Chapter Text
KAIROS
Noun:
- A propitious moment for decision or action.
- Greek: Auspicious or, literally, ‘opportunity.’
PART I
Matty fucks.
He’s topless and standing in the centre of the dressing room, his trousers pulled halfway up his thighs. A rhythm is working its way down through his body. It begins in his head – a single nod which gradually becomes more and more pronounced until it drops to his shoulders, his chest, his entire upper body bobbing to the sound. Then it hits his hips.
Matty isn’t even on stage yet, but it’s obvious that the performance has already begun. He starts thrusting his hips as he pulls up his trousers properly now, opting to leave them unzipped and unbuttoned, the pull of the music too strong. It claims his attention fully and completely.
Matty had spent years telling everyone who would listen how obsessed he was with music. How music was the greatest love of his life. But in truth, it wasn’t just music that Matty loved – it was noise . Any bit of noise immediately transformed itself into a beat for him. It was like a backwards form of synaesthesia. Some people saw music as colour. Matty heard a cacophony of noise and his senses filtered them, effortlessly transforming them into elaborate symphonies and complex rhythms. Maybe it was the drummer in Matty that made him interpret noise in this way (the raw sensation of sound giving way to beat). Or maybe it was just pure genius.
Whatever it was, it made him a performer to his very core and right now, in this cramped, overheated dressing room, backstage at this festival, Matty is in full-on stage mode.
He doesn’t miss a beat as he grabs his half-drunk glass of wine and takes a swig, his hip thrusting becoming even more pronounced as Waughy picks up speed in his pre-show warm-up routine. The noise of the saxophone is warm and rich. It seems to add to the heat of the dressing room.
“Fuck. Yes. Baby.”
Matty grunts out the words as Waughy trills some extended notes, each of his words staccato and clipped, each word holding the force of a stronger hip thrust behind it. The hip thrusts are coming harder, more violent now, but the edges of them have softened. Matty’s hips are loose and fluid. Well-practised.
Because Matty fucks.
Matty fucks .
But it’s not only that – and here Ross cocks his head to one side as he watches Matty point at Hann and nod, his hips still thrusting. Matty is giving Hann a look that says “get involved.” Hann resists for a few seconds and then realises resistance is futile when Matty’s in a mood like this. Resigned, Hann rolls his eyes and goes to pick up the acoustic that Matty had been strumming in the dressing room earlier.
Matty fucks and Matty is well-fucked.
Incredibly well-fucked. In fact, the longer Ross watches Matty, the more sense it makes. Matty reminds him of one of those people you spot walking down the street – the kind of people that stand out in a crowd. The kind of people that just glow . Because that’s the thing: Well-fucked people glow differently. You can spot them a mile away. They emanate this energy of being so comfortable in their own skin that absolutely nothing can phase them.
Being well-fucked is – and here Ross has to correct his facial expression because he realises he’s frowning – it’s sort of like magic.
The magic of a good fuck. Powerful. Transformative. Not something to be underestimated. Take Kourtney Kardashian for example (and yes, Ross wants to roll his eyes at his own point of reference here, but it’s a classic example). His knowledge of the Kardashians is limited, but if you look at photos of Kourtney when she’s with that fuckwit Lord or whatever the fuck he was, she’s dead behind the eyes. Look at her now with the drummer from Blink-182? She’s positively glowing. Transformed.
She’s become one of those people, and you better believe you can spot those people a mile away.
“Ross? Lay it down for me baby.”
Ross pulls himself away from his thoughts and looks up to see Matty still thrusting his way around the room.
“You know you want to big boy. Drop some bass.” Matty gives him a wink and does a cheeky hip thrust in his direction. Ross, like Hann, rolls his eyes.
“C’mon Ross – I know my amazing skill is intimidating,” Hann says and then slips into an effortless solo.
“Show off,” Ross grumbles and Hann laughs, giving him a nonchalant shrug – the gesture an act of self-deprecation that denies just how talented he is.
Ross picks up the bass that’s sitting on the sofa beside him and his eyes land on Matty pointedly as he starts to join in with a heavy bassline. Matty bites his lower lip and nods in time with the music for a few beats before he breaks out into a euphoric grin that lights up his entire face.
He affects a pseudo drawl and says the words “My, my, my,” while fanning at his face camply. “That bass is hot .”
When Ross looks at him again, Matty blows him a kiss and continues moving around the room, his energy filling the space, taking them all with him whether they want to go or not. Ever the showman.
