with all he had. Yet, it seemed as if the last thing Matty could want was such a weak notion as someone else's pity; it seemed from the fire forever burning in his eyes that he did indeed want something more, something that seemed to bare a kind of meaning he could cling to.

For Adam had watched him with both wonder and horror alike, as he placed the most falsified of kisses upon Charlotte's lips, yet spoke to her so sweetly; it seemed even as if he was just acting, as if suddenly this was all a game. Yet for the life of him, Adam couldn't quite determine what the prize on offer was here, what he'd set out to achieve, and perhaps whether it had been that itself which had spurred such a change in him.

He spared a thought for a world in which he still felt as if he knew his friend, for in truth, whatever lay so secretly inside Matty's chest it seemed incomprehensibly broken, in the way that even seemed to scare him somehow.

-

Matty was almost content with it all in the end: forever chasing his heart around his chest with the intent to capture and destroy it. Yet, forever, it seemed to be one step ahead of him, as if it truly, knew him the best, and despite his dislike to the notion, he didn't doubt it at all.

He found comfort, however, in the idle warmth of a late Thursday afternoon, in a lonely yet familiar building, in shelves laden with books, in a room barely lit from the dim remnants of sunlight strewn in from outside, in a single candle burning with an ardent flame: casting tall shadows throughout the room.

Matty condemned himself to his own thoughts, sitting idle behind the counter, daring to let his mind wander. He dared to ask himself just when his friends would have truly had enough, when they might begin to take matters into their own hands, and just what that could possibly entail. Matty didn't want to say he feared such a notion, but still, he saw no use in lying to himself, about something so meaningless at least.

He was entirely spent, perhaps not in falsehood, but just repression of rampant thoughts, desperate to keep himself stable, on his feet, yet it was as if life had pulled itself out into a mile high tightrope walk, that was indeed impossible to make it across. Perhaps he should have regarded falling as an inevitable possibility - not the physical kind of falling, from the bridge, but in terms of his mental stability; there would forever be a plunge, nail-biting freefall, eternally awaiting him, and despite how much he fretted and worried, there was little Matty could do about it.

The evening presented itself as unwelcoming, with cloudy grey skies, that almost seemed adamant to break out in rain. As such, the streets, and the town itself was ultimately rather empty, despite the relief that peace and quiet brought him, it didn't serve business very well. In fact, Matty was quick to consider shutting down the shop early: confident that not a soul was at all bothered that day.

Despite the frothing excitement with which he considered the notion, it never did quite make it off the ground, for before Matty could even ponder it in a manner at all logistical, it was shattered entirely to pieces, with the simple opening of the shop door.

Yet the eyes that met Matty's were certainly not those of a customer - they were far too familiar for that: insistently burning two perfect holes right into Matty's chest, as if burrowing to make a home.

"You've been hiding from me, haven't you?"

Despite the phrasing, Matty could gather that it wasn't really a question: much more of an observation, spoke with undisturbed confidence, as fingers brushed over the spines of books, lined up neatly upon the shelves.

"Hiding?" The word escaped Matty's lips, clinging to the spine of a shaky breath.

George wrangled his lips into a smile. "It's been a week."

As the silence grew old, he subjected them both to his musings. "I think I might have missed you."

"Well..." Matty drew out a breath, as if somewhat taken aback, as if his whole body was rewiring itself as he clung to George's gaze. "That's... exceptionally kind of you."

George snorted; sarcasm didn't wear quite so well on him in such a state.

"No but seriously..." Matty drew out a sigh, yanking his gaze free and to the floor. "What is it? More drugs? Drugs you want me to hide - drugs you want me to... take? I don't know." His eyes burned like beacons, yet despite themselves, lost out in the dark.

George regarded him with wonder: a stewed away sort of compassion, staring down at the boy he was forever yet to quite figure out.

"No." He told him simply, daring to take that step closer. "I'm here because I wanted to see you. Because I think I missed you, as stupid, as soppy as it sounds. Don't tell anyone, but I really did miss you."

