Drowning was a rather odd concept. It's not something anyone can properly grasp without experiencing it, and still anyone that lives to tell the tale has not really experienced it at all. Sure enough, water may have flooded their lungs, and they may have lain still under the most tempestuous of waves, but they never did truly drown. For how it truly was to drown was long beyond anyone's proper comprehension.

In more ways than one, falling in love was an awful lot like drowning. It was perhaps an abstract comparison to draw, however both love and drowning were already rather abstract concepts. Where did you draw the line between life and death? Where did you draw the line between lovers and friends? At what specific moment did everything make that change?

The sea always looked so inviting when you were stood upon the shore. With golden sand between bare toes, and the golden sun beating down upon you from above, the scene was more or less idyllic. Back of a postcard picturesque.

With hands outstretched, tanning and burning all at once under the sun's rays, it was of course, only a matter of time. With everything, it was always a matter of time. Eventuality was a cruel mistress, and an undefeated champion. For the moment you stepped foot upon the shoreline, she bade you to tread into the ocean.

When it came to the matters of love, that was the first glance. That was the tug of your heart. And every broken promise to yourself - that it wouldn't be like that this time. Though the heart never listened, for it communicated not in words, not in thoughts, but in unexplainable convulsions, beats akin to the rolling of tide.

Perhaps it was just a little chilly once you got your feet wet. Perhaps you yearned to retreat back onto the shore. But you got used to it. You always did. And under the sun's beating rays, the pull of the waves seemed so enticing.

It was always more than tide lapping over your ankles, always more than a few hesitant smiles. For before you could entirely process what was happening, control of your body was long gone, and you had set out on an unstoppable journey through the waves.

First kiss. Knee deep.

A regular thing. Waist deep.

Sex. Chest deep.

Love. Uncertain. Neck deep.

By the time you could say 'I love you' and truly mean it, the water was up to your eyes. And there was no turning back after that. In your lover's response came the defining moment - came the acception or the rejection: came learning to breathe underwater or drowning. For the water would not stop, the waves of the ocean would not still, not for a single weeping soul.

Falling in love was a lot like drowning. Or at least, the last few minutes beforehand. By the point you knew there was no real solution, by the point you were certain nature and fate had concurred upon the cruel hand you'd been drawn. At that point, you just had to hold your breath and pray.

And in the morning, perhaps you wake up, disoriented upon the shore, sand between your fingers and toes, or perhaps you simply wouldn't at all. Perhaps that was where you'd lie - the bottom of the ocean forever.

Matty had never learned how to swim. It wasn't a skill that he would need to call upon in a tiny, land-locked town in the north of England. Still, it was perhaps rather notable considering the circumstances.

For he'd followed this boy into the middle of the ocean without a shred of knowledge as to how he might reach the shore again. All Matty bore in his heart was the dreadful kind of all consuming hope. It dared not to label itself false, although it hardly hurried to conceal its identity.

Despite all of his better sense, despite every heartbroken romance he'd read, despite every sad story he'd ever heard, despite every lesson his mother had ever told him, despite every word of warning his friends had ever uttered, Matty followed George into the ocean. Hand in his.

Yet, again, falling in love was so much like drowning in the fact that you could never quite plan for it. You never did exactly know just when it was happening until, there it was, and where was the air that was once in your lungs, where was the sense that was once in your head?

Matty held George's hand. Tightly. Clueless.

He told himself that George at least must have known what he was doing. If only on the grounds of him being two years older. He didn't.

George's eyes traced Matty's smile. Hopeful. Clueless.

The TV was on in the background. Meaningless white noise. Serving to extinguish the sounds of silence from an empty house. The others had gone; they didn't talk about it. They didn't talk about them.

Falling in love was an odd sensation, through and through. It was infinitely more powerful, and infinitely more powerless than you could ever figure. Love took your whole world - took everything you'd ever once known, everything you'd ever once called your own, and reframed it, rebuilt it in its own image.

For in the whole world that night, there sat only two. George Daniel, eighteen, tired eyes, and messy hair, watching the television. And Matty Healy, sixteen, ashen, sickly skin, and caffeine jolted vision, watching the boy beside him.

George hadn't noticed. Matty's stare. Or Matty's eyes - twitching, slightly. Or Matty's skin, growing paler by the minute. Or Matty's shivers. Or Matty's lips - stretched out slack and faded. George hadn't noticed everyone else leave. George hadn't noticed himself, and the hole he'd carved for himself.

It wasn't that George was unobservant, although he was. It was that George was sober.

Sense called upon a world in which sobriety had much of the opposite effect. Although sense called upon a world in which George had never lived in. He didn't grieve that lack of clarity in his surroundings, in his state of mind, he just grieved the smile of boy who'd left that world behind.

George hadn't meant drag Matty out into the ocean. He just did.

Spontaneity was a recurring demon throughout George's years. For he'd never at all meant to live home at sixteen. He just did. He'd never at all meant to become so dependent of drugs. He just did.

George felt an awful lot like his every decision was predetermined by some sort of higher power. That his life was framed in the manner of some sort of cruel joke: a prolonged experiment, perhaps to entertain some sadistic, extra-terrestrial king out there, somewhere.

Despite that, despite himself, George didn't believe in God. Much like George didn't believe in love. Much like George didn't believe in falling. Much like George didn't believe in too much, or too little. Or boys that deserved more than ashtray armchairs, and cobwebbed ceilings, and the kind of love that took but never gave.

