Matty had gotten better at spending time not just with other people, but with himself too. It was all as a result of getting just that bit more comfortable inside his own head; the thing was that now he did finally feel as if he somewhat belonged. It was always a very odd thing to feel out of place in your own head, of all things, but Matty found that was just how it had been, regardless of complications or particularities.

He'd pulled himself together quite a bit more over the past few weeks, and as much as he had found that he did indeed rely on George quite an awful lot, he found that he could spend the day alone, with George at work, without having his whole world coming caving on him at about twenty past ten.

All in all, he'd gotten more to grips with himself, and gained a certain kind of peace with his mind in the process. He'd managed to start writing again - it was the flow of ideas, of feelings, of emotion, of something meaningful through his veins, that had compelled him to do so. He wouldn't say that the work he'd produced was particularly worthy of much critical acclaim, but he'd hardly go as far as to say so much about the majority of his work. The fact of the matter was that there words on the page: slowing coming together like the pieces of his life and the person he might someday want to be. It had seemed so impossible from afar, but as he'd come closer to it all, upon further inspection, everything did seem to just fit perfectly into place.

The weather grew warmer all too quickly - very much unexpected due to the British climate, but it wasn't something that Matty could really find himself much reason to complain about at all. It was also that, in a weird way, it wasn't just the weather, but the world felt warmer too.

He wondered if it was just his change in perspective - just him growing sappy, just melancholic drivel turning into an almost sickly sweet admiration of the world, and an admiration of how it had shaped itself around him, of how he had found his way back into everything again. He wasn't sure what exactly had happened, but something had changed - something had switched in his brain, and there was no denying that it was an important kind of something.

Suddenly there was joy to be had in everything, in the sun on his skin, in the world getting warmer, in their shitty little house, with every room too small, and with Allen, with walks in the park, with afternoons spent in the even shittier and even littler back garden, pulling absent mindedly at daisies amongst the grass, with mornings inside, with mornings starting early, with mornings starting late, spent with the familiar tapping of his fingers hitting the keys of his typewriter, with life settling into a whole new era, with everything turning on its head, but seeming so familiar at the same time.

Matty wasn't quite sure what it was, and what it could ever be, because as all change, it was indeed gradual, and only seemed to hold any much weight once you stopped for a moment and found yourself looking back on the person you had used to be, and how you never saw the same reflection in the mirror anymore. He had at first regarded change with resentment, fixing himself and his life to be pointless because there was never anything to say that it was broken, but he just didn't feel like he was that person at all anymore.

He did wonder, eyes set on the window, watching the morning progress into a sunny afternoon, watching the trees sway slightly in the breeze, and feeling the very same breeze on his skin through the open window. Somehow, it was more than just a breeze, and it was more than just a morning turned afternoon, because that was perhaps the first moment that Matty really felt that he belonged.

The first moment that he really could sit in his chair, in his room, in his house, and for it to be his house, and not just the house he was living in. For with the breeze on his skin, the world felt like his world, and not just the world around him, for suddenly him and the world were not two separate entities, closed off from one another, but living as one. It was that first moment, where he felt a part of the room, a part of the world, and not as if he was etched in half heartedly at the last minute.

It was the breeze itself, of course, but the realisation, and the sudden rush of thoughts to his head, and the way his brain always spiralled out of control when he sat down at his desk, because he'd come to realise that he sat down at his desk not just to write, but to think too. He had learned however, that perhaps spiralling out of control was not always a bad thing, despite what he'd originally thought.

That moment he had not just finally felt that he belonged, but he had come to realise something too. He'd come to latch onto the odd kind of feelings taking up a new residence in his chest: grasping onto his heart with thousands of tiny little hands, but this time, they weren't forceful, dragging his heart down from his chest and into the pit of his stomach, but instead gentle: reaching out not to grab or pull but just to touch, just to feel the beating, just to feel what it meant to be alive. He'd come to comprehend just how everything had changed, because the very moment that he finally came to put things into words, was the very moment that he came to put things with their meaning, and everything just became that whole lot clearer.

What was so very immediately obvious was that he'd been wrong at first. He'd been wrong with his instinct and he first thought - one he hadn't even second guessed, but one that was just so obvious now. As that was the thing, there had always been an obvious kind of something behind this all, behind the way his world had changed, behind the way he had changed with it, behind the new kind of fuller smiles that he carried on his face, behind the content look in his eyes - unspoken, but speaking so fully of the peace he had found with the world, with the peace he had found with himself.

There it was - it had been clear for far too long. He had fallen in love, but not with his own life and the world around him, but with George.

The love he'd felt for everything else had come second - a byproduct, but a very welcome one, no question about that. After all, that was the thing, they sat around some days, just the two of them, doing very little of notice at all, perhaps not even talking, perhaps with Matty reading a book and George on his laptop, taking a very important journey through his instagram feed, perhaps doing so very little at all. But that was the thing, in that, in so very much less than nothingness, Matty found a warm glowing feeling in his chest, he found himself happy, not just content or complacent, but properly happy.

It was that, as he might look up from whatever he'd been reading, and look across the room at George, and feel that feeling in his chest burning brighter, that he came to realise that there was nothing else he'd want more, because as simple as everything was, he was in love, and sitting there, doing so very little at all, was George; he was so effortlessly beautiful, and just so effortlessly everything Matty had ever needed in his life.

Those kind of revelations couldn't help but make Matty feel a little dizzy sometimes, but perhaps it wasn't the revelations themselves but the realisation he'd managed to lock all of these feelings so tightly up inside himself for so long, and he'd made it through those four months, without George, without anyone, without himself. As he was now, Matty concluded that he just wouldn't be able to do that ever again, and that he had nothing to do but cling so tightly onto the life he had now, because he absolutely could not let himself fuck it all up again this time.

As tragically cliched and optimistic as it was, Matty couldn't help but hold onto a gut kind of feeling, or perhaps just a wild hope, that everything really would work out this time - that this was everything falling into place, and that it wasn't just chance, but meaning and reason. Things were going to work out this time, and this window of happiness, this spell of summer, and glowing of his heart, this wasn't just a moment to pass him by, but something permanent - something he could hold onto. Not a window, not even a door, but the world on the other side, and he'd made it there this time around.

George was still to take Matty on a proper date, which was something Matty had taken up the persistent liberty of nagging him about, usually when they ate dinner, sat sometimes even properly at the table these days, because when they ate at the table instead of in front of the TV, or as they had a few times, in bed, George always actually made more of an effort to cook something nice, and as much Matty didn't want to be every sappy romantic cliche, he was a little bit in love with that too.

He knew George was working on it, and by working on it, he was frantically messaging everyone he knew for advice, which Matty really couldn't help but find awfully sweet, but then again, it had gotten to the point where Matty had accepted that his whole view of George and everything he did was just so horribly skewed in perception at this point, and maybe that was a bad thing. Maybe he shouldn't be so readily putting every little bit of his trust in George, but the thing was that he found that he'd never had all that much trust in himself, and it didn't really have where else to go.