And even though they’re not on stage and despite the fact that Matty is now performing in a shitty, rundown dressing room, he looks better than ever. It’s something that everyone has been saying on this tour. ‘Healthy’ is the word they use. He looks healthy . But it’s not health. Not really. It’s just being well-fucked. And Ross knows this because Maty never used to glow this much. Not ever. Not in any of his past relationships. Not when he was single. Not even when he was somehow managing to have all kinds of unhinged sex with supermodels. Not ever.
Matty had only become a well-fucked person recently. When he started fucking George, to be exact.
It had all become common knowledge in the band a few months ago. One night after a show, Hann and Ross had walked in on them going at it in the dressing room. Hann had a normal reaction: Flustered, he had yelled “Sorry!” and slammed the door shut as soon as his eyes had registered what was happening. But Ross? Ross hadn’t done a fucking thing. He had just stood there silently gaping, his heart pounding so loudly in his skull he thought he might pass out.
In the aftermath of the door slam, Hann had looked at him – shock all over his face – and Ross found he couldn’t even manufacture an appropriate response.
In fact, even now, weeks later Ross could still see the arch of Matty’s naked back as he rolled his hips back and forth against George’s lap. Could still see George’s large hand spread wide across Matty’s lower back. There was fucking and then there was fucking . But this? This had been something else entirely. It was… almost tender. But also electric. This had been the kind of sex that makes you a well-fucked person. The kind of sex that transforms you into something else – a ‘realer’ version of yourself. The kind of sex that plants you so firmly in your own body, you become present in every aspect of your life.
Well-fucked. It was a thing.
But Matty and George? George and Matty? That was something they all should have seen coming really, given how codependent the two of them were. And while it was a little surprising, it was also ridiculous (to Ross, anyway) that it had taken the two of them this long to figure it out.
Were they a couple now? Apparently not, according to separate conversations with both of them. But was Matty looking smugger than ever? Yes. Because while Matty fucks, George does too. Only George fucks in a way that takes people and transforms them into something completely different; That skin new, born again type of different. And thus, Ross had surmised that George had a magic cock. The kind of cock that is alchemy in action. The kind of cock that can transubstantiate a normal person until they are elevated into something divine.
Ross sighs through his nose softly, his fingers moving against his bass on autopilot now as his eyes glide across the dressing room. They touch on Matty, on Hann, on Jamie, on Polly, on Waughy, all of them bopping, all of them moving to the music and they land on George who is just about to sit down at his practice pads and warm up. George who is stretching out his arms and picking up his drumsticks. George who is smiling at Matty who is now laughing loudly and thrusting at him. George who is nodding his head, catching the beat, placing his sticks against the pads. George who raises his arms and brings them down heavily, laying the foundation of the beat. George who doesn’t take his eyes off Matty.
George who smiles at Matty and Matty who smirks right back at him.
And across the room, witnessing this, Ross realises that he wants this. He wants whatever this is that’s sparking between the two of them. Intimacy? Love? Sexual chemistry? The knowledge that they’re (most likely) going to fuck each other’s brains out as soon as they finish their encore tonight? Whatever it is, Ross decides that he needs to feel it. He is craving it. They’ve been on tour for ages now and for the past six months Ross has been going through a dry spell. It isn’t that he can’t find anyone to fuck – one of the side effects of being a rockstar is that there are always people who want to fuck you. It’s the fact that he can’t find the kind of person who will transform him.
He wants – Ross realises now as he watches Matty bite his lip, his dark eyes smouldering in George’s direction, in full view of everyone around them – he wants what they have. He wants to be transformed.
Ross wants to glow.
“Alright mate?”
Hann’s voice shakes him out of his thoughts.
“Hmm? Yeah.” Ross nods and throws in a few flourishes on his bass to make it seem like he’s present and paying attention.
Across the room, Matty starts belting out half-formed notes to the melody they’ve all magically picked up together, singing, but not really.
******
The night is hazy and tilted. Ross is sitting in the hotel bar, his vision fuzzy around the edges. He hadn’t intended on getting this fucked up, but somewhere between their journey from stage to bus to hotel, someone had decided that tonight is a party. They had gotten good news earlier that day: the new album is outselling their expectations and it feels as though every one of them has released a long-held breath.
As soon as they had made it to the hotel after that night’s headline set, they had decamped to the bar and alcohol had started to appear in Ross’s hand as if he was conjuring it up out of thin air.
One thing that Ross could never get used to was how life glides when you’re famous. Life is no longer full of interruptions or the need to forward plan things – they just happen. Your bags are always in your hotel room. You never have to settle a bill or check out. Everything just slides along without obstacle.
He glances up as another drink appears in front of him – a shot of tequila this time, placed there by Waughy who smirks at him and gives him a nod, a silent invitation – drink up – and, his movements slow and water-logged with previous beverages, Ross carefully picks up the shot, his drunken attention fixated on the way the light catches the golden liquid.
