Nothing Revealed In A Common Crisis

It's Not Living (If It's Not With You) (26.2)

Make sure you read 26.1 first x

~*~*~*~ Christmas 2018 ~*~*~*~

To say the run up to Christmas hadn't been all that fun this year would be completely and utterly true. But after the year you've had you hadn't really expected anything less.

You didn't make it back up to Sheffield until the 21st of December because you had quite a few things left to finish for various Dirty Hit artists and you wanted to get another commission out of the way that you got from your gallery. Thankfully you got everything you needed to do out on time and you made it back to your flat for Christmas.

Your gallery sold out back in October and you got a lot of commissions from it which you were absolutely over the moon about. Truthfully, you couldn't believe everything had sold.

You were truly so surprised your big pieces sold because they were the ones that you were most worried about. Your larger box painting and the cherry blossom tree were the ones you thought weren't going to sell at all.

But everything went and you're so thrilled that you can say that you've now had 3 of your own gallery shows sell out entirely. You're so proud of yourself and sometimes it still doesn't feel real, it only really hit you when you received your check for a hefty amount.

That was probably the last pleasing thing that came your way before Christmas this year, because everything was a bit different. With you being in London most of the time now, Charlie had moved in with Y/B/F and with them now living together in your flat back in Sheffield, they put the tree up in your flat at the start of December after she came back from the Monkeys tour.

Putting up the Christmas tree was something you and Y/B/F usually did together when she came home from her various tours, but obviously you weren't going to make her wait for you to come back home when she and her boyfriend were spending their first Christmas living together.

Instead of doing a tree in London in your flat, you just opted for putting a bit of tinsel up and you put some fairy lights up in your lounge to make it feel like the holidays. But with how different everything was for you, it never felt much like the holidays.

That could have been because you got some sad news the last week of November though. About a week before The 1975 released A Brief Inquiry Into Online relationships, you were falling asleep on your settee one evening around 10pm when consistent knocking on your front door woke you up.

Your heart is thudding so fast from being startled awake so you're a little apprehensive when you walk towards your front door. Thankfully, you have a peephole in your door so you can see who is outside before you open it, and you're overcome with relief when you see a familiar face on the other side.

You pull the door open, asking, "Matty?" because you're a little confused as to why he's at your flat.

Not that you mind in the slightest, he just usually calls or texts you to tell you he's coming. But you had just been asleep so you could have missed it.

Thoughts of why he didn't text or call leave your mind completely though when you see that there are tears in his eyes. This time your heart drops completely. You ask him, "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry." Matty says shakily, running a hand through his curls and his voice is strained as he tries to get his words out as he's clearly trying not to cry, "I've tried to get a hold of George and- and he's not answering and when I went round to his he wasn't in. I just-"

By the time your curly haired brunette has finished his sentence though, tears have started falling down his cheeks which makes your heart sink and your blood run cold.