Really, Matty would be happy to be officially George's boyfriend on the spot, no questions asked, but he'd already insisted on a proper date, and he most certainly wasn't going to turn his back on that one. Mostly, Matty just liked being a prat to him about it, as after all, mostly, Matty just liked being a prat, and wondering how on earth George not only put up with him, but loved him.

Matty had spent his Friday afternoon writing, and found that some unknown force had come and blessed him with a whole world of inspiration that day. That 'unknown force' may or may not have been the face George had made the previous night when Matty had told him to stop being such a sop and kissing him and let him go to sleep. That 'unknown force' may have also extended to the whole night, with the two laid as close to one another as possible, and Matty's whole world spinning on its head, but with the revelation that maybe this wasn't upside down but the right way up, and that things had been the wrong wrong all along.

By the time George had gotten home from work, he'd made it back from walking Allen just fifteen minutes ago, and had ended up on the sofa, with Allen curled up next to his feet. He'd lit up a spliff, even though George always hated when he smoked weed without him, but he'd definitely made a point of sending him at least seven snapchats of him doing so, so that practically made up for it.

George made his way into the living room, opening the last few snapchats Matty had sent him, as he dumped a Tesco bag onto the table in front of him. "Put that stuff away in the kitchen, won't you, babe?"

Matty looked up, narrowing his eyes at George. "Don't 'babe' me." He shook his head, giving George a shove as he leaned over his shoulder to look at his phone.

"Matty?" George looked up at him, shaking his head. "So I've been at work, and you've put the dog filter on Allen and sent it to me on snapchat?" He raised his eyebrows slightly, and Matty couldn't help but laugh. "I think you should at least put the shopping away, you know?"

"Fine." Matty rolled his eyes, making much of a scene out of getting up and grabbing the bag than was necessary. "What did you even get anyway?" He asked, already opening and rummaging through the bag himself.

George reached up towards Matty's outstretched hand and pulled his spliff from between his fingers, smoking it himself.

"Hey." Matty shot him a glare: entirely offended.

"You were gonna drop it, you weren't being careful at all." George leaned back in the sofa, rubbing Allen's head as he moved in closer to George with Matty now inspecting every single item he'd picked up from the Tesco down the road. "I confiscated it for health and safety reasons, really."

Matty scoffed, not at all convinced, but then again, it wasn't like George had put up the most convincing argument at all in the first place. "You need to stop buying that dodgy ham you know I don't like it." He turned back to George, having successfully examined every single item George had bought.

"Dodgy ham." George repeated, snorting a little, unable to do much but shake his head at the passion in Matty's voice as he held a packet of ham up to him in one hand.

"It is!" Matty insisted, throwing it back into the bag. "It's slimy - who wants slimy ham?"

"It's fine, Matty." George assured him, continuing to smoke Matty's spliff without much of an intervention from him.

"Might be for you. Some of us actually have standards. God." Matty rolled his eyes, taking the bag and making his way into the kitchen, proceeding to unpack it despite how much he had protested otherwise just a few minutes before.

Matty returned from the kitchen within a few minutes, sitting himself down in George's lap without any word of warning, allowing George instead to roll his eyes and move so that Matty at least wasn't cutting off the blood circulation in both of his legs.

"Hey..." Matty turned so he was sat at angle in which he could better face George, but all in all, it was hardly the comfiest of positions for either of them, but of course, Matty was a stubborn piece of shit who wasn't going to move. "That was my spliff." He looked between George and the ashtray placed on the end of the coffee table in disgust and disappointment.

George grinned, stretching out against the sofa, attempting to go some blood flowing around the parts of his body that Matty wasn't currently squashing. "It's not like you can't roll yourself another, is it?"

"Still." Matty protested, reaching towards the table, making sure to make as much of a scene out of rolling himself a spliff as was possible. "It was mine." He reminded him, settling back into George's lap, stretching his legs out across the sofa length ways - over George and beside Allen, who was curled up beside them. "And so's this one."

"I've been at work all day, though, haven't I?" George wasn't at all sure why he was still arguing his point - it was over now, and Matty sure as hell wouldn't budge. "You come home and you kind of need and smoke, don't you?"

"Mmm..." Matty gave a shrug, suddenly ending up feeling just that little bit guilty, passed George his spliff momentarily. "So how was your day at work then?"

George shrugged, not really thinking all that much of it - he didn't particularly dislike it, but it certainly wasn't his favourite thing in the world by any measure. "It was alright."

"Alright?" Matty raised his eyebrows: disappointed with the lacklustre nature of George's description. "Is that all I'm getting? Alright?"

George groaned - Matty was being pedantic, and he seemed to be just as well aware of it as George was; that didn't help matters at all. "What else am I supposed to say? Do you want a vivid description of every single little thing I've done?" Matty began to nod in agreement. "No you don't. That'd sent you right to sleep."

Matty shook his head, smiling across at George. "Nothing you could ever say would make me bored. I love your voice and listening to you talk, I love everything you'd ever have to say, and I want-"

George let out a groan, scrunching up his face in disbelief, closing his eyes for a moment in order to really let what Matty had said sink in. "Stop." He shook his head, "you're disgusting, you are."

Matty looked offended to quite an extent. "Just want to know what's going on in your life. That's perfectly normal of me, you're making things weird." He hit George with a particularly smug kind of look - adamant in the fact that it was at this point which he'd won.

"Literally nothing, though." George assured him for what was beginning to feel like the five hundredth time.

Matty was still hesitant to take the truth as it was. "What did you do on your lunch break then?" He leaned closer to George, resting his elbow against the back of the sofa, and resting his head against his hand.

"Do you want me to describe the process of eating sandwiches to you? In vivid detail?" George raised his eyebrows, beginning to be just that little bit amused by all of this; Matty was acting weird, but really it was only significant in the fact that something had changed inside him, and George was just so very keen to ask Matty what he had done with his day.

"Yes." Matty nodded, blushing a little as George continued to laugh. "Well, not specifically your sandwiches..." He continued, his tone quickly becoming less serious. "Just... whatever."

George's face fell into a warm kind of genuine smile. "Well, I had sandwiches, you know what they had in? That 'slimy' ham you're so pissed off about."

"You deserve better quality ham, George!" Matty exclaimed, meeting him with a grin. "You deserve better ham. You deserve better."

"God." George groaned, shaking his head in disbelief. "Will you shut up about the ham? It's ham." He let out a sigh, attempting to compose himself as Matty broke off into an awkward kind of giggle - it was an entirely heart wrenching kind of endearing. "Oh..." George trailed off, grinning. "Something did happen at work today."

"What?" Matty's face lit up instantly.

"I forgot to tell you about this girl. I wasn't sure if she was just being really nice or trying to awkwardly hit on me, but anyway. Today she gave me her number." He hit Matty with a smirk. "I'm officially attractive now, she's like a good nine out of ten."