Matty managed a smile, tearing his eyes up to meet George's.

"Well, look at that." He mused aloud. "I'm worth missing?"

"Of course." George exclaimed, as if he really did mean it; such a notion couldn't help but baffle Matty.

"Sure it's not just my extraordinary capacity to fall from relatively stable places? Or maybe just that I can't say no to you..." Matty drew his lungs up into his throat: stumbling, choking, forever lost up inside his head.

"You can't say no to me?" George laughed like he didn't quite believe it. "The things I'd ask of you if that were true." He curled his lips up into a smirk: Matty froze, eyes wide, fixated.

"Like what?" His insisted, voice trembling, suddenly so very aware of the forever decreasing distance between them.

George shook his head, well aware of the panic festering in Matty's eyes; he wasn't going to push it - he wasn't stupid.

"Like what?" Matty demanded with an increased ferocity.

Still, all George had to offer him was a shake of his head.

"Bad stuff?" In George's continued silence, Matty elected instead to fill in the gaps for himself. "Like drugs, like-"

"Shut up." George told him, struggling to keep his voice soft. "What's got into you?" He asked, honestly.

"Just..." Matty stared up at him, stomach twisting into knots. "There's some shit my friends said. About... you. About how you're in a gang, about how I need to stay away from you."

He drew out a sigh, daring not to hold George's gaze. "I don't know whether to believe it."

George just scoffed, taking a step backwards, respecting at least that Matty might appreciate the space. "Have your friends ever met me?" It was indeed, an honest question.

Matty thought for a moment before shaking his head.

"And do you really trust someone's judgement on a person they've never met?" He arched his eyebrows, watching slowly, as second by second, moment by moment, cogs began to turn up inside his brain.

"And what do you think of me, honestly?" George drew out a sigh. "Was that the kind of impression you got?"

Matty shook his head.

With eyes fixated up at George, he wondered aloud. "I don't think my friends would want to meet you. I don't think they're the kind of people... that would... allow themselves to be wrong about someone. To give people second chances. As nice as they are, I feel like they make judgements. And I think even, they have this idea of me as someone, someone I'm just not."

He drew breath. "And that scares me." He uttered, as if George might somehow have all the answers.

"Fuck them." George told him rather plainly. "Fuck your friends and fuck what they think. Fuck anyone that makes you unhappy. Well... not fuck, but... you know what I mean."

Matty couldn't help but giggle. It was a gesture that caught the both of them off guard.

"I'm not going to fuck my friends." Matty clarified, as it might set George at ease.

"Alright." George pulled his lips up into a grin. "Promise not to fuck my friends either and I'll let you meet them. Because honestly, who the fuck ever said we were a 'gang'? That's just..." George shook his head. "They're just some of my mates, and alright, some of them aren't always very nice, but-"

"Yeah, that's reassuring." Matty couldn't help but add: eternally dubious.

George shook his head. "Seriously, Jesse wants to meet you. Wants to figure out who smoked all that weed." George broke out into a grin, just as Matty's face grew impossibly white. "No, he wants to meet you. To meet Matty. The boy I'm always on about."

And it was those words that did things to Matty's chest that he simply could not explain. Maybe after all, George was wrong; he couldn't say no to him at all, as here was every sign that this was ultimately a terrible idea, and still he stood by George's side, practically leaping at the possibility.

The walk to the house wasn't particularly lengthy, yet still the moments stretched out of their own accord, as if seeking some purpose within filling the time and unnecessarily pacifying the moment.

By the time Matty had closed the shop, the sun hung low in the skies: eager to slip out beyond the horizon and allow the darkness to envelope them entirely. Still, Matty found comfort in that notion: free from the blinding, white lights of the daytime, and the menial kind of common sensical thoughts that he ought to have chased up until the point in which he fully understand every one of them.

The night seemed to give him leeway, to give the both of them the air to breathe, for fingers to brush gently against one another's as they walked, and yet require nothing to be said of it. They shared a cigarette - just the one between the two of them; it made Matty glad for the thick blanket of the darkness that clung to them, for he knew that people would have stared and talked and wondered if they had at all been able to see.

