From The Start (George Daniel/Matty Healy)

7: this is such a gay shitpost of a fic im sorry

It was weird. Things were different. Matty could physically feel things changing around him, and innately that would just always be something he was opposed to, but there was no denying that this time around it, things were better - this was the good kind of change. It still put butterflies in his stomach, and the worst kind of thoughts in his mind, but they were different butterflies and different thoughts, and perhaps this was a different kind of bad, a lower standard of worse, and in that, things were definitely changing for the better.

Matty, of course, however, had to admit that he was hardly the most relaxed of people; he couldn't just drift through life without a care, and when he tried to do so, what he imagined as drifting was in reality just him ploughing through it, and destroying everything he loved around him. Additionally, he always been one of those people who'd be reluctant to believe in the miraculous nature of happy endings, and things turning on their head for the better, but it seemed that life itself had taken quite the turn just to prove him wrong.

This was all, of course, just so weird. It wasn't something he was accustomed to: the presence of another in bed beside him, someone to turn the mush of his brain back into words and sense again, full nights of sleep, proper meals, proper showers, proper life, proper living. It was all subjective, of course, but there was this part of Matty, hidden away at the back of his head, out of sight, that insisted that this was just how it was supposed to be, for Matty at least.

He couldn't help but question the truth to that claim, as after all, things had gone so wrong before, and perhaps the idea of him and George actually dating properly, for a long time, forever, seemed so out of reach, looming over him, somewhat nauseating. It wasn't dread placed within itself, however, but dread in what Matty had pinned down to be the inevitabilities of the situation: dread of the fallout, of the mess that followed, going through those four months again, picking himself up and putting him back together again after he'd trusted every piece of himself to George.

There was little question, however, about the fact that it was something Matty wanted, but he regarded with an elusive kind of want, like he couldn't quite convince himself that it really could happen, like he couldn't fully trust in the fact that this wouldn't all just fade away before he could even get comfortable in it. He came to conclude that perhaps he just wanted it too much, and in that, he was too scared, and everything came crashing down on him at once in a great mess of expectation and anxiety. He never wanted to have difficulty trusting people, especially not when it came to people like George, who he should trust without question, but there were just some things about himself that he struggled to even comprehend, let alone change.

He came to an understanding, and within that understanding he happened to come to accept that weird was definitely the way forward, and that he might just have to get accustomed to it all, to be comfortable with the uncertain, the unknown, and when it came to the butterflies in his stomach, focus not on the sensation, of the way it tore him apart, but of the butterflies themselves, of the beauty in the colours, of the wonder in the beats of their wings.

Matty wondered if perhaps there was some good in everything, as long as you were prepared to go out and find it, and as to whether that was always worth it. He wasn't entirely sure of that, but he found himself growing evermore certain that in this instance, it certainly was.

He'd let the sunrise pass him by, as he lay there in bed, drowning himself out in his own thoughts, this time, however, he'd found that he'd managed to stay afloat, or at least accept that there was life at the bottom of the ocean, just as there was above it. Everything was about perspective, really, and Matty couldn't help but find that he'd found himself stuck in such a singular way of thinking, and that in doing so, he'd very much trapped himself in a certain part of his head, and it was now that Matty could truly appreciate just how much of a bad thing that was.