"You're officially my boyfriend!" Matty retorted, raising his voice very suddenly. There was an odd kind of desperation hidden behind his words as he knew for the most part, especially from the look on his face, that George was joking, but still he couldn't help this little pocket of doubt at the back of his mind digging him a nice little hole of self-doubt to lie in.

George grinned, moving so his arm was around Matty, letting him rest his head against his chest, ensuring that he knew he was joking. "Not officially, though." George made a very good point. "What with me not having taken you on a 'proper' date yet."

"You're still... you're still... you're not my 'official proper boyfriend' yet, but you're still my boyfriend." Matty let out a sigh, reaching up linking his fingers with George's. "Tell her she can fuck off." He added, glancing up at George, who couldn't help but grin through all of this. "I don't care if she's a fucking 'nine out of ten', it's not like you can rate people with numbers anyway, is it?"

"You're jealous." George laughed, watching the way Matty's cheeks instantly flushed a very vivid shade of red. "Don't worry." He ran his fingers back through Matty's hair. "You're a solid ten out of ten. Strong eleven, really."

"I don't want to be rated with a number. I'm a person, George." Matty rolled his eyes, moving so his head fell further across George's chest. "Anyway. What did you actually say? Like when she gave you her number?"

George shrugged. "I didn't really say much. I didn't want to be rude, I just let her give it me."

"You let her give it you!" Matty's eyes widened, just that little bit outraged, but really the whole tone of their conversation was so very lighthearted, and Matty couldn't help it anymore with the sheer amount of trust he'd wound up placing in George.

"You can have someone's number in a friendly way. She's nice. It wasn't like I was going to stare her down like 'sorry my ham hating ten out of ten best friend / not quite boyfriend' is going to get morally offended by us having any form of conversation because you might have flirted with me once." George found that realistically he just couldn't finish his sentence without bursting into a fit of laughter, however, Matty seemed to be very much in the same boat.

"I don't hate ham." Matty muttered, choosing that, of all things, to pick up upon. "You just buy shit ham."

George had come to conclude that maybe he'd just have to accept that Matty wouldn't leave him alone in regards to his 'poor choice in ham'. "So, anyway. It's not like I'm going to hit on her, is it? I love you, you know?"

"You know she doesn't sound that nice." Matty continued, making much more of a fuss than he should have done. "Attempting to steal you away like that." George had to scoff at that, and really, Matty couldn't help but grin a little too. "Who even is she, though? Are you even friends?"

"You're getting jealous." George let out a laugh as Matty sat up, stretching out a little. "She's called Charlie. I'm friends with her friend, really. Her friend's called Gemma, and she's nice."

"Is she trying to hit on you too?" Matty demanded, folding his arms, just a tiny little bit irritated with it all.

"I'm pretty sure she has a boyfriend." George assured him. "She did invite me to a party she's throwing this weekend, though. She also invited at least seven other people from working, so I really doubt she's trying to get with us all. I did say I couldn't make it though, are you happy with that?"

Matty thought for a moment, hitting George with an odd kind of perplexed look. "Why did you say you couldn't make it?"

George shrugged, finding that maybe this wasn't one of the easiest things to voice aloud. "I mean, I don't want to leave you alone, that's not fair, is it? And you're not really... up to parties. You know what I mean?"

"It's not fair on you, though." Matty bit his lip, finding the situation hitting him in an entirely new life this time around. "That's not fair. Your social life doesn't have to revolve around me and my mental health."

"You want me to go?" George raised his eyebrows, unsure as to what it was that Matty was actually getting at here. "Even though Charlie's going. Who's obviously going to go and steal me away - Gemma, too, even with her boyfriend. We'll have a foursome-"

"Do you want me to tell you not to go?" Matty hit him with a look, unsure as to how exactly he did feel inside. "I know you're not going to... cheat on me... or whatever."

"Course I'm not." George assured him, his tone instantly growing that little bit more serious.

"You should do things though. I shouldn't stop you." Matty let out a sigh, finding an awkward kind of new feeling unravelling itself inside of him as he spoke. "Maybe I should do things too. I shouldn't stop myself either."

"It's not your fault if you can't do things, you know that." George reached his hand out and into Matty's. "I'm absolutely not going to let you blame yourself."

Matty shook his head. "I'm not blaming myself. It's not like that. Text her now, tell her that you actually are coming, but tell her that your boyfriend's coming too. Also tell her to make sure Charlie knows you have a boyfriend, also tell her to make sure she knows that you have a boyfriend."

George smiled, his eyes widening a little, hesitant in reaching for his phone. "Are you sure? I mean, you're not going to know people, and I don't want you to end up in a state because you wanted to prove something to yourself or whatever kind of bullshit."

"I should go. We should go. I need to assert myself as your cute and perfect boyfriend who you are very desperately in love with." Matty insisted, meeting him with a more serious look, before reaching for George's phone from the table and thrusting into his grasp. "Go on."

"Promise me." George began, eyes meeting Matty's. "You want to do this, and you don't just want to for some bullshit based on jealousy or self-doubt? What if things don't end up going well?"

"Then we can go home." Matty insisted, finding his mind spanning back to memories of so many months before. "If we go we can always go home, but if we just stay at home then that's that. Things don't change unless you try. I'm starting to think you don't want to go. I thought you said Gemma was nice."

"Gemma is." George assured him, finally going to actually text her an abridged version of what Matty had asked him to. "Maybe Charlie did hit on me quite a bit, and suddenly turning up with my boyfriend might make things a bit awkward."

"Awkward?" Matty shook his head. "That's what you're worried about here? It being a bit awkward? How do you think I'm going to feel regardless?"

George let out a sigh. "Yeah. I guess. I just don't want you to get upset, alright?"

"George, you know? Despite popular belief, you don't actually need to babysit me." Matty met him with a grin. "It's going to be fine. I promise."

-

"You know when I said that it was going to be fine?" Matty let out a sigh, sitting himself down on the edge of their bed, glancing ratherly defeatedly across at George, who had ended up sat sideways in the chair at Matty's desk, leaning over the back to face Matty.

"Mmm?" George gave him a worried kind of glance, knowing that with Matty's mental health it was very much hit and miss, but there had definitely been some sort of conscious effort into the hole he'd dug himself over the course of the past day.

"It's not." Matty threw his head forward into his hands, rubbing his eyes, before letting out a sigh and trying to compose himself the best he could.

Really, everything always seemed much less daunting, much much manageable, the kind of simple it should be when it didn't feel like it was actually happening, and Matty couldn't dispute the fact that he was in a state of mind that was something like worlds away from the one he'd been in just the night before.