Reality presented itself soon enough: it was under the cloak of darkness that Matty felt free to breathe as himself, to live through his body, and not just curl up inside his chest. He looked up at George and wondered if he could feel it; the change, perhaps not even just in him, but the two of them.

For there was something emanating from George, that although, Matty entirely failed to put his finger on, still remained as something of note: a distant wonder that entwined the two of them further as they made their way through winding, abandoned, late night streets, in search of a little rundown house on the corner.

Matty was left idle, to his own skin, to his own bones, as George reached into his jacket pocket and turned his key in the lock. The very moment that the door slid open, the sounds of life and laughter resonated from inside; George couldn't help but let a smile tug at his lips.

Matty watched him: in awe, in wonder, and followed the older boy inside. He noted immediately, the sense of disarray in which the whole house seemed to be; comprised of peeling, ugly, flowery wallpaper, rampant coffee stains, wine stains, the yellowing of tar coating all that had once gleamed and glistened white. Cracks and scrapes tore through the furniture to the extent that it seemed as they had been placed their upon intent, and above the two of them, a lightbulb hung naked from the ceiling: flickering every few seconds.

Still, despite it all, Matty couldn't avoid the warmth that overtook him - for it was more than just a physicality, more than just the heating, more than just the weather, more than just the day. It was the kind of warmth that seemed to dictate the notion that the house was alive, and indeed physically so; it was a welcoming warmth that drew Matty in, even as he stumbled over the doorstep - hesitant and unwavering - it pulled him inside, making it clear to him that regardless of what became of him, regardless of who he'd once been, this house was forever a home.

It made a change from the darkness: from respite he'd found in the smothering inky black skies, for inside, under even flickering light, there was still no need to hide. Matty brushed gentle fingertips up against the wall to his right, taking off a thin layer of dust with it; the gesture, however, served as a 'thank you', an ineloquent gratitude, all he could quite muster at the moment.

George watched him, half-way amused, smile curling up at the corners of his lips.

"It's nice." Matty murmured in response: unsure as to whether he was speaking to George or to the house itself. "It's a nice place."

George snorted: desperate to present the facade that he found such an idea ludicrous. Yet, of course, deep down, the pull, the warmth - he felt it too. Matty could see it instantly.

"I like it." He concluded, turning his head towards the doors that extended off from the hallway: intrigued by the sounds of muffled conversation from behind them. As much as the idea of meeting George's friends excited him, he had to confess that simply nothing had ever intimidated him more.

He'd seemed to have clung to this notion of making a good impression, as if that held any sort of worth in a house like this - one that lay itself out on the table, bad impressions aside, and held its soul and inclinations up to the light for the whole world to see. But Matty couldn't do that - not quite yet; there was still so much he clung to, still so much dragging him, and although tonight was certainly a night, it was by no means the night to end them all.

George offered him a smile before leading him down the corridor. "Come on." He offered, leaving Matty to trail behind him: eyes wandering around the room, as if somehow still entirely captivated by their surroundings.

When George pushed the living room door open, he came to reveal no more than four people, despite the sounds of laughter and excitement overheard that had seemed to have accounted for at least twenty. Two girls were sat together upon one particularly moth-eaten sofa, whereas one boy stood before them, fumbling with a small bag of weed, as the second paced around the back of the room, as if to ransack the shelves for something.

It was the girls who were the first to take note of their intrusion: looking from George to Matty with a kind of intrigue that Matty struggled to quite make any sense of at all.

"So that's where you've been." The curly haired girl wrestled a smirk from her lips. She turned to the other three, as suddenly, Matty and George, standing hesitant in the doorway, seemed to command the whole world's attention.

George drew out a sigh, seeming to glare at each of his friends in turn; Matty couldn't help but deny that the encounter had entirely continued to baffle him.

"This is Matty." He gestured vaguely towards him, leaving Matty to flush under the weight of several imploring gazes. "Be nice to him." He added, his voice significantly sterner that time around.

