Addiction/Affliction {M.Healy}

yearning/shame

AAAAAAAND I'M BAAACCKKK!!!! I'm so very sorry I've neglected this story for so long. I'm back into the proper swing of things lately with it, and I'm very excited. Please remember to vote and comment--it truly makes my fucking day. Also, enjoy Matty being all emo and smoking and wearing a floral shirt and just being the greatest thing there ever was in that gif. Love you all.

"You look quite handsome in your suit, you know," I said to Matty softly, my digital reflection blushing from the screen of my MacBook as it rested on my lap.

"And you look quite nice in your knickers, Jones," Matty said lowly, the almost permanent smirk appearing on his face.

He hadn't been gone long- only four days to be exact-but he was already a bit tan and I was already a bit lost without him. But with the perks of modern technology, Matty and I were still able to see each other, though it wasn't nearly enough without his touch, his smell, his taste.

"Thank you," I smiled. "I thought you'd like them."

It was just after ten at night in London, meaning it was just after two o'clock in Los Angeles, and Matty looked almost like an angel, as pathetic as that sounds. He'd removed his suit jacket, and his white button-up was a few buttons shy of being done, his hair in untamed curls as he rested his head against the fabric of the headboard, and the bright California sun illuminating him in such a way that made him seem truly heavenly. And he was, honestly.

"I miss you," I said to him, my tone soft, like I was almost saying it to myself rather than to him.

The man I loved, though he wasn't my boyfriend, grinned at me, his brows tilting upward, his skin and teeth nearly pearlescent. Sometimes it was physically painful to look at him.

"Miss you too," he said, almost too quickly, too simply, like he was struggling with what emotion to mask behind his words.

"Matty, I--" I trailed off, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip, my eyes looking at my hand cream and notepad on my nightstand rather than Matty's face. "I mean that," I finally managed to say. "I really miss you. When I say that, I truly mean it. Probably much more than you do."

This wasn't the time to start this conversation, and I knew that. This was the time to show off the new panties and bra I'd gotten, specifically for Matty to tear from me, preferably no longer than ten minutes after he'd got off the plane the day after tomorrow.

Only, especially now that he was half the world away, my thoughts about Matty were truly effecting me in a way that I wouldn't twist and pull into being positive or acceptable. I'd slept in his t-shirts, his faint smell the only thing that could lull me to sleep after nights of tossing and turning. I'd zone out at work, and completely stare off into space, my brain flooded with thoughts of whether or not Matty was cheating on me in California.

Except I couldn't even me mad at him if he did sleep with someone else, as we'd never had a discussion about it, no verbal contract ever adhered together.

"Don't do that, Jones," Matty said to be, the cadence of his voice evolving. "I miss you, I do. I just don't feel that it's as important to say as you do."

I was able to meet his gaze this time, and I was almost fearful, not of Matty, but of his reaction. "Well I need to say it, and I need to hear it back, alright?"

This was the closest I was going to get to telling Matty that I was completely, overwhelmingly, remarkably and probably borderline manically in love with him, and that I needed to know he felt just a bit of that as well.

Matty smiled softly, apologetically, but not patronizingly. "I miss you very much."

"Good," I said, licking my lips and flashing a toothy smile at him.