It wasn't that he didn't want to go anymore, because he did, he wanted to go and he wanted things to be fine, and he didn't want George to have to prioritise the worst parts of his mind before his own life and things he wanted to do. That wasn't fair, and if they were going to make things work this time, they had to be fair, things had to be good for the both of them. It was just the horrible feeling of dread, a horrible kind of anxiety creeping up from his guts and poisoning his mind with this almost immobilising sensation.

He wanted to go, he wanted things to work out, he wanted to be the kind of boyfriend that George deserved, but he'd dug himself this hole, and as much as he could definitely see the surface now, that didn't detract from the fact that he was still very much down at the bottom.

"What about...?" George began, letting out a sigh, as he struggled to assess the situation - whether this was just nerves, or whether he really couldn't go, and of course what he'd have to do about that. What they'd have to do instead. "What happened to if we go then we can always go home if you don't want to be there anymore."

"But I..." Matty shook his head, finding himself in one of those situations in which he just couldn't put exactly what was going on in his head into words, or anything that could be made much sense of. "I know I'm going to get like that. I know I'm going to want to go home. So what's the point in going in the first place?"

George thought for a moment, biting his lip as he struggled to find an answer to that, because he couldn't say that he couldn't see where Matty was coming from. "Because then at least you can say you've tried." He met Matty with a hopeful kind of look, praying that his words might resonate with him in the slightest.

"Still doesn't count for shit though. Oh, I tried to function like a competent human being but it didn't work, what a surprise, I'm a pathetic piece of shit. Who knew?" Matty got up from the bed, turning to face his reflection in the mirror. George couldn't help but watch from across the room as he seemed to scowl at himself slightly, even going as far as to grimace. George couldn't even begin to imagine just what Matty thought of himself, honestly, up there in his own head, and he could imagine only less how Matty managed to tackle it.

"Because..." George began, getting to his feet and making his way over to Matty. "Things only get better if you try." He told him, wrapping his arms around him and pulling Matty back into his chest.

Matty groaned, pulling out of his grip and turning back to face him. "I feel like shit." He threw things down as honestly as he could, tentatively looking up to watch George as he spoke. "I feel like... I feel like I have to be someone worth people's time... worth your fucking time. I feel like I have to be someone who's confident, someone like the person I used to be, but then, even then, a lot of that was fake. I'm just not that person. I can't keep pretending, it makes me feel like shit."

"You don't have to pretend to be anything." George assured him, reaching for Matty's hands. "Of course you're worth my time."

Matty let out a sigh, really wishing he could believe George, but finding that no matter which way he looked at it, he just couldn't. "I don't feel like I can go there and be a good enough version of myself to mean anything to anyone. To mean anything to that girl that keeps hitting on you."

"Charlie." George reminded him. "That's not what this is about." He continued, holding Matty's gaze, "and you told me that it wasn't about that. Fuck Charlie - like she counts for anything in comparison to you. Look, if you really can't go then it's fine, we'll stay home, we'll do something else, but you really should try."

"I can go." Matty let out a sigh. "I just don't want to. I'm just... I don't know what's going on in my head, really. I just... I just kept... it sounds stupid... it doesn't matter."

"Tell me." George insisted, moving closer to Matty, as if he was scared that he might suddenly disappear. "It matters."

Matty shook his head, biting his lip to keep the sudden mess of confession and ugly crying back inside him. "It's... it doesn't matter."

"It does." George continued, leaning in and kissing Matty: for longer than was necessary, and really, it felt as if he'd done it entirely in slow motion, as if he feared that Matty might drift away from him and fade out into nothingness the very moment he pulled away.

Matty inhaled sharply, suddenly very conscious of the pressure of George's hand - still placed on the back of his neck, even as he pulled away from the kiss. He averted his gaze, unable to look him in the eyes as he ran everything back through his mind, because this just wasn't George's fault, and Matty knew he'd want to interpret it as such, no matter how much he insisted that was the last thing he wanted.

"Matty." George pressed for him to continue, reaching up with his other hand and pushing Matty's hair away from his face. "You're really cold." He commented, pressing his hand to Matty's cheek.

It was then with George's fucking massive hand on his cheek that Matty felt it all coming out of him before he could quite think straight. "I keep thinking about New Year." With the distance, or really, lack of, between them, he could feel the way George caught his breath, the way his insides froze up all of a sudden, and there was a slight pause before everything returned to normal again.

"I know." Matty continued, still hesitant to pull his gaze up to meet George's. "I know that won't happen again, but I just. I keep thinking about what did happen, and then everything that happened immediately after that, the kind of state I was in at the time, and honestly all of that just makes me feel a bit sick."

"I'm sorry." George's words held such a level of sincerity that Matty couldn't quite begin to comprehend. "I'm so sorry."

"I don't want you to blame yourself." Matty shook his head, pulling away from George and pacing across the room. "I just need to stop thinking. Thinking so much. I'm my own worst enemy really, everything, it's all up in my head, but like fuck does that make it any less real. Surely that only makes it more real, makes it worse, because you're trapped up inside it, and I just keep running in the same circles around my own head, and I know that nothing's going to get better unless I actually change things, but... I'm scared. I just need to... I need everything to stop."

"Tell me I'm an idiot, but..." George began, his voice a little quieter than it had been before. "Surely just sitting at home would make things worse. You know, sitting around with your own thoughts. I mean, you don't have as much of a distraction."

"I don't need a distraction, I need a solution." Matty shook his head, leaning back against the wall. "I need everything just go away. I need my fucking head to work properly. I need help, really. Don't I?"

George nodded, meeting Matty with what he hoped came across as a comforting kind of smile. "You do."

"But I need to help myself." He continued, running a hand back through his hair, "and I guess you're right, maybe in the time being, I do just need a distraction, and I need you to tell me that everything's fine, and kiss me at least once every ten minutes, and tell me I look pretty at least every five minutes."

"I can do that." George assured him.

"I think I need a smoke as well." Matty sat back down on the bed, a little bit more put together than he had been before.

George hit him with a smile. "That's you and me both, I can say that for sure."

"I'm not letting you steal my weed this time around, though." Matty flashed him a glare, only half joking.

"It's not stealing, it's sharing." George insisted, joining him on the bed, and leaning in to kiss him quickly. "It's as much of my weed as it is your weed."

"Whatever you say." Matty shook his head - very much unconvinced.

-

They did make it in the end, and perhaps it was that which mattered more than anything else. It was largely down to the fact that really, things were just quite a bit easier when you were just that little bit stoned.

It was a little house down the end of a street not a far walk from theirs, that might have looked quite a lot more normal in the full light of day, but with the dim evening light and sunset orange toned sky, the whole world seemed to be framed just that little bit differently. Perhaps that was a good thing though, perhaps Matty hadn't gathered the courage and motivation to go and talk to boringly normal people in a boringly normal house at a boringly normal party.

They were a bit late, which was indeed Matty's fault, but nowhere near as much as he insisted that it was, as really, what did a couple of minutes matter in the scheme of things. Although they were definitely more than just a couple of minutes late, but that was hardly the real issue at hand.

