this is the place ⇝ george x will

2

"Alex?" George says at the door of his bedroom. The youngest looks up from his computer, eyes concerned and worrying. He feels the tightness at the back of his throat begin to rise. "Can...can we talk?"

Alex almost looks relieved. "Yeah," he breathes. "Of course."

"Um," George starts, sitting on the edge of Alex's bed. "I...I wanted to say that you were right...and I'm sorry."

Alex's eyebrows furrow delicately. "I was right? What about?" He turns around in his chair, so they're facing each other.

George's mind jolts back to him and Will running away from the park, laughing so hard they thought they could burst. He thinks about how Will grabbed his hand as they ran back towards the pavement.

"You said I should let Will in," George breathes. "And you were right. He's really nice. Too nice."

Alex isn't upset or disappointed. His lip doesn't curl smugly, and he doesn't say 'I told you so'. He just gets up from his chair and leans into George's space to pull him into a tight hug.

*

She's beautiful, dark-haired and doe-eyed with straight white teeth and a sunny laugh like Will's, and she's tucked under his arm on Fraser and James' sofa. She's his female counterpart, all loud jokes and obnoxious laughter. George is sitting on the sofa opposite with Alex and James, condensation from the beer running down his hand in his oblivion.

Her name's Mia, and Will says it all softly when he speaks to her. He taps her leg and laughs into her shoulder when she says something funny. She's great at Fifa - better than George and Alex and probably everyone. She'd given George a firm handshake when they met. She confidently looked him in the eye, all long eyelashes and perfect eyeliner wings. She's perfect. They're perfect, and George damns himself for becoming so quickly hung up on Will.

Alex is the first to be intoxicated, all flailing limbs and loud slurred statements that make everyone laugh. George takes a swig of beer silently, drunkenness not yet taking over his body. He watches as Alex, red-cheeked and grinning, unabashedly sits down right on James' lap. Thing is, George knows. He knows drunken things Alex told him at one in the morning, months ago, walking home from Tesco. "George, I think I'm in love with James." George wasn't surprised, he'd seen the longing looks and the touches that Alex must've thought were subtle. George had patted his shoulder under the dim light of the moon. "It's alright, mate."

But James doesn't get drunk. He's six foot four - his body purely runs on testosterone. Any amount of alcohol just dissolves inside him before the night is even over, and he frequently ends up as the friend who gathers up the inebriated like a tired father. So when Alex is drunk, which doesn't take much, James takes him back to the flat. It's not hard to guess why Alex is in love with him.

George's mind jolts back, tuning back into the heavy music and Fraser's loud proposition.

"Me and James will have to get you on one of our channels at some point," he says to Mia, holding up his beer. "You can be our token female."

Mia chuckles, all confident and unashamed. She claps Fraser on the shoulder like they've been friends for years. "Token female?" She laughs. George swallows, staring into the swirling brown remnants of his beer.

"You see, Mia, Fraser doesn't get much female attention," James laughs from beside George. "He's taken this opportunity because he knows he won't get it anywhere else." They all burst out laughing, even Fraser, who takes the self-deprecating humour like it's a joke about anybody else in the room.

"I get lots of female attention, actually," Fraser's argument fades out as George leaves the room and enters the kitchen, after asking if anyone else wanted another drink. He notices that Mia joins him seconds later.