Intertwined Souls (Matty Healy/George Daniel)

12: "We're Just Friends"

"So..." Matty clears his throat roughly while George is busy doing the dishes despite Matty's earlier protests stating that they could wait until later, "did you have any plans for today?"

George bites on his lip for a moment in favor of speaking, because he can't quite tell if that's Matty's way of suggesting that he stick around for a bit or if he has something to do and he's trying to discover when George is going to leave so he can get on with his life.

"Not really," George finally answers honestly, toweling off the last plate slowly as he watches Matty carefully from the corner of his eyes. "Probably get some work done if I can manage it, but that won't take long."

"Well if you'd like, I'm going to get that dad tattoo I mentioned later this afternoon, and if you're not busy, I'd love some company."

George hesitates for a second time, waging the now-familiar battle with himself regarding what he should do in this situation. He wants to go of course, in fact, he'd like nothing more than to spend the entire day with Matty, but he isn't sure if that is beneficial for either of them in the long run.

"I-"

"You don't have to honestly," Matty barrels over the start of George's sentence before he can get another word out, "I just don't like getting a tattoo alone, which is silly, I mean, it doesn't even hurt all that bad, but I like having someone else there to focus on if that makes sense, but it doesn't have to be you. I can ring up my friend Gem and see if she's free, so if you'd rather not, I totally understand."

"Matty, calm down," George chuckles softly, resisting the side of him that is tempted to pull Matty into his arms and stroke his askew curls until he remembers to take a breath again which is getting progressively harder to ignore the longer he stays near the other man, "I'll come with you, just give me a few hours to make some progress on my article and I'll be ready to go."

"Really?" Matty looks so thrilled at the prospect of George joining him that George isn't sure what to say, so he just nods instead, which has Matty grinning cheerily as he rushes over to George's side, embracing him so quickly that George doesn't have a chance to reciprocate the affectionate gesture before Matty's pulling away. "I'm so excited, you can meet Jesse, he's my artist. He's lovely, in fact, he's letting me get this for free as long as I tip him a bit. I probably should check in with him to make sure we're still good for today, but he does amazing work if you ever want a new piece, although you might already have a shop you go to, I never really asked, but you probably do, I mean, your ink is much better than mine."

Matty continues to ramble on as he scrambles around supposedly looking for his phone, and George lets him, simply bobbing his head and humming at appropriate moments as he observes Matty. George thinks he seems a bit uncomfortable, or nervous maybe judging by the way he's running his mouth and he keeps bumping into things as well.

George reacts in a similar fashion when he's out of his element, but he doesn't understand why Matty's behaving so oddly in his own home, leaving him to wonder if he has something to do with it, which could be good or bad depending on the why behind it all.

"Well how about I let you phone him up and I'll head back to mine for a bit. You can pop down there whenever you're ready, you remember the number right?" George suggests when Matty fails at finding his phone, although George is positive it's still in his room since he hadn't seen Matty bring it into the kitchen with him, but he's sure Matty will figure that out once he's left.

"Yeah, that sounds good, I'll probably be there around three if that's alright. I just need to walk Allen and run a few errands first."

"That's perfect," George grins, daring to step closer to Matty in the hopes of receiving another embrace, but when Matty only smiles at him weakly, George ends up waving awkwardly instead. "I'll see you soon then."