George couldn't help but notice the way Matty instinctively moved closer to him as they neared the front door. He didn't find any problem with it, and really quite liked having Matty close to him, since he did really quite like Matty after all; it was just the reason why and knowing what it all meant, and knowing why Matty lived his life like that, and sometimes, accidentally, still coming to accept the Matty he had known before in his place.

He didn't mind. He made sure he was well aware of that, because Matty was getting better - he really was trying, and things really were changing, and George could feel it.

"You good?" He turned to Matty, unable to stop himself from noticing the way his breathing had quickly grown more rapid and shallow; he wondered if he'd always notice things like that - the little, unnecessary kind of slight changes, that somehow always seemed to mean much more than he could possibly imagine.

"Yeah." Matty told him, glancing back at George and flashing him a smile. It wasn't much more than a small smile, but as far as George could tell, it was genuine, and it was that which really mattered after all. "You?"

George nodded, reaching over to ring the doorbell. "Yeah, me too." He added, stretching a little as they waited for Gemma to answer the door. He could tell it was definitely an uncomfortable silence on Matty's part - filled with a horrible kind of anxiety that made you question every decision you'd ever made, and he wished he knew what to say to make that the slightest bit better, or even just to fill a moment or two of their time, but he found that he couldn't, and that Gemma was opening the door for them before he could even get his brain into gear.

Gemma was tall and thin with light curly hair and a bottle of wine in her left hand - a natural kind of pretty fit with a natural kind of happiness. She seemed to radiate kindness, and a weird kind of welcoming sensation that appeared so comforting that Matty was unsure whether he could really trust it or not. The matter of the fact, however, was that she seemed nice enough, and Matty wasn't here to make complex judgements about people, but to try and have a good time, to try and have a normal evening, to try to be the kind of person George deserved.

"So you're the boyfriend." She turned to Matty immediately, ignoring George completely, which might have been something that would have irritated him if he didn't know Gemma well enough to know that she didn't mean any harm by it.

"Yeah..." Matty began, blushing a little as he glanced between George and Gemma. "That's me." He met her with a smile: something about making a good impression drifting to the forefront of his mind.

"Never told me he had a boyfriend." She continued, rolling her eyes across at George like he wasn't there at all. "Never even told me he liked guys too."

"It was a kind of complicated thing." George added, hitting Gemma with a look which he could only hope might convey something about shutting up to her. It was hit and miss, really. "Also not your business." He let his face fall into a grin - one that she shared, before standing aside to let the two inside.

As Matty made his way inside after her, he found that the place was nowhere near as busy as he had first imagined, and much more manageable than he had first thought. There were really no more than twenty people in total, and he found himself immediately recognising the smell of weed coming from the corner. The music wasn't too bad either - not on too loudly as it tended to be at these sort of parties, and not just the same playlist of pop songs over and over again but instead something indie that Matty thought sounded like he might have once heard at a friend's house back when he was seventeen.

"Not my business." Gemma nodded in agreement as she closed the front door behind them. "Just one of those things I thought you would have mentioned, you know? Then again I had a friend who didn't find out was a vegetarian until eight months into our friendship."

"Sexuality is a bit different to not eating meat." Matty found himself speaking up, not really having intended to, but finding the words slipping his lips before he could quite stop them. In after thought, he wasn't entirely sure why he had tried to stop them in the first place, as it wasn't a bad thing after all. "I mean, you can just stop eating meat whenever, and then sexuality is like what you're born with and something you have to figure out. Something that's complicated to figure out, you know... in the same way that deciding you're not going to eat chicken anymore isn't quite so complicated."

"Yeah." Gemma thought for a moment, glancing between George and Matty. "You're right really. I didn't mean it like that anyway. Just thought it might have come up in conversation before, but it's not a worry really." She pulled her lips up into a smile, before turning to look at Matty, but this time really looking at him. Matty couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable under her gaze, as she took in his appearance, seeming to notice far too much in a far too little space of time. "Never did mention your name either. You're a crap boyfriend really, aren't you, George?"

"I'm Matty." Matty offered, glancing up at George and smiling, as he started to get the feeling that maybe this really wouldn't be quite so bad after all. "He's lovely, really. Even if he is a bit of an idiot sometimes."

George rolled his eyes, sensing a certain something creeping across Matty's face. "If you dare mention the fucking ham one more time, I swear to god-"

"I told you not to buy that fucking ham at least seven million times now, because I've told you - I don't like it, but you still keep doing it!" Matty found himself coming out with much more of a sudden outburst than he had planned: his voice rising much more than he had ever intended, and really the whole situation was more than just a little bit amusing. Matty turned to Gemma, who couldn't help but giggle. "He keeps buying this horrible slimy ham." He explained.

George wanted to argue, but instead found himself shaking his head, deciding it was probably better off that way.

Gemma glanced down at her phone momentarily, before turning to George. "Charlie says she wanted to talk to you, you should go and find her, I think she's out in the garden."

Matty couldn't help but grimace, desperately wanting to say something, but knowing that it was definitely better not to in front of Gemma, and anyway, he had to trust George, and he had to let him go off and talk to other people for a few minutes, even if they were desperately hitting on him. He found George's eyes meeting his momentarily, and really before Matty quite knew what he was doing, he gave George a quick nod, leaving him there to hold his breath as he watched George disappear off into Gemma's house.

He didn't want to put himself down as entirely pathetic and incapable of being a functional human being, or one of those people that couldn't survive without their boyfriend for more than two seconds because he knew they were just so incredibly annoying, but try as he might, he couldn't stop the feeling that his feet were sinking slowly into the floor, coupled with the sudden tightness in his chest.

"Come on." But then suddenly, there was Gemma, smiling at him, with that strange kind of comforting sensation she seemed to radiate, as she picked up her bottle of wine from the table. She outstretched her other hand towards Matty, nodding at him as if she could almost sense what was going on inside of his head.

Matty didn't have the slightest idea just where she was taking him, or whether or not that would be a good idea, but there was something about her that made him trust her, and without George around he found that he didn't have a much better idea for what to do. That was how he found himself taking her hand and letting her drag him off down the hallway and through a doorway which lead the two of them into the kitchen.

He found himself immediately grateful for the quiet and the empty room, and the look Gemma held in her eyes as she set the wine down at the breakfast bar said she might seem to understand.

"Sit down." She nodded towards a stool, leaving him to do so as she reached up to one of the cupboards, retrieving two wine glasses and setting them down on the breakfast bar beside them. "These are my nice glasses - don't break them." She flashed him a smile, before taking the seat next to him.

Matty had to admit that he did feel quite a bit better now they were away from everybody else, but he couldn't settle the unease inside him that came with his lack of knowledge as to just exactly what was really going on. He just wasn't at all sure how best to ask that without coming off as rude or something like that. Instead, he resorted to watching as she poured them both a glass of wine.