The boy who'd been fumbling around with the weed, took in a sigh, shooting the other three an unreadable expression before approaching the two. He glanced from George to Matty, and then back again, before eventually settling piercing eyes into George's throat as he addressed him.

"Is he your new 'girl' then?" He drew out a laugh: amused, at best by the situation.

Matty's heart froze inside of his chest. "I'm not a girl." His tone was sloppy: words uttered all too fast - the entire notion was almost entirely comical.

"Jesse-" George uttered, as if in warning.

"I know." Jesse drew his lips out into a grin, disregarding George entirely in favour of the curly haired boy, with the eyes that flickered so bright in the light. "Oh, but he's not fussed."

Before Matty could quite even began to think about comprehending just what that could mean, the other boy made his way over from the other corner of the room. He eyed Matty and George for just a moment, before concluding that his interest had indeed receded, and turned to Jesse instead.

"It's half nine." He uttered, speaking more with his eyes. Matty was too caught up in the sudden whirlwind mess of his own head to even fathom beginning to dissect the meaning behind such a notion.

"Yeah." Jesse drew out a sigh, thrusting the bag of weed into George's grasp. "We've gotta..." He eyed Matty momentarily. "Go."

George folded his arms across his chest. "Alright. Fine." It was evident that he didn't exactly appreciate their time, yet still, he had no qualms with letting them pass out into the hallway and through the front door.

In their absence, George led Matty into the room, positioning himself on the slightly less dilapidated of the sofas, and gesturing for Matty to take the seat next him.

"Don't worry about Jesse - he's a dickhead." One of the girls supplied, all too nonchalantly, as she lit herself a cigarette.

"Mmm..." The other nodded in particularly enthusiastic agreement. "I'm Gemma - that's Chelsea." She explained, gesturing to the girl beside her.

Matty nodded, warming up to their smiles. "Nice to meet you."

George laughed, so very amused by Matty's sudden insistence to be polite, especially to the girls that had just proudly declared that another of their friends was a dickhead.

"You know George goes on about you..." Chelsea drew her lips out in a grin; George looked as if he could have killed her in that moment.

"Oh..." Matty flushed red, stumbling over his words as he glanced back and forth between George and the girls. "Does h-he?"

"Good things." Chelsea assured him: settling the worried look in his eyes. "Thinks you're sweet."

George wanted to bury himself between the cushions of the sofa and condemn himself to die there: it seemed like a much better alternative to whatever their conversation seemed insistent to throw at him.

Matty's cheeks burned red, staring up at George with pure disbelief. "Sweet? Have you even met me at all? I think I've spent more time taking the piss out of you than anything else."

"Yeah, but..." George drew out a sigh, nestling his face in the palms of his hands. "That's kind of sweet that, isn't it?"

"You fucking weirdo." Matty shook his head in disbelief, to wide grins and eager laughter from the girls, yet nothing more than burning cheeks on George's part.

There was a great tug of something Matty struggled to explain resonating from the depths of his stomach, but he elected to ignore it for the moment - to push it away and simply pray that it might choose not to plague his mind, that the house might just fight it off, smothering it as it pushed it to the ground. For all he wanted, was that evening, not even just with George's friends, but with George himself - curled up on that sofa, talking shit, and not giving a fuck.

It was truly a wonderful notion: freeing, and perhaps even entirely incomprehensible to the skittish, wide-eyed boy who'd locked himself up inside the bookshop to avoid his problems: to chase away every question that had ever once chanced demanding an answer of him.

For in that moment, under warm light and comforting eyes, it didn't matter - truly. The house made it known; it was irrelevant - how he felt about George, and just what that might one day amount to. He wished every house could have been like this one, perhaps cracks and dust aside. Yet still, they meant nothing in the scheme of things.

Matty allowed the house to envelope him: to lose himself completely in its warmth, as strands of conversation drifted around his head - distant, incomprehensible. It was however, comfortable that way; he felt safe, with his side pressed to George's, and his eyelids heavy as the night dragged in.