George knew only one thing more than Matty. And that was that this wasn't good for either of them. He knew, in essence that it would destroy one, or the both of them. But George had always been so inherently self-destructive, and bade farewell to the illusion that he'd ever once been a good person, and let Matty crumble to pieces in his lap.

"I'm tired." Matty's voice grew softer with every day. With every hazy afternoon. It served as tantalising proof that George, was in fact, ruining him.

"Mmm?" George cocked an eyebrow up to the sky. To the non-existent clock on the wall - for no, that had been a different home, that had been a different world, a different ocean, with a different boy.

Henry's house had bore polished ornaments and pristine wallpaper in elegant pastel shades, and carefully attended-to potted plants, and a great ornate clock in the wall - face donned with roman numerals, and an elegantly sculpted golden frame. That had been the one.

"Can we go to bed?" He continued on in the same lethargic drivel, although George sought to suspect that it was some sort of a front. Perhaps upon the sole basis that he had chosen the word 'bed' and not the word 'sleep'. And perhaps also the word 'we' and not the word 'I'.

George had figured, over time, that to know Matty, you had to know his words. George spoke more in gestures, in smiles, in journeys, in possessions, in the way his eyes might have moved across the room.

Matty offered up very little when he spoke. Even with George. Especially with George. He folded in upon himself, tugged everything in, and spoke only in words. Very carefully chosen and formatted words. He'd taken care, he'd taken precision in presenting himself through the least amount of syllables necessary. It was an art, so to speak, and one he loved to observe.

But when George wasn't observing Matty, he was tearing him apart.

And Matty was all hands and looks, and smiles and smirks, and noises in his throat, and beads of sweat on his forehead, the moment George laid him down upon his back.

It was an odd thought, but that didn't cause George to abstain from thinking it. He wondered, more often than not, if each and every day he was slowly, but surely, fucking the life out of Matthew Healy: tearing away, whatever part of him made work so perfectly. What made him the beautiful perfect boy George had striven to known.

These were not vindictive endeavours, instead somewhere halfway sober, come four in the morning, George had lost his mind, in the golden ring in Matty's eyes. It flickered like a faulty light. Like every creaking floorboard in that house.

Jesse was gone. George wondered, sometimes, if he'd even ever existed.

He forgot what sober meant anymore. And if he ever truly was.

Matty laid on his back. And up he stared. Expectantly.

George wondered, in the briefest moment of clarity, just what he'd done. The moment passed, as he felt his soul scorned by the agonising stare of what lay above, cutting in through the window. He closed the curtains. And still Matty stared.

Words had abandoned him. They'd left him here.

It had been George's fault. He was sure of that, at least. He threw himself down on the bed and kissed Matty again.

He stared back into the hallway; Jesse wasn't here anymore. Some part, deep inside of his heart, torn back away in whatever was left of his soul, wondered if this was even the same house anymore.

When did your home, become someone else's? When was that moment? When was the change? When did Matty stop being his own and become George's? When did George stop thinking in ways he could understand?

He kissed Matty stupid, for fear that he might read his mind; terrified, somehow, that he had the answers. He didn't doubt that of him. Matty's eyes burned bright, but still they felt dead, for George was dying here - slowly. It was a terrible mess, and fate sat back and laughed, for the first time, it was none of her doing at all.

This one, every wretched evening. It was all on George. On the patterns racing like vipers around his head. Matty's skin was too pale now. He noticed only as he tore holes in it. As he turned it purple between his lips.

But you could water a dead rose as many times you liked, and still the buds would never blossom.

"I love you." Matty whispered up into his neck, tracing his spine with his fingertips. George shivered into his touch, like the last shake an animal gave before it died.

He couldn't chase his own head anymore. This was him. This was him. Empty house. Never quite sober. Head chasing himself out of it. He'd left. He'd chased himself out.

And a month ago, George and Matty had sat together out on the bridge and kissed and swore they knew how love worked. And that was how it had all begun.

-

Twenty eight days.

Grey skies. Washed white. Not quite pure white but forever grey. An ache. Something beyond words.

George loved the streets. Bright lights, to dimly lit winding back lanes. He craved the freedom of the fresh air. George wondered if the reason why he'd run from so many homes was his fear of being closed in. No walls, no matter how familiar, could ever quite be his friends.

Forever, George wondered if 'friends' really did mean a thing. And whether 'lovers' held any more glory, for still, despite his constant push to suppress it, every night George caught the stars in the night sky and felt a thought: stolen from his head, a thought for Cam.

Cam had been both timid and wild at entirely the same time. He'd been too much and all too little in the very same moment. And George just wished for something that had mattered. He'd spent hours, he'd spent days convincing himself that every boy, every girl was always the one.

Why he bothered was beyond him. He figured, perhaps, that he just needed to feel loved.

But Matty hadn't been like that. With Matty, George had spent every day convincing himself that he didn't love him. It had made a change, at least.

Although, the change seemed to be quite a bit more than temporary. It clung to him like unsavoury spite, or loaded words, or eternally strung out chains of curses. Jesse had noticed it too.

Jesse didn't notice much. But this, had certainly not escaped him.

He failed, however, to find the exact courage to directly address the matter for a rather lengthy amount of time. If Jesse had really had any sort of proper moral compass, he would have perhaps declared that it had failed him on that account. But George and Jesse lived in a shitty little house in a shitty little town, with a life's aim to get high enough to find fascination in the cracks on the ceiling.