Matty tried to focus on the wine - he liked wine, after all, but still this had never really been about the wine, because despite what he might have thought, when coming down to a glass of wine, some things weren't just about the wine inside, but the glass itself. After all, maybe this wasn't so much about the anxiety he felt about parties and outings and other people, but instead what kept it there, so very present and so very real in his chest, still after all this time.

"You're Matty." She began, taking a sip from her glass of wine, hitting him with a look that seemed as if it didn't quite fit with the happy demeanour she'd had before. "Matty Matty?" She raised her eyebrows, finding the need to confirm it.

"Yeah... I'm... there's no other Matty." He found himself blushing, and had no better ideas than to hide his face behind his wine glass for a little while, taking a sip or two - unable to deny the way things did just seem that little bit easier afterwards.

"I've heard a bit about you." Gemma continued, offering him a smile, sensing the way he'd tensed up a little bit again. "Never thought you'd be the boyfriend, though. Never saw the whole boyfriend thing coming in the first place. He loves you, though, that's obvious. I mean, I've seen you two together for about three minutes, but still, he really does love you."

"What have you heard about me?" Matty couldn't help but feel as if everything inside him had suddenly started to scream, as he immediately jumped to imagine the worst, because seemingly there was just no other way in which he could get his mind to work. "What do you mean?"

"How exactly did you two get from ex-best friends who ended up pretty much hating each other to boyfriends?" Gemma, of course, decided to answer his question with another question, but still, Matty could piece together some sort of answer from it.

"Honestly..." He let out a sigh, not entirely sure he was comfortable with relaying his entire life story to her, but there was a certain something in her eyes that just made him want to trust her, and if she knew the half of it already, then what harm could the rest do?

"Honestly." She nodded, prompting for him to continue.

"I was a bit in love with him, for a long time now. I just didn't recognise it at first, and then I didn't want to admit it, and then something kind of happened, but it didn't quite work out, and things just got messy and it wasn't really a thing at all, and then he kissed this girl and I kind of lost it. Like properly lost it." He let out a sigh, hating the way his whole body tensed up at every mention of New Year, hating the way it didn't much seem like he'd be able to get over it. But the thing was that, realistically, he had to.

"That was Saffy, wasn't it?" Gemma let out a sigh, unable to help noticing the way Matty seemed to flinch at the mention of her name; that, of course, confirmed that it was. "I never liked her." She continued, taking a sip of her wine, and turning to Matty, who rushed to do the same.

"I don't much like her either." Matty admitted, feeling like maybe he was just a little bit jealous about things, considering that he'd never really spent much time with her, and his main memory of her was walking into the bathroom and seeing her kissing George, which wasn't the most pleasant of memories by any standard. "I kind of... I don't know. I never really knew her, but she and George broke up because she started being a bit of a bitch to him, and then she kissed him, so I guess I have my reasons."

"She's a bit of a bitch in general, really." Gemma finished her glass of wine and turned to Matty with a smile. "I went to college with her." She continued to explain, noticing the slight confusion setting in over Matty's face. "I mean, okay, a drunken kiss is one thing, but a four month relationship is another thing, and that's what I can't really understand. I'd gathered from her that George's type was bitchy girls who have far too much to say and far too much to drink, that's why you kind of caught me by surprise."

Matty shrugged, not really wanting to think about what had happened in those four months, but finding his mind wandering there of its own accord. "I can do bitchy girl who's got far too much to say and had far too much to drink. I can do that." He told her, reaching for his wine glass and finishing his drink.

Gemma raised her eyebrows. "You're not like that though. I mean, I don't really know you, but from what I can tell, you're really not like that." She left Matty to ponder over her observations as she poured them both another glass of wine.

"What am I like then?" Matty asked, only speaking up again after a minute or so had passed - almost scared to hear what she might consider to be the answer.

"You don't really want to be here but you came anyway. For George, I think, and I think you told him to go, you're the one who told him that he should go and you'd come with him even though you didn't really want to. You're nervous about things, I thought maybe shy, but not really, you just don't like large amounts of people or new situations. Maybe just not a party kind of person, but really not the kind of person George used to tell me about." Matty just sat there: eyes wide as Gemma relayed his whole life story to him.

"Things changed. I guess I used to be like that - with too much to say and too much to drink, and partying, and loud opinions, and my own interests in front of everything else, but that changed. Everything sort of faded away, and I just gradually became less interested in that sort of thing, and then that kiss happened, and that didn't help things at all." He wasn't the least bit sure why, but he really found an odd kind of trust in her in all of this, and that made coming clean about things just that bit easier.

"I like you." She continued, meeting Matty's eyes. "I haven't seen much of you, but I like you. And George definitely loves you, but don't let him fuck this up, alright? Don't let him fuck you up, don't let him pull that sort of shit again, because I don't even care if I'm more of his friend, and I don't even care how big and tall he is, I will fucking come and fuck him up if he hurts you."

Matty let out a laugh, blushing a little, and generally doing his best to try not to think of the countless possibilities of everything going wrong. "Thanks, but I think things are going to be alright this time. I really do. I really fucking hope so."

"I hope so too. I don't think I'd be very good at trying to punch him, you know?" She let out a laugh, before pulling her phone out of her pocket. "Need to text Charlie to let him come back now."

"You what?" Matty hit her with an odd kind of look: not entirely grasping what was going on here.

"Yeah, she never actually had anything to say to him, I just wanted to talk to you in private for a minute. Get an idea of what kind of person you are and everything." Matty's eyes widened, somewhat horrified by the true nature of everything. "It's not like that. Look, I do it to everybody anyone of my friends date, I wanna get an idea of what kind of person they are, you know? I think that's kind of my responsibility, being a good friend."

Matty shrugged, "I guess." Still, he couldn't deny that the idea made him just that little bit uncomfortable. "So he's just been with Charlie for no reason?"

"Pretty much." Gemma nodded, putting her phone down and taking a sip of her wine. "She can talk to him for ages though, it will have been fine."

"George reckons she's hitting on him." In hindsight, Matty came to conclude that maybe it would have been much better for the both of them if he'd managed not to voice that aloud, at least not so bluntly anyway.

"She's not." Gemma assured him, holding his gaze as she spoke. "She thinks he's attractive, but I mean that's different, isn't it? Anyway, she knows about you now, and she's not that kind of person."

"She gave him her number on Friday." Matty couldn't help but sound rather unconvinced by all of this, and perhaps just a little bit jealous, and a little bit overly concerned.

Gemma let out a sigh, rolling her eyes a little. "She's not going to steal your boyfriend. For a start, she doesn't want to, and even if she did, I wouldn't let her, alright? You don't deserve that."

It was then in the silence that followed, in the space that Matty didn't quite know how to fill, in the mess of thoughts drifting messily around his head, that George made his way into the kitchen, eyeing the two of them almost suspiciously, before sitting down next to Matty.