He dared not worry what might become of the morning, for whatever horror might dare to present itself in the sunlight, it was clear that for that night, in that house, it simply could not concern him.

There was perhaps an element of the notion that felt ridiculous - even dangerous, almost. Yet still, Matty clung to it like it was all he had, and indeed somehow all he might ever need.

Time flew by him, blanketing him in an inescapable cocoon: condemned to lay up inside his head for the night. It wasn't a fate he took much to dislike to however, in fact, it seemed rather necessary - to put his head to rest for a while: to let foreign air freely into his lungs. The house would keep him safe; he trusted that.

If Matty had not been asleep, he would have found himself in eternal debates with himself over the matter of exactly where he ought to draw the line between George and the house, as from where things seemed to be, there was hardly much of an emotional difference anymore.

As he knew deep in his heart, and through every one of his bones, George would keep him safe; he'd never quite trusted it, but he'd proved it now, after all. And that could never be something Matty could escape.

That wasn't quite how things came to be in the end: George coming to Matty's aid - that was all a bit fairytale, the story of the perfect, happy, beautiful boys from the city; still, Matty couldn't help but fantasise about it.

Matty was awoken in the middle of the night: shadows cast long around the whole room, dark besides one single candle lit on the edge of a shelf across the length of the room.

He blinked slow, taking in the moment: struggling to quite assure himself of who and where he was. The more troubling question was, however, why he was awake. As moments passed him by, in what felt like half-time, with heavy eyelids, and twitching fingertips, he concluded that there was no disturbance in the room, in the house.

It was then, that he laid himself back down on the sofa to get back to sleep that everything clicked. The absence became far too apparent with the butterflies in his stomach, with the air around him suddenly rushing and swarming as if in ovation. His chest clenched, his heart stilled, his lungs trembled; George was gone.

Matty didn't think twice before stumbling to his feet, brushing messy curls from his face as he attempted to traverse the unfamiliar, pitch black room. He didn't reach the door without a few scrapes across his knees, but such a notion presented itself as entirely irrelevant in the light of George's absence.

He felt entirely stupid as he reached the hallway and the brief notion of George having just gone to the bathroom hit him; he thought at least that it might provide him with some relief. Yet it took no more than ten seconds longer for such to be inevitably proven as not the case, for from the kitchen, Matty caught a soft sniffling sound.

It stopped him dead in his tracks, as he took care to take silent footsteps closer towards the doorway. He struggled to make things out through the darkness, but there, before him, was George - there was no doubt about it.

Matty watched: stomach descending to his knees as the moments drew longer, distorted almost. For under the spell of the darkness and the erratic convulsions of Matty's heart, George seemed to stand there making himself a glass of water for hours, tears even beginning to freeze in place upon his cheeks.

He found that he just didn't quite have it within himself to walk in: to face George like this - this new George, who was clearly in quite a mess. Matty didn't reckon he knew at all how to deal with that. Yet, as the minutes ticked by, and Matty watched George, he condemned himself to wonder just what it was that was wrecking so much havoc up inside his head.

He thought for a moment that it killed him - just to stand there, to let it happen, to let him be so obviously hurt. Matty thought about George's arms curled tightly around him: having caught him, having kept perhaps the most meaningful of all promises.

It was with that which Matty finally dared: pushing his words out like a breeze through the darkness. As gentle as it was, it caught George's attention nonetheless.

"Are you alright?" It took Matty all of two seconds to conclude that it was the most stupid question he could have asked.

George turned to face him: eyes blown wide, as if he couldn't quite believe that the boy standing before him in the lowlight was at all real.

"No, you're not." Matty answered for himself, daring to take a step closer, running his fingertips across the walls as he did so, as still, even in the midst of whatever this had turned out to be, the house brought him comfort through it.

George drew out a sigh, desperately trying to rub the tears from his eyes. Matty reached for the lightswitch on his way in: illuminating George's red cheeks, and messy hair, fit together imperfectly with the distant kind of glossy look in his eyes.