Jesse missed that part of George. His George. Or perhaps just the mark he'd made upon him. The bit he'd tied down to the house, to his head. To the sorry little world they lived in. Jesse sought to fix things. If they ever did need fixing.

For the cracks remained unfilled, and he just stared, at this boy, who might have been his best friend, if he'd ever believed in best friends. But Jesse had never bothered with that shit as a kid. Instead he'd overturned wasps' nests and waded deep into rivers. As if on some kind of juvenile death wish.

Still, he'd been a great deal more alive as a kid, it seemed. But hadn't they all?

"I miss you." Jesse's words were always cloaked in the truth, but forever failed to quite contain it. "You're never out with me anymore. Where are our drugs? Where are our parties?" He laughed that great bark of a Jesse Rutherford laugh; the one that always reminded George of a hunting dog let off its lead. Although it forever lead him to wonder, just who was the fox, and who was the huntsman.

"I'm out with you now." George muttered, words sliding bitterly between his teeth. It wasn't even a lie; they were. The streets were grey and cold, mirroring what lay inside - it was not at a social outing - George had somewhat stopped being social at all, but Jesse regarded it with gratitude nonetheless.

"Because you have to be." Jesse offered up what they both already know. "Because it's your turn." Jesse gave a nudge to the lump in George's jacket pocket. He smiled; George did not.

"I know." George knew. George knew a thousand times over, like a thousand reasons why he should get out of this house, and out of this town, and never look Jesse in the eye ever again.

He always quite struggled with defining the nature of his and Jesse's relationship. At first, it had been enemies sober, and best friends high. Which, admittedly had been a rather intriguing outcome, but not something George had felt particularly obliged to meddle with. Yet the ricocheting mess they'd landed in over the months tended to rear a much more hideous head.

"We're late." Jesse reminded him; all too clinical, formal, and sincere. George forgot, sometimes, that Jesse Rutherford did, at times, think of himself as a proper businessman.

George gave the cocaine a nudge in his pocket and rolled his eyes.

"He can wait." He supplied, although it was far beyond his place to do so.

Jesse looked as if he ought to have slapped him for such a comment. But he did not. He inhaled, slowly, as if it pained him, and sucked his tongue against his cheek.

"And Matty can't."

George had known the comment was coming; still, it didn't lessen the blow.

"What's that supposed to mean?" George balled his hands into fists and tried to even out his breathing.

Jesse gave a shrug: apathetic, entirely untruthful. "I don't know, George. What do you think?"

George thought about punching him. But he, at least, was yet to get quite that stupid.

It was then that the street rounded off into a corner and Jesse straightened himself up: pushing out his shoulders, so very desperate to look that extra little bit intimidating. George wondered, sometimes, if it had been his height that had led Jesse to consider taking him under his wing.

He thought that should have bothered him, but it changed nothing at all. They were still two rotten people, stood on a rotten street corner, searching for what was wrong.

Because there was. Something wrong. That was exceedingly evident.

Jesse twitched a little. George stood so very still.

It was then, that shadows cast all wrong, grew so very tall as they mingled with the light, and from the hedgerow of a seemingly menial house, stepped a man - short hair, broad shoulders, tall, taller than Jesse, but not quite as tall as George.

Jesse didn't say a word. The man already knew.

As he finally stepped out into full view of the sunlight, George couldn't deny it any longer. For the man before him stood clad in blue. A clinical, sickly blue, like plastered walls, and reception desks, and forever tensing waiting rooms, and-

Before George could quite draw a further conclusion, Jesse was gone.

It took him a while to properly process the mere possibility, but as he glanced back and forth, it was evident that the space beside him was very empty, and there was a distant silhouette darting down the road.

George should have run too. But he didn't.

George stared the man in the eyes. It wasn't a gesture of bravery, it was one of sedance. The man quirked his lips up into a smile and took a step closer.

"Alright then. Do we see how this is going to go?"

George nodded.

It was well within the realms of reality for him to run. He was confident, maybe even over-confident, but confident nonetheless, that he could outrun him, or that he could at least hide. That he could somehow, by any means, get himself out of the situation.

The funny thing was, that he just couldn't. Couldn't bring himself to.

As if it wasn't quite worth the effort.

Like the water was growing deeper, pulling him down, and he'd rather just let it than battle the waves on the swim to shore.

He understood then. About the boy he'd left behind.

For that moment, that boy was him.

George wondered if this was it. The last time he couldn't run away. Despite every sense he might have had about him; the idea excited him, furiously. Burning like a flame against his skin.

-

"It's not mine."

George pleaded. Albeit, honestly.

Such desperation, however, hardly fared well upon anyone. But, of course, they knew that. And still, they looked down upon him like they knew him too.

George sat back in his chair and turned his tongue over in his mouth. They watched him still.

"It's not mine." He repeated, on the off chance that they hadn't heard him; he knew, of course, that wasn't the case. They were waiting, waiting for something more, waiting for the version of events that they'd much rather call the truth.

George reckoned they might be waiting a while.

"Who's then?" The younger dared to inquire, as minutes wasted ticked past thirty five. George could be exceedingly patient, he'd discovered.

George dug his teeth down into his bottom lip. "A... friend's..." He knew the words didn't quite fit his lips.

The older arched an eyebrow.

"He's not my friend." George corrected himself. "But it's his coke. And it's not all of it."