Beautiful.
But something moving in the liquid catches his eye. He squints, his brain trying to process what he’s seeing. It takes a few seconds for him to realise that it’s Matty and George. They’re all blurred and stretched out in his glass, the amber light distorting them. Ross lowers his glass until he sees them as they should be. They’re sitting directly across from him, both laughing and touching, like personal space is a suggestion rather than a socially accepted concept.
Ross lowers his glass all the way down to the table, watching them intently now. Matty has just downed his own shot of tequila and is brandishing the salt shaker at George, who bats Matty’s hand out of the way. Time slows down as George leans in towards Matty and then grabs him by the jaw, holding his face steady. Ross watches as George slowly licks at Matty’s cheek, the gesture loaded with the promise of sex and sweat. And then George pulls back, downs his shot and reaches for a slice of lemon.
Ross can feel his brain detaching as he watches, his head full of pins and needles. The act is intimate, inherently sexual. Hot.
They fuck – it starts as a thought but as it moves through Ross’s mind, the words accidentally find their way to his drunken, clumsy mouth and now everyone at the table is staring at him as his words sit there in the air like he’s reached into his skull, scooped them out and lobbed them directly onto the table:
“They fuck.”
The silence is deafening and Ross feels all the blood in his body migrate to his face as Matty erupts, howling with laughter, closely followed by everyone else at the table and, Ross is certain, a few other people in their close vicinity too.
“Say what you really think mate, Jesus,” laughs Hann somewhere to his left and, mortified, Ross tries to explain why he has just said something so inappropriate. But really, as he stumbles through his words, he knows there’s no way to explain it. He can’t. Because who the fuck just says something like that?! Eventually his drunken brain settles on the only thing he can say, which is, unfortunately, the truth:
“I haven’t had sex in months.”
Around the table all joking and conversation stops and lands in a stunned silence for three-quarters of a heartbeat before Matty squeals and collapses into a howl of amused laughter again. He falls over onto George, accidentally slapping another shot of tequila out of George’s hand. It sloshes all over both of them.
Ross feels his insides sinking into the floor.
Beside him, Hann responds, his words all leaning into each other:
“If it makes you feel any better, neither have I,” he offers, a small, crooked smile on his face – the signature tell that Hann is, much like Ross, sloshed.
“But that’s completely different Adam,” Waughy butts in, “you have a toddler at home. Ross doesn’t.”
Ross wills the floor of the bar to open up and swallow him whole. His face is burning. He can feel the heat spreading from his cheeks to the tip of his ears. He reaches across the table quickly and grabs another shot of tequila from the mass of drinks they’ve accumulated. He’s about to pull his hand back and proceed with his new plan of wiping his memory clean via the medium of alcohol, when Matty’s hand darts outwards and grabs him by the wrist. Ross swears as he sloshes tequila onto the table.
“Let go,” he mutters, failing to hide his irritation.
“Oh I’m sorry love – is this too much kinetic stimulation for you in your current condition?” Matty wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Ross feels his jaw clenching.
“Let go,” he says the words again and they’re harder this time, but Matty waves them away with his other hand.
“It’s so sad what you said just then,” Matty continues, completely unphased, “if anyone deserves to be getting railed into next week, it’s you sweetheart.”
Matty laughs as Ross pulls his hand back with more force, breaking free from Matty’s grasp and stumbling slightly with the effort.
“Leave me alone,” Ross snaps as he rights himself and grabs another drink. He downs it and throws the most hostile look he can muster in Matty’s direction but Matty just gives him a wink and a pout in return.
“For what it’s worth, everyone goes through dry patches. It’s a natural part of human sexuality,” George says then and Ross groans:
“I don’t want to talk about it. Everyone just drop it, alright?”
He sits back down with a frustrated grunt as George shrugs:
“You’re the one who started the conversation mate.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Ross snaps.
“Hang on a second,” says Matty and Ross rolls his eyes as everyone stops chatting to listen to him, “maybe the reason why you brought this up is because it’s a cry for help.”
The entire table starts laughing again and Ross resists the urge to grab another drink and throw it directly in Matty’s stupid face.
“What are you doing?” Ross sighs as Matty slowly slides out from behind the table and makes a show of sauntering towards him. Matty’s body instantly picks up the beat of the music playing in the bar. His left shoulder raises and drops in time with the rhythm, his hips sway. He does a little spin and Waughy and Hann give him a round of applause.
“Baby, you just need some love,” Matty says, smirking again and Ross feels his insides sink once more. Matty is back in performance mode and hammered – it’s a dangerous combination and Ross knows that whatever is going to transpire from this point on probably won’t be good.