"No offence, Gemma, but I really do think she's hitting on me." George announced, picking Matty's glass of wine up out of his hand and taking a drink himself. Matty was moments away from protesting this until what George had said actually set in.

"I told you!" He exclaimed, glancing across at Gemma accusingly. "If he thinks she's hitting on him, then she's hitting on him-"

"What did she do?" Gemma let her face fall into her hands, unsure quite how to deal with the situation. "Tattoo her name onto your arm, or something?"

"She made some really awkward comments about me and Matty, I mean, not anything nasty, I don't think she meant much by it, but it was just a bit weird. I don't think she really grasps the concept of bisexuality, you know, even after I explained it to her." George let out a groan as he recalled it, deciding that it was just best if he finished off Matty's glass of wine for him. "I don't think she even had anything to talk to me about."

"She didn't." Matty answered for him, before Gemma could come up with anything else.

"I just wanted to talk to Matty for a minute." She continued to explain, looking between George and Matty, as the two shared a glance. It was the kind of glance that she couldn't quite decipher, and that made her just that little bit uneasy with all of this.

"You could have just asked to talk to him for a minute instead of making me talk to her, you know?" George offered, leaning up against Matty's shoulder. "It's whatever, I mean... I don't know. I mean she doesn't mean anything bad, really. She's just sort of... I don't know."

"I mean..." Matty began, leaning back into George. "She just thinks you're hot, I can't blame her for that, can I? Seeing as you are."

"God." George rolled his eyes, unable to stop himself blushing immensely, because really when Matty got like this, it was bad enough when Gemma wasn't sat just in front of them, watching with wide eyes, and an amused half smirk curling over her lips.

"What?" Matty protested, looking up at him with a grin, "you are." He insisted, before leaning over and pouring himself another glass of wine. "Even if you did drink my glass of wine, smoke my weed-"

"It was our weed." George corrected him, before proceeding to take the wine glass out of his hands and take another sip, before placing it back down in his grasp. "Shared weed."

"If you two break up then who gets custody of the weed?" Gemma asked, pulling one leg up to her chest.

"That's why we can't break up." Matty laughed, feeling his cheeks heating up. "I mean, what would we do with the weed?"

"We'd probably have to smoke it all so it's fair." George suggested, finding that although Gemma had made a joke out of it, if they did break up, this would probably be an actual argument they'd have.

"What? Whilst we have a proper domestic, like proper yelling at each other and just getting stoned at the same time?" Matty suggested, raising his eyebrows, and really, George couldn't help but snort at the notion.

"It could work." Gemma shrugged, picking up her phone to text Charlie back, who honestly really was just trying her best with George, even if that perhaps hadn't come across in the best way.

"Let's just try not to break up instead." George leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the back of Matty's neck. "How about that?"

"Yeah. I think I can manage that." Matty let a smile fall over his lips, leaning back into George's chest, and breathing in the cool air - the slight draught from where George had left the door slightly open, and the hum of music and conversation making its way through the door from the other side of the house. He had this odd kind of warm feeling in his stomach: a kind of buzzing sensation, almost like what he imagined the colour gold might feel like.

The thing was, however, that he couldn't quite figure if he was finally properly happy and at peace with the world, or if it was just the wine, and this was him treading towards properly tipsy, and then on towards the kind of drunk he'd rather not be, but still the kind of drunk he might end up the next morning.

In all honesty, Matty had no idea where things might go from here, and truthfully, that was what should have scared him, but for the first time in far too long now, he found himself something close to truly at ease. He didn't quite know what to think about that at all. But maybe it was just the weed, just the weed, and the wine, and something about the way Gemma smiled like she really meant it, and the feeling of George's lips against his neck. Maybe with all of that, Matty didn't much mind losing himself by the end of the night.

-

It was too bright, and everything smelled too much of alcohol, of drink, of the kind of mess that was nowhere near as noticeable when you were yourself wrapped up in it. The morning, however, brought forth the world in a new kind of light, and not just simply the light coming through the windows, and casting tall shadows across walls, and faces, across the world and the people within it. It wasn't about the physical light around them - the light of the sun, the light of the morning, and the warm breeze making its way through the house - a gentle reminder that it might be summer soon.

The focus was more so the light held in Matty's eyes, in the light he viewed the world, and how one night did change things, and how it was always the smallest things that would make the biggest impact, and the biggest things that would end up meaning nothing at all.

His head was pounding. He'd drank too much. There was something good within it though, there was a distinct kind of feeling running through his veins - a very prominent reminder that he was alive and that everything was real. He was hungover, with bags under his eyes, and his hair tied back out of his face in a messy bun, and he was alive, watching the sun shine through the windows of Gemma's house, watching the few people asleep on the sofas at the end of the room begin to wake up, watching the world really begin.

It was just past six. They hadn't intended to stay the night. They hadn't intended to stay at all. Yet that was how things had happened - the world had continued to turn without Matty's certain input or approval, and that was just how things happened and would always continue to happen, and perhaps the secret to getting 'better' was just coming to terms with that, and finding comfort in the fact that the past was very much behind you and it would always be as such.

Parties weren't so bad after all.

It was just his head - spinning slightly, and the lack of a general idea of what to do with himself, with George passed out at the other end of the room, looking just about as peaceful as the circumstances allowed. Still, he was beautiful. Still, Matty was a soppy romantic, which had been quite the surprise, and certainly to himself.

In the end he went outside - through the kitchen, the back door, and into Gemma's tiny little back garden. He'd come to conclude that fresh air was his best bet in improving his current situation, and biding his time as everything fit itself back together again, and until George woke up - there was that too.

The air was warm on his skin - more of a caress than a touch, gentle and loving, with intent and meaning, and the warm glow of what might begin to be summer all around him, fitting perfectly in time with the steady rhythm of his heart - for once calm in his chest. His heart would never sleep, but this was the most rest it had gotten in something reaching close to forever.

The sunrise seemed to define the morning, to define the world - to paint Matty's heart, his body, his world, his soul, in shades of pink, orange, and gold. There was a feeling of sparks to it all, as if despite the peace around him, the world was on fire. It was a different kind of fire though - no longer a raging forest fire with the power to kill hundreds, but perhaps just the gentle burning of a cigarette - held gently out of a bedroom window in the early morning, or the slow burning of incense: a warm, summery scent, peaceful - not to put you to sleep, but to make you feel alive.

Admittedly, he had come outside in search of peace and quiet, of solitude, of the space to sit and think in the company of his own mind, of the wish to watch golden skies turn baby blue, and let the world settle in around him in its own time. Things, however, didn't always quite work out as planned.

Sat down at the bottom of the very small garden, with their backs up against the fence, were two people, smoking away the morning. It didn't take Matty long to recognise one of the two to be Gemma, but he found himself frozen, fixated on the guy beside her - so desperate to try his best to fix a name to the face. Quite a few people had introduced themselves to him last night, and Matty had found himself just far more alright with that than he ever could have bargained for, but he found himself reasonably certain that the man sat beside her was not among them.