The younger dared to try on a smile. "Very kind of you - to pin the blame on him."

George shrugged his conscience from his shoulders. "Very kind of him - to run away."

The older gave a nod, as if seriously considering all George had to say for himself.

"What's this guy's name?" He knew he was pushing it; he knew the look in George's eyes, he'd seen it all, a million times before.

"And why should I tell you that?" George stretched out back in his chair, desperate to distance himself from the police officers as much as was physically possible. It was, however, hardly a significant amount in a room the size of a half-bathroom.

"Because, kid." He continued, nonchalant, entirely disinterested. "Possession. This is where you make the decision, isn't it? One of you takes the fall. Either him or you. I suppose if he was your friend, you ought to have been decent about it, but you don't seem awfully sure of that anymore."

George shook his head. "He's not my friend."

"Well, is it his cocaine?" The younger continued, sadistic grin splitting across his lips. George watched to punch him too, amidst the entire contents of the rest of the world.

George gave a nod, daring to lean forward. He'd fucked this up already; he knew. But there was always another place, another 'home', another four walls. If George was determined of anything, this wasn't what ended him.

It had perhaps destroyed the at all decent part of him; the part of him worth keeping alive, but George had long grown unattached to that part of himself. Perhaps that was the sign to let go. Perhaps there was no sign at all.

He reckoned maybe he'd been the huntsman from the start. And he'd been the depths of the deep blue sea. And there was everything worth keeping alive rocking upon the waves out in a little raft somewhere. But he'd laid it to rest a long time ago.

"I can give you his full name." George didn't hear his own voice. His head was radio static. A world in which it mattered. He thought about the world he'd leave behind; the beautiful boy, the sense of everything - false, but forever comforting.

"Good." They, of course, encouraged him. George knew it was only their job, yet still, he couldn't help but let it under his skin.

"And his address. There's more in there. He keeps shit in the kitchen drawers. Right at the back. He thinks it's... the most fucking secure thing in the world, but nothing's... nothing's really ever safe the moment somebody else knows about it..."

"And if there's nothing there-"

"There is." George cut him off: eyes blazen, determined. He wasn't sure where he was going to go, what he was going to do, but he knew in that moment, that he was not going to let himself drown.

"You'll see it." He continued, folding his arms across his chest; eyes up to the sky as he bade goodbye to his conscience.

This was it - his real last chance. He decided it this time for sure. And it wasn't going to end - it wasn't going to end like this.

-

Dilapidated was the word. It brought George sick to his stomach. Although, it certainly wasn't alone in that.

Twenty four days ago, George had lost a part of himself.

He'd never quite liked it, he'd never quite trusted it, but it had been his home for some time - this house. The cracks in the walls weren't quite the same when he knew who had put them there. For this wasn't a place of reason, of malice, of intent, of law, of judgement, of cruelty, of mercy, of truth, of lies. It was a place of being, and that was it.

George's fingertips scraped dust from the walls. It wasn't a home anymore.

And he wished he'd never left. He wished the cold had drawn in and killed him in the end. Or he wished, at least, for a better world, one in which he'd had it within himself to take the place. A world in which they were, legally, his drugs. And not Jesse's.

The house was empty.

Empty in a way that 'empty' couldn't quite convey. It lacked spirit, it lacked soul, as if every happy memory had been forcibly ripped from the very fibres of the walls. It was empty in a way that made him well and truly sick.

Jesse wasn't coming back. None of them were.

Feet dragged him in through the trashed hallway, into the kitchen, in much more of a state of disarray. This was George's doing. He knew it - not just in his mind, but in his heart. And then, not just in his heart, but in his bones.

Every kitchen drawer lay open. Empty. Dragged off their hinges. There was a stain on the windowsill. George didn't want to know what it was.

He took in a deep breath, and he tried. Truly. He tried not to notice the footprints, the muddy skid marks, lain across the floor. Truly. He tried not think of his friends, of his once friends, dragged out of here. Truly. He built himself a world in which things were right.

Jesse was more than Cam. This was different. This was definite. George felt it in the absolute pits of his heart and sought to destroy it.

He knew Jesse would have taken the blame for him. Because despite his nature, despite his every abominable quality, Jesse would never throw him into the mess. It had never been about that.

George had never been quite sure as to why Jesse had taken him, into his little 'family' - if such a word could ever fit the place. He figured now, at least, he'd never find out. There was perhaps some eternal rule about never betraying your family, but it was not a rule George could believe in.

He traced the word 'family' in the dust. He scoffed. There wasn't enough left for him to believe in at all. In the end, he rubbed it all away.

-

Twenty days before. George had figured out what loneliness felt like, down to the smell, down to the stench.

He sat in the attic Jesse had never let him into.

Jesse still wasn't back. George knew he wasn't coming back - whichever way things went down, but still, he sat there waiting. George knew even if he did return, it would not be pleasant between the two of them, but still, he hoped.

George hoped and drew heavy night air into his lungs.

The attic was perhaps the only part of the house that had been left intact - Jesse had kept it that way. George had lifted the lock in four days. He'd guessed it was where Jesse kept all that mattered, all his god forbidden secrets.

In reality, all the attic held was dust, a flickering light bulb, a sofa bed, a drawer full of drugs, and a letter, half-finished, never sent home. George had never really thought about Jesse even having the capacity to write, which admittedly, sounded rather ridiculous when he thought about it, but still, the letter in its entirety, couldn't help but intrigue him. He decided then, however, to finally think about the decent thing, and put it down where he'd left it.