Matty knew then that he was entirely out of his depth; yet still, he continued to swim.

"What's wrong?" He asked, standing within arm's reach of George, yet still he was forever hesitant to touch him, as if he might crumble in his grasp.

George shook his head, staring Matty down for just a moment, before the world seemed entirely unreal: the moment eternal, and yet forever quite of his grasp. Perhaps it was only that very feeling that could quite explain what he did next, for nothing else seemed to quite cover it.

As upon that Friday morning, at barely ten minutes past three, with tears on his face, George grabbed Matty by the hair and kissed him.

Blood rushed throughout Matty's body, as if his heart had stopped entirely, for in that moment, as he hung limp, pliant, he let George move him into shape, into the boy he wanted him to be. And those butterflies from Matty's stomach, they finally took flight.

It took all of thirty seconds before George actually seemed to realise just what he'd done, yet still, the realisation came crashing down upon him with an indescribable force, as he yanked himself away from Matty, stumbling back onto his feet, and seeming to fling himself backwards across the half of the room.

In the silence, in the comedown, Matty stood, still, beyond words, beyond comprehension, for George was still on his lips, for he tasted like early morning air, and tobacco, and boy. And Matty knew then, in that very moment that it was not something he'd be able to get out of his mind for the rest of his life.

"I shouldn't have done that." George's voice lay low, as if itself in repent.

As much as Matty's heart was ferociously inclined to disagree, it was not something he could formulate into thoughts, let alone words. Instead, he gave a nod, pulling his head to the floor.

"Yeah..." He managed a breathy sigh, as if stumbling to relearn the entire English language in the space of a minute. "I've-...." Matty stopped himself, guessing somehow that any reminder about Charlotte was just something that George didn't need that moment.

Yet still, as they stood there, it struggled to yet quite sink in, for George had kissed him. Beautiful, idiotic, and a little bit intimidating, George Daniel had kissed him. On the mouth. And it was beyond describable, perhaps even beyond anything else Matty had ever experienced before, and that didn't half scare him.

"Fuck." George cursed, burying his head in his hands and throwing his back against the wall.

"It's okay..." Matty's voice was little more a desperate whimper. "George, fuck, what's wrong?"

George once again shook his head. "I just keep fucking things up."

"No you don't." Matty told him, as if he had any right to say such a thing, as if he really knew George at all.

"I just fucked this up, didn't I?" George cut into his words with the kind of brash laughter that had Matty's insides trembling. "Fucking hell. I really shouldn't have-"

"George..." Matty drew out a sigh. "If you... want to... if it would make you feel better, we can just pretend that it never happened-"

"Fuck pretending." George threw out a sigh. "That's all I ever fucking do. Pretend to be this, pretend to be that. It's fucked. It's actually fucked."

"What do you mean?" Matty found it within him to dare to inquire.

George shook his head, pacing around the room, before finally turning to face Matty under the dim kitchen light, and drawing in a breath.

"I fucked things up with my family, so I left, and I went and pretended that none of it had ever happened and that I never knew them. But then, course, I fucked things up with the friend I was staying with, so again I left, and pretended, and then on to the next somebody to fuck over. It's a cycle. It's inescapable, and here we go again. Here I've fucked up now - properly-"

"No you haven't." Matty demanded with more force than he was at all capable of commanding. "Don't leave. You're not leaving - I'm not letting you, I'm not, I'm-"

"Fuck..." George threw his head back against the wall, still, turning to look at Matty, like after this all, he still failed to quite figure him out.

With a shaky breath, he found it within himself to continue. "But it's what... it's what I always do."

Matty shook his head.

"Fuck always. Fuck everything before. Think about right now. Think about this kitchen. Think about this house. Think about your friends. Think about all you'd leave behind. Think about... me. Think about... us."

George drew in a deep breath, and for the first time, changed his mind.

-

happy new year hope you've had good holidays and that

hope u enjoyed this chapter

votes and comments would be chill

lov u all very much