"Hey..." Gemma noticed him soon enough, craning her neck upwards to better catch his attention. "Matty?"

He held her gaze, biting his tongue, glancing quickly between the two of them, and the unreadable expressions they shared. It was in that moment that his heart failed to fit quite so comfortably in his chest for very much longer, as doubt began to set in, and rose red seemed to look a lot more like blood, and the gold of the sky was too bright, glistening, digging holes into him, tearing him apart - and there he'd fall, piece by piece, to settle amongst the dirt and dust in the grass.

He might have been okay with that if he didn't know better, and perhaps it was one of those times where he just wished that he didn't, but the past was past, and even though there seemed to be a thousand colours amidst the sunrise, not one of them was red. And after all, breathing always seemed so much more complicated in theory than in practice. He felt as if the same could be said for a lot of things.

Despite a spiral of unexplained anxiety and a horrible instinctual feeling that everything had somehow gone wrong, Matty made his way across the garden in the end. He held Gemma's smile and sat down beside her like it was a simple thing to do - like that was his instinct, like he had the right kind of thoughts in his head, like more than breathing had ever come naturally to him.

"This is John." Gemma gestured towards the man sat beside her, with long brown, shoulder length hair, and a tired, yet content, almost borderline peaceful kind of look in his eyes. "This is Matty." She turned to John, gesturing at Matty momentarily.

"George's boyfriend?" John inquired, leaning forward a little to get a better glimpse of Matty, who wasn't entirely sure what about him was worth all that much in terms of credit and acknowledgement.

"Yeah." Matty saw Gemma's mouth open, ready to answer for him, but found he'd beat her to it. It wasn't out of dislike for her, but love for himself, for coming to terms with the sound of his voice, and the way worlds might slide from his tongue without tying themselves into all kinds of knots. "I'm George's boyfriend."

"Is he still asleep?" Gemma asked, taking a drag of her cigarette, and letting her gaze fall back upon the house, and the backdoor Matty had managed to leave slightly ajar.

Matty nodded, following her gaze, finding that in his head, he was back in her living room, at one with the shadows: more of a silhouette cast on the wall, as opposed to a person stood there, living, breathing, amongst it all. He had found comfort in that, but it was different to the morning light, to the morning air, to cigarette smoke, to strange names and familiar faces, to an intimidation of the person he might one day grow to be.

"Thought so." She nodded, letting the silence set in between the three of them for a while afterwards.

Matty was the one to break it in the end, but only a good few minutes down the line, by the time their previous conservation had gone as far as to fade away into little specks of dust that had drifted away from them and settled down amongst the grass in some place rendered unreachable by time only but by time itself.

"I can voluntarily be in a different room to George, you know?" His tone wasn't snappy or defensive, but the same kind of quiet, the same kind of gentle, perhaps more so of a reminder to himself than anyone else. Perhaps from the look in Gemma's eyes, Matty could be sure that she knew it too. "I can." He repeated: louder this time.

"He's there for you. You've got a good thing." Gemma reminded him, finishing her cigarette and stubbing it out against the fence, leaving a small trail of ash against the brown coat of paint. "You don't have to be entirely separate and different to be your own person. It's natural to rely on people - we all do."

"We do." John added, finding that he hadn't had all that much to add before, but meeting Matty with a reassuring nod and smile nonetheless.

"I don't want to be co-dependent, latching onto him feels like there's a hole to fill, feels like I'm broken, in pieces." Matty swallowed hard, shaking his head. "I'm not like that. It's not like that."

"If it isn't then why is it an issue?" She questioned, leaning back against the fence, and watching the way Matty's burrow furrowed as he struggled to put an answer to her question.

"I don't know. I think I'm still so caught up with what people think." Matty admitted, words turning dry in his throat.

"You shouldn't be." Her response was instantaneous, but so very honest through this all.

"I know." Matty sighed. "I know."

-

Matty found that he'd missed his house in what was quite a short space of time. He'd missed his own bed, he'd missed his own bathroom, his own sofa, his own garden, his own kitchen sink. He'd missed the calm, he'd missed the cool breeze, and George's smile across from him in a silence that might span on for hours but would never grow any more uncomfortable.

He didn't want to be quick to discern anything, but this was what he needed, this was his life, and this was the world sitting into place around him. Perhaps he didn't have to amount to the whole world, perhaps he didn't have to be the person he was before to be happy again, because this wasn't about looking backwards and trying to mirror how things had been, but about looking forwards and making off in that direction.

They hadn't spoken of all that much on the way home, as the morning had really turned over into the day, but Matty felt that he and George were, regardless of silence, still on very much the same wavelength. It was that which seemed to set his heart at ease, because this was what he needed, to have the trust in him to be his own person, and to be who they were, both together, as two separate people.

It was stretched out across the sofa, with Allen beside them, in much the same manner as they had been on Friday night that thoughts finally turned themselves into words.

"Wasn't so bad after all, was it?" George offered him a smile, referring back to the party, finding his mind drifting to back to the varying stages of comfort Matty had felt with the whole idea of going out, of Gemma's party, of people, of alcohol, of facing up to the mess that had brought them here in the first place.

Matty shrugged. "Bad is subjective, isn't it?" He let out a sigh, leaning further into George and closing his eyes, letting the world fade out slowly around him.

George smiled, laughing a little at exactly how Matty had chosen to answer his question. "You had a good time, though, didn't you?"

"Yeah." Matty murmured, his words only perhaps making it halfway out of his mouth. "I did."

"Gemma's nice." George nodded, watching as Matty returned the gesture, accompanied by a muffled sort of half yes. With that there was silence for a few minutes more, as George found that he perhaps didn't quite know what to say, but then there was maybe just no specific need to fill the silence in the first place.

Matty spoke up a good five minutes later, eyes opening slightly, but gaze fixated upon the ground. "I need help, though." George nodded, opening his mouth to reply, but found Matty continuing before he could quite get the chance to do so. "Things shouldn't be this complicated. Things are supposed to be easier. Things don't make sense really, and I can make sense of some things on my own, but definitely not everything. Definitely not everything."

"So Ross was right..." George began, letting a smile fall over his face.

"Maybe." Matty sighed, closing his eyes again. "Or maybe I just knew it all along."

George snorted, watching Matty's mouth curl up into a grin. "Maybe you did." He smiled, unable to stop himself from sounding just that little bit skeptical.

The thing was though, after all, it wasn't nearly so much about the ins and outs of how you got there, but really the fact that despite it all, you did in the end, and perhaps it was that Sunday, amongst everything else, that Matty had really begun to understand that.

-

hey fam 

look its here

nice long gay mess of a chapter

ur welcome

this would have been up yesterday but

i decided to do a much more productive thing yesterday

that is also good content though we must accept

vote and comment if u have an avocado ass or liked this chapter u know all is good

lov u guys !!!