The same didn't go for the drugs though. George had missed cocaine. He came into contact with it everyday, but allowing himself to snort it was another thing entirely. George didn't miss many things - not really.

He stared at it, sealed away in a plastic bag, for far too long. His eyes rolled back into his skull, and not once did he leave the attic.

But days dragged on, and the world closed in around him, and George did lines until he could build himself a heart. For whatever lay in his chest was long decayed and abandoned.

-

George's eyes were rolled back into his skull when Matty walked in. Through the backdoor, for George had barricaded the front. He didn't ask why, he didn't even stare; he simply stood, meek and mild a metre away. Eighteen days prior.

Matty looked as if he wanted to ask whether George was okay; of course the answer was exceedingly obvious - he instead seemed a lot like he just wanted to fill the air, to fill his head, to make sense of the moment, dragged out forever.

George didn't look him in the eye; Matty wasn't sure if he could. He didn't know what to think anymore; fear was unmissable in his eyes. George turned his heart over in his chest and choked on it.

"I got punched today. At school." Matty proclaimed with the kind of nonchalance that dug down deep with intent: set out to get under George's skin. Sure enough, it succeeded.

George found enough will within himself to set his gaze upon the doorway, to set his world upon the boy in it. His body ached and groaned with the movement. George felt like he'd been sat on the sofa for years.

He eyed the coffee table. And the bag sat sheepishly upon it. Matty followed his gaze, and it all happened before George could stop him.

"Is that cocaine?" Matty's eyes widened in horror: looking as if he'd never seen it before in his life. George remembered then, he likely hadn't. It hit him still, through it all, that Matty was sixteen.

"Is that a black eye?" George replied, in much the same tone, wishing for a world in which he never had to answer Matty's question.

The boy before him flushed: squirming out of his skin. He trailed delicate fingertips up his cheek to brush against it. George watched, not really processing a thing, as Matty cut across the room and took a seat beside him. He reached out for the cocaine; George stopped him.

"Don't touch that." He warned him, as if he had any right to teach Matty right from wrong.

Matty simply scoffed, taking only amusement from the situation. He eyed the cocaine carefully, as if attempting to judge how much George had snorted, of course, such an attempt was fruitless. Matty sighed, all heavy and breathless, like he didn't want to talk at all.

"Charlotte has this new boyfriend, you see-"

"It's barely been a week? What a fucking slag, I-" George felt it was best to respond with anger, to overcompensate if anything - a feeble last ditch attempt to drag Matty's attention away from the empty house and the emptying bag.

"So do I." Matty reminded him; his grin seemed entirely out of place in the house. Still, he stared George down with the kind of love that made it all feel wrong. George was aware, barely, but aware, as to just how much of a mess he'd managed to make of all of this.

"So do you." George quirked his lips up into a smile and kissed Matty regardless. Because if George could tie his name down to anything, it was certainly bad decisions; he decided to own that, to lay his claim to it, as he calmly, gently, took Matty onto his lap.

"He gave me the black eye." Matty explained, drawing his words out like endless balls of thread.

George clenched his fists. "I'll fucking give him one back, I'll-"

"You're not getting yourself in anymore trouble." Matty told him rather firmly. "It's fine. It was a one time thing. He didn't bother with the whole 'faggot' thing, at least. Funny, seeing this time it's true, isn't it?"

Matty grinned down at George; he didn't grin back.

"I don't like it..." He trailed off, pressing his thumbs into Matty's sides, between his ribs. Matty tried to remember how to breathe.

"Yeah, well George, I don't fucking like what you did to Jesse, but that fucking-"

"You know?" George didn't let him finish, his eyes seemed to burn. And Matty knew better than to play with fire.

"Gemma came to say goodbye to me. She's going into the city, you see? Away from all this. Away from you, was maybe one of the phrases she used. She suggested that I should too, and it was, it was kind of like all that Adam and Ross had said to me, coming to life. And I sat for a while and stared at my bedroom wall and thought, I thought about what I was going to do with you. Where I was going to go. Because I still have feelings for you. Of course I do."

"Come to do away with me as well?" George gave a laugh, pushing Matty out of his lap.

Matty glared back down at him. "Stop fucking- you're high-"

"I'm always high." George told him, far too truthfully.

"Weed's different to fucking cocaine, though, isn't it?" He drew out a sigh, and pushed whatever remained in the bag onto the floor. George just watched him.

In George's head, he had screamed, he would have thrown a fit, he would have kissed this boy in a house that felt right. But that was all so beyond him

"I want to..." Matty trailed off, eyes to the floor, for he feared looking at the devil anymore.

"I want to..." George mirrored him, softly, attempting to draw scenes from the deepest corners of his head. "Too. Whatever it is."

"I want to stay. I want to love you. I want this to work. I really think I do." Matty held George's gaze, just for a moment. "I think... maybe what everyone else says just doesn't matter at all. If people don't matter to me, then why should their words?"

George gave a nod of agreement, before he'd even had time to consider a word that had left Matty's lips. He told himself that it was what being in love meant.

"I want to, too." George regarded him with a smile, one crafted perfectly, artificially strewn, from the part of George's mind that could bare silence no more. Matty was pretty, but prettier when he smiled.

George traced his finger over his back. He wanted to stare. He wanted to take him in with his eyes and his eyes alone. He yearned for a world in which things might work out that way. A world in which Matty held out his hand and asked George to take it.

