More or less than friends

Chapter 31-hate

Clay's POV

I could feel a soft warmth on my face as the light of the sun and my lover's quiet breathing pulled me gently out of sleep. We were lay on one side of the bed together, seeing as the other side wasn't exactly.. clean. Neither of us had had enough energy left to change the sheets or pull on clothes last night, so now we lay with our legs entangled, holding one another as if the world was ending.

My mind drifted slowly into memories, reminding me of his skin on mine, his lips quivering, his entire body shaking and reacting to my every touch. I remembered the noises, more beautiful and loud than any little whine George gave when we had kissed previously. Nothing, absolutely nothing in my life had been as perfect as last night was.

A small groan came from beside me, pulling me out of my reveries. George was tugging on my arm, eyes very slightly open.

"Hey baby," I whispered gently, raising a hand to stroke his tangled hair. I got a small 'hmm' from him in response, his voice cracking in the middle of even that tiny noise. God, he must've been exhausted.

Slowly my mind became aware of our lack of clothes and dirty bedsheets. George didn't seem to mind- but then again, I'm not sure he even had that ability. His eyes were still open but he hadn't moved much, just lay still in my arms curled into a ball. After a couple more minutes of letting myself lie in the beauty of the moment, I sat up and searched the room for clothes. Eventually I just chucked on a t-shirt and sweatpants, then turned to the little brunette on the mattress.

"George, I need to clean the bed." He blinked up at me, sighing and wrapping the duvet even tighter around his little body. A grin made it's way onto my face, and I started looking for clothes for George this time instead of me. As I helped him dress in boxers and one of my hoodies he cringed slightly, apparently in some kind of pain at movement in his legs. Slight guilt crept into the back of my mind, but was quickly blown away when the brunette reached out with grabby hands so he could get off the bed.

Even after I scooped George into my arms he didn't move much, just curled further into my body and closed his eyes. Slowly and gently I walked into the kitchen and lay him down on the sofa, leaving him there to go and sort out our room.

About 20 minutes later the bed was clean and the rest of the room was tidier as well. I knew WE were probably pretty dirty, so I had a shower before going back to see George in the exact position I left him in.

Should I help him clean up?

In the end I decided to leave George until he could clean himself, or at least give me permission to help him. (seggsy) Besides, there were still the other rooms in the house that needed some tidying. For the next 2 hours I washed clothes, bowls, plates, I cleaned the bathroom, the kitchen and the living room connected to it. Once done I was about as tired as I had been waking up, but decided to go live for a bit. Everyone had been wondering where I was- neither me or George had posted anything since Nick and Karl were here, and that was over a month ago. Seated at my desk, my PC and keyboard in front of me, a wave of belonging washed over me. The amount of memories I had created here, the steps of my life I had climbed sat in this chair and, I realised, the place where I had first met George. Sat with a different PC, and in a different house, but on the same account and with a similar setup.

It had been any other day, but I had just argued with my mum. She was screaming at me, furious that I had been given yet another detention for skipping classes. I was probably about 14 at the time, and spent all of my free time playing random games and streaming with like 10 viewers. Of course, in this situation, that's what I wanted to do. I sprinted upstairs, ignoring my dad's footsteps behind me. My room had a lock and this came in quite useful at moments like these, so I had slammed the door and turned the key just before fists collided with it. Again, ignoring my father's voice and pounding at the door I had sat down, pulling on my headphones and turning the volume all the way up. Any distraction from the threats coming through the door would help, and with shaking hands I had searched discord servers before finding some guy in a random vc. Relief flooded my veins as I joined, whispering a small 'hello' to get a cheery greeting in response. I learned that this boy's name was George, that he lived in London and that he was about 2 years older than me. We spoke for hours, finding our shared interest for a game called minecraft and adding one another as friends. Before I knew it I had completely zoned out the rest of the world, oblivious to the constant shouting which still hadn't stopped.

From then on we spoke every day, gradually getting to know more about each other. I never told him anything about my struggles at home, and if he ever asked what was going on in the background I'd make up an excuse of the non-existent dog being at my door, or of my dad being angry at my sister for getting in trouble. I think at the time I had made George believe that my sister was a terrible kid, because a lot of my excuses had something to do with her.

Now I realised that George still didn't know anything about my childhood, only that my parents were homophobic. To be fair I didn't know anything about his either, except from the things we shared when practically growing up together.

Zoning back into the world I pulled on my headphones, setting up everything before clicking the 'go live' button. Immediately people streamed into chat, screaming 'hello's and asking how I've been. "Yes yes, hi chat. I'm alright, I've just been busy. How are all of you?" It was pretty therapeutic streaming again after so much going on in my life. I hopped on minecraft, running around random worlds to try and start a speed run. All the seeds were pretty crap so it ended up being pretty much a chill stream. I was talking about the merch discord when the door creaked open, a very sleepy looking George shuffling in. His hair was a mess, his eyes still half closed, but he smiled when he saw me and started walking over. "One second chat, Patches just walked in" quickly muting I turned to him, standing up and pulling him into a hug. "Hi there," he mumbled into my chest, making my stomach flutter.

"Hey, do you wanna watch me stream?" George nodded, looking up and kissing me quickly and gently. I sat back down and pulled him into my lap, letting him wrap his arms around my shoulders and his legs around my waist. "You comfy?" I whispered, and when feeling his nod against my neck I unmuted and got back to streaming, continuing the talk from before. George was completely still except for the movement of his breathing and occasionally snuggling into my neck. I knew that once or twice he fell asleep, because when he woke up he always made a little gasping sound before going back to steady breathing. It was a good stream overall, lasting over 2 hours and feeling very positive.

"I'm gonna head off chat, I'll hopefully see you soon. Love you guys, I'll-" before I could finish my sentence a text-to-speech dono came through. Pausing politely I listened to it, but wished I hadn't when it started speaking "Where tf is George? Last we saw him he was acting like a f4g over meeting you, but he's meant to be back home now and he hasn't been online for a month. Come to think of it, neither have you. It's so selfish that you think you have the right to just disappear together. You guys are disgusting, burn in hell". My stomach wrenched and I swear my heart skipped a beat when George sat up, staring at me in shock. He had heard it.

"Whoever donated that, how dare you say words like that and nothing is any of your business. George and I are both human beings and have personal lives, we have no responsibility or desire to share them with you. We don't always need to consistently stream and if you think we do you can piss off and find someone else to watch. Trust me, I won't miss you." George didn't even seem to hear me, he was just staring down at his hands with a flushed face and a devastated expression.

"Goodbye chat, get some sleep." Hurriedly I ended, turning off my PC and pulling of my headphones in order to comfort the now crying George. I squeezed one of his hands in mine, stroking shapes into his back with the other. "It's ok, don't worry. They're awful George, and they're wrong about everything. You are perfect and you have every right not to be online sometimes." He just sniffed slightly, avoiding eye contact with me. "Hey, Georgie? Gogy? The Gogs, mr. colourblind, pretty boy with the brown eyes?"

At all the last one he giggled slightly, raising his face to look at me. I knew he didn't believe what the person had said, just hated it. Anyone disliking him was something George couldn't bare, especially when it was about something he couldn't control. "I love you. They might not, but I love you."

And they might not, but I really do.

(1688 words)

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Thoughts?

This and the last chapter have been slightly longer, I hope that's ok I've just had a lot of random surges of inspiration for what to write. Recently motivation has been lacking so I'm glad I can still write while struggling to go outside.

If ur reading this ily <3