A world in which George wasn't thinking about getting the coke out of the carpet. A world in which George missed them; a world in which he let himself.

He stared at the floor and considered a world. Considered a whole wide universe, one in which he might be able to fix things, and might wake up to a day where everything would feel right. But his head throbbed in his skull, and his heart sought to escape his chest.

But still, he wanted Matty in more than ways words could express. Perhaps it was simple, perhaps it was all he had left, or perhaps George had more to say for himself than that.

Matty kissed him, on the lips, tongue in his mouth. And George didn't get to find out.

-

Matty reckoned having sex with eighteen year old, halfway drug dealer, George Daniel, was perhaps the last thing his parents would ever want him to do. That was perhaps, precisely why he did it.

Sex was a thing. A Thing. With a capital 'T'.

Matty reminded himself that he was sixteen, and depending upon which way you looked at it, he was perhaps supposed to do these things. Still, it felt wrong. Wrong in more than the way of simple adolescent rebellion. Wrong in a deeper sense, wrong, heavy in his heart.

He thought he should have expressed those feelings. Maybe just once, to leave them breathe, to let those words see the light of day. But it was rather a lot to comprehend with George inside of him. Inside. The word had Matty's head spinning, although he didn't think it was just that.

He was perhaps only vaguely aware of the tracing pattern of George's fingertips across his spine. He wondered if his head was screwed on wrong - if that was it. If there were even simple answers anymore.

"This is..."

Matty didn't speak until the cold wind threw in from the open window. He didn't speak until he started to feel again. He'd lost his head, he'd lost feeling in his toes. He sat still, he sat silence as George cleaned up their mess. He'd never seen George clean before; it was rather odd.

It was all rather odd. Although, Matty couldn't help but suspect that odd didn't quite cover it.

"This is..." He tried again. George's eyes didn't meet his own; he wondered if that was what he was waiting for. Or if it was for the world to make things easy again. He wondered if he'd be waiting a long time.

"It is." George finished for him in the end. Smug smile, silence smug evermore. They spoke like that. In broken conversations, in half formed words, in gestures, in darting gazes, in a world shimmering in shades of white and gold, yet never in a way anyone else could see.

Matty thought sometimes, George looked around through the house cautiously, as if he expected someone else to be there.

He could never quite imagine exactly what it was that had occurred between George and Jesse, and although he certainly couldn't deny it bothered him, with those long looks and breathless sighs, he very much knew that it wasn't his place to pry.

"It is what?" Matty pushed one leg out, away from his chest, as if daring to brace the world, or perhaps just the chill sent in from the open window. He thought, maybe, he should put on some more clothes.

George fell back onto the bed, tossing Matty a lazy kind of smile; a side of George he'd almost come to miss. Things didn't seem easy anymore. Like sandcastles on the shore. It was perhaps only a matter of time until the tide brought them down entirely.

"I don't know - you tell me." He propped his head up with his hands, gazing at Matty, as if lost somewhere between adoration and amusement. Matty reminded himself sometimes; he really didn't know George at all.

Matty drew in a great gasp of cold air. He wondered why it was still so cold for summer. For what a bullshit summer it seemed to be. He yearned for something that felt warm, that felt real. He glanced over to George: desperately uncertain as to whether he quite managed to fill that hole.

"It feels wrong." He told George: outright, for perhaps all they had left to their name was honesty. "When we fuck." He spat the word through his lips like it was a disease he wanted to rid himself of.

George quirked an eyebrow: more unsettled than he cared to admit. "Wrong?" There came that same confident smile, but that time around, it took a form that neither boy could believe in.

"Yeah." Matty gave a nod, biting at his lip. "Wrong." He repeated, forcing the word through his lips.

"You don't like it?" George laughed, as if it was somehow funny. It was not.

Matty shook his head.

George sat bolt upright.

"No." Matty brought his hands up to his face. "I do. I do like it. I do like you. That's what I meant, you... it just... it feels like something we shouldn't be doing."

George scoffed, far more relieved than he'd ever care to admit. "Isn't that the fun of it?" He regarded Matty with that same devilish glint to his eye; it swore to Matty to run, to get himself as far away as quickly as possible.

Matty gave a shrug as he moved closer, pressing his head against George's shoulder.

"I mean... says who?" He added. "Who says it's 'wrong'?" He drew out a sigh; Matty could see the subject hurt him more than he could ever care to admit.

"The whole world..." Matty closed his eyes. "It seems..."

George gave a laugh. "Well fuck the whole world. And fuck everyone in it."

Matty smiled. "I thought the idea was that we only fuck each other?"

George snorted, hand finding its way into Matty's curls.

-

Love tasted bitter on Matty's tongue. Like poison. Like liquid spite. He yearned for a world in which he would not have to think with his heart, and instead make sense with his head.

George sat on the kitchen countertop. Matty stirred a mug of tea with unnecessary vigour. They lived like that, in fake peace, ten days before.

"I'm thinking..." George drew out his words like shards of glass, like promises made to be broken.

Matty stared him down: long and hard, forever yearning to figure him out.

"I should go home." He spat the word 'home' as if he feared that it might hurt him.

Matty dropped his teabag into his mug with much the same power; hot tea splashed back onto his hands; he didn't say a word.

George watched him: all wide eyes and eternal stares. Matty sought to cut him down. To make sense, to make a world, to make a lover, out of this stupid, fucking beautiful boy.

Matty wanted more than fingertips, than trails of possibilities on his back. He wanted to reach for his hand. Perhaps in the street as they walked. He yearned for a world, for a head in which he could survive that.

George knew him, in looks, in silent conversations, and that dull morning, he stared him down and read his mind. Matty let him, chasing his thoughts out his head.

He reached for Matty's head. The kitchen fell still; the dust settled for them, the kettle stopped whistling, the wind ceased to tear in through the open window.

"I think I should stop fucking around." George drew out the words like they hurt him; Matty knew that they did.

He gave a brash, unruly kind of laugh, one that seemed as if it had been ripped straight from George's lips.

"Yeah, I think you fucking should. Stop fucking people around - stop fucking me around- fucking hell, George. I thought you said, this was- this was us, and you-"

George shook his head. "You've got it fucking wrong, Matty. I'm ruining your life. I'm ruining mine. Fucking sitting around all day, fucking I fucked things up again. I fucked up. So this is what I do, I leave. And I'm... going home. Because if I fucked up Jesse's life, I at least ought to fix mine. I owe him that - it was always what he was trying to do... I think."

"George..." Matty didn't know what to think. To make of them. To make of George anymore.

"Fuck it - I mean, you're always going to need more than me, more than this, more than this shit. I was just fucking kidding myself, you were always going to get another girlfriend, and things were always going to work out just fine for you, and I'd always be..." He drew out a sigh. "Here."

Matty didn't know what to say. At all.

"Or not here. Not anymore." He corrected himself, chasing rampant thoughts around his head.

"I'm not." He spat his words across the room like poison. "Going to get another girlfriend." He told George plainly, he told George for fact.

George raised an eyebrow: disbelieving.

"I think..." Matty took a step away from the kitchen counter, making complicated work of pacing around the kitchen. George watched him, in love, in regret, forever unable to figure his own head out.

"I think I'm gay." He told him, struggling to work the word out of his lips.

George watched him, as if Matty might break before him. Matty wondered if George wanted him to; he wondered if that was what he was looking for - an excuse to stay. Matty wondered if he'd be that for him. If he'd tear himself down to that.

"Yeah." George gave a nod: like it was nothing, and granted, in George's head, it likely was. "I mean, you sucked my dick this morning, it doesn't really have the same sort of impact like that."

Matty rolled his eyes, trying to smile, trying to laugh, trying to look George in the eyes and see the boy he'd once seen.

"Yeah, but you didn't. You didn't know. You didn't fucking walk into that bookshop and see me, and know I was gay, and that I'd suck your dick, and you didn't fucking know you'd leave me." Matty bit his lip: here it was - trying not to cry.

"Yeah..." George shook his head. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want you to fucking stay, that's it, I fucking-"

George let him cry, let him pace back and forth, let him sort his head out, the very best he could.

"I need to go home." He repeated the words aloud, as if he just might get himself to finally believe it.

Matty shook his head.

"I read..." George trailed off, his head drawn back to the first day, and the way they'd been. "I read that book, you know." He told him, choosing his words too carefully.

Matty looked at him cautiously, as if he didn't quite allow himself to.

"Christine..." He dragged the word out between his lips: prolonging the moment. "The one I bought, for the weed... you know? I sat out that afternoon and read the thing, and Chelsea looked at me like I was a fucking lunatic, and I didn't blame her, but I... I think... she knew I loved you then."

Matty shook his head, dodging the bullet behind his every word. "Well, it doesn't fucking matter, because you left her and you're leaving me. There's no fucking Chelsea anymore, there's no fucking us anymore, is there?"

"There is." George uttered, like he was pleading. Like he wanted to retreat back inside of himself; Matty wondered what he had made of him.

He shook his head. "You were quite clear." It was effortless under appearance, but it was clearly not quite the case.

George looked as if he wanted to say something more, yet with the whole world poised upon his lips, Matty cut him wordless, entirely.

"Not anymore." He reminded him.

And George watched that time, as he let him go. As this beautiful boy stormed past him, and out of the backdoor. George listened for the slam, but it never came. All that remained was trails of footsteps and the cold summer breeze.

There, alone in that kitchen, George came to wonder if the world was truly ending. For it didn't half feel like it.

He stared back at the empty drawers, at the open door, and wondered what feeling was anymore.

-

"I love you."

Three days before. Empty words uttered from empty mouths.

Two empty boys sat side by side. And stared through the darkness, desperate to see something

One lonely heart beat between their chests. Between the blurred lines, between the broken promises, it was impossible to tell who it had first belonged to.

The silence rang true and George lit himself a cigarette.

Matty watched the sun like it had ever meant a thing. Warmth was an illusion. Summer was a facade. Happiness was a vail, a false hope to shroud himself within.

He wanted out; he thought, some days, with some things.

George's throat grew dry. He told himself that he didn't want to kiss him; it didn't work.

In the patterns that he'd once traced fingerprints on Matty's back, Matty had traced back upon his mind. George missed himself. He missed his head. He missed the world they'd lived in before everything. They'd missed a world in which they'd had hopes of seeing more than spring.

Moments passed outstretched like days; neither boy quite dared to figure them out - to condemn themselves to the time, or to the moment.

George was grateful. If nothing else. Grateful in words he could never express, because despite every word, despite every promise; Matty had come back, Matty had come back for him. It had him sick to his stomach, but of course, there was nothing he could do. He perhaps just wished he could understand, but if you wanted the world, truth was that you should never ask for it.

"Why?" The silence ebbed out around them; George grew braver and bolder still. Matty still snuck glances, as if he couldn't quite convince himself that the boy beside him, sprawled out on the bedroom floor, was entirely tangible at all.

To his credit, George didn't feel all that tangible either. Drifting was an odd concept: entangled with a wretched kind of half living. George didn't know what he wanted anymore, other than to feel alive.

"Why what?" Matty bit back into the cold summer air, into the bubble forming around the two of them, into the misty air. The silence had seemed eternal, like some great foe they'd never quite vanquish, but it seemed that Matty wasn't scared.

"Why did you come back?" George spoke slowly, perhaps excessively so. But if Matty did mind, he didn't mention it. And that was that. And that was them.

"Because..." Matty gave it enough due as if it served to form an answer itself.

George didn't push him further; he reckoned he'd done enough of that as it was.

Still, the 'I love you' hung faint and valiant in the air. What had once been traced over the boys like kisses on thighs. George wanted to fall in love with him: one last time.

"Because you'd... you'd leave otherwise. You'd take it as a reason to go. You're not gone right now because we're here on your bedroom floor and we're talking. I'm here so you're here. I want you to stay." His voice cracked a little; George tried not to let recognition show upon his face. He was clueless as to what he wanted to achieve; he just wanted things to feel real again.

"If you wanted me to stay..." George drew out a sigh: dreaming of a world in which they didn't have to have such a conversation. "You're going to have to sit here forever."

Matty folded his arms across his chest. Took a breath. And unfolded them again.

George watched, for what felt like forever. It was forever, up in his head at least.

"Maybe I will." He uttered: defiant. George didn't believe him, but Matty didn't want him to. This wasn't about that.

The air grew colder still and Matty closed his eyes. George dared to ask himself questions - when questions and how questions. The truth of it all was perhaps that he was going to have to leave. And he was going to have to leave soon. And there was going to be one final word, and one final kiss, and one final moment of them.

As much as George wanted that: to be free from everything, to breathe fully in his chest again, he could never quite bring himself to do it. Somedays felt like all he'd done was lie to himself, because the truth was that he didn't want to leave Matty at all; he simply knew it was best for the both of them.

Matty breathed. George closed his eyes. Slowly.

He pictured a world in which he'd stay. George couldn't dare to imagine what would become of them then.

"Don't sit here forever." He told him, voice shaking.

Matty smiled; it was a nice thought, really. He reached for George's hand, and for the moments that followed, together, that was how they lived.

And as silence sort to set its spell upon the two desperately lost boys, Matty's head began to work: to twist and turn in all manner of ways. For a good minute, he couldn't quite breathe. For the one that followed, he wondered if it was possible to suffocate on oxygen.

"I had this dream about you leaving." He told him, far too simply. "We were on a train station. Like in the city. It was all nice, and built up, and the kind of place that we never should have fit. You had this suitcase, full of your shit. I never really guessed what you could fit inside that. I don't think you even have so many things. But, in my dream you had the world, and a scarf. You had a scarf."

George snorted, interrupting Matty's story. The younger boy arched an eyebrow and continued.

"You had a scarf, yeah. And I think it was autumn because we both had coats. But we were stood on this busy platform of this train station. And you were about to leave, to catch this train, and you never said to where but it felt like London, and I kept thinking, kept wondering what the fuck you could do in London. And it was like you were reading my thoughts because every time I thought it you just shook your head 'no'. But you never told me where you were going and you never told me why."

He paused for a moment, leaving George unsure as to whether it was the end of the story. It was not.

"And then the train arrived. And you stared it down like it was the most magnificent thing in the world. Like it - your way out of here, was everything. And I grabbed your hand, to keep you there for just a minute. But you had to go. You never told me, but I knew. And then I kissed you. I didn't think about it. But I did, I kissed you, in the middle of the crowds, in the middle of the platform... and..."

Matty drew out a breath.

"And then they didn't let you on the train for being queer, and it was... my fault, you said, and you screamed at me and yelled. And I told you there'd be another train to catch, but-... You didn't listen and you... you... threw yourself onto the tracks."

George remained awfully silent and awfully still.

"That's not going to happen." He told Matty, like a promise, still, Matty couldn't quite believe him.

"I promise you." He tried again. But still, words bore no meaning in the cold, stale, June air.

George tried again, this time with his lips. For that was a promise Matty could believe in. And as the world closed in around them, George trailed his fingers up Matty's back.

The two boys, they stepped into the tide.

"No train tracks." George told him, hand against his thigh.

-

"I love you." Matty whispered up into his neck, tracing his spine with his fingertips. George shivered into his touch, like the last shake an animal gave before it died.

As his eyelids lulled closed, George took the beautiful boy into his arms and into bed. He watched him fall asleep. This was the last time, for once, it felt right, like the gentle waves of the ocean - the calm, the peace to it all.

"Goodbye." George uttered to the sleeping boy, at rest, under ocean waves: drifting down to the sea shore. But George couldn't dive after him - not anymore.

That was it. That was them. Before came the storm, and they died ought there, in the wrath of choppy waves against the rocks. And in that moment, as Matty's fingers still brushed warm against George's they were alive, they were in love, forever.

-

theres one more chapter after this lmao have fun

hope u didnt hate it all that

vote comment have fun yw thank u

read the raven cycle

bye