“Just leave it,” Ross says as Matty grabs his hand again and starts toying with his fingers.
Hann lets out an enthusiastic “woo!” as Matty unbuttons his shirt with his free hand.
“I know how hard it can be when you just want to fu – ” He pulls Ross’s hand closer and forces it against his lower stomach, arching his back and making an obscene, high-pitched moan. Ross cringes as several other people in the bar look in his direction.
Around the table everyone is laughing at his expense again.
Ross pulls his hand back.
“Fuck off,” Ross snaps, but Matty is – in signature Matty fashion – loving the attention. Ross tries to get up, but Matty swings his leg up onto the arm of Ross’s chair.
“Maybe we can help you out? Make you feel better, hmm big boy?” Matty purrs, his crotch practically level with Ross’s face now.
His anger rising, Ross grabs Matty’s leg and throws it off the arm of his chair but Matty is too quick for him. Just as Ross goes to stand up, he’s weighted back down firmly into his seat.
“Get the fuck off me!” he protests, pushing against Matty who is now sitting on his lap, but Matty is stronger than he looks.
“Relax Ross baby, I can make you feel good,” Matty says.
Something inside Ross snaps as Matty pushes his hips forward against him, grinding against his lap as the others cheer and laugh.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!” Ross yells. This time, he grabs Matty by the waist and practically lifts him off. He stands up and shoulders Matty away from him.
“Come on love, it’s just jokes,” Matty pouts but jokes or not, Ross is too drunk for this bullshit.
“Fuck off Matty,” he snapps and starts moving towards the lobby.
“Ross? Mate? Where are you going?” Matty calls after him.
“My room. I’m tired.”
“Ross?”
“Leave me alone Matty.”
******
Ross closes the door behind him, allowing gravity to do its thing and push him backwards until he’s leaning against it, the back of his man bun making contact with the lacquered wood. He sighs and closes his eyes as a wave of dizziness bubbles up inside him. His head is swimming and his insides feel stilted – like everything is on a slant. In the length of time it had taken him to move (slowly, clumsily) from the bar back to his hotel room, his drunkenness has become even more pronounced and as he stands there, his intoxication feels like a dead weight inside him. It’s like someone has casually dropped an unsolicited anchor directly into his skull.
Without opening his eyes, he reaches a hand up and goes to squeeze the bridge of his nose but the gesture takes him longer than it should. The entire room feels like it’s cartwheeling around him. Everything is weighted, lumbering and, apparently, spinning; his body, his brain, his thoughts – this overly-expensive hotel suite that he’s standing in.
He is, Ross realises, proper drunk. Drunk drunk. Not to be confused with standard, surface-level drunk (the level of drunk he actually thought he was before he half-stormed, half-wobbled his way out of the bar). His current level of inebriation has depth to it. It’s a solid drunk. The type of drunk that, if you feel so inclined, you’re really only a hop, a skip and a spatially-challenged jump away from potentially ruining your entire life.
And as Ross has that thought he experiences the sharp aftertaste of embarrassment. He hears an audio snippet of himself from the bar earlier, his words crystal clear:
I haven’t had sex in months.
An acute sense of nausea flickers across his senses for a brief moment and he’s unsure if it’s because of all the alcohol he’s imbibed or if he’s so embarrassed he’s just experiencing some kind of post-being-a-twat trauma.
“Jesus,” he says, his voice cracked. He opens his eyes and squeezes the bridge of his nose a little tighter, hoping it will abate the headache that’s starting to grow behind his eyes. It does not. On the plus side, the room stops spinning and settles, but unfortunately Ross’s embarrassment just seems to grow because, really, who the fuck says something like that to their mates in the middle of post-gig drinks?
Pass the tequila, oh, and by the way – did you guys know I haven’t had sex in so long I feel like my balls are going to fucking explode?
It was… grim. Ross sighs loudly as he drops his hand and pushes himself away from the door. Between the show earlier and the abject mortification of outing his sexual dry spell over drinks, he needs a smoke.
He finds a packet of cigarettes shoved into his suitcase and he resists the urge to throw it across the room violently when he opens it and finds there’s only one left. There’s also a sheet of folded up paper stuck in the carton and Ross pulls it out, his annoyance spiking as he immediately recognises Matty’s erratic scrawl:
IOU seven cigs, love M x.
Matty didn’t even have the decency to leave Ross his lucky cigarette. He pulls out the non-upside-down-and-therefore-devoid-of-luck cigarette, shoves it into his mouth and staggers out onto the large balcony attached to his bedroom, cursing as he hits his shoulder off the door frame.
The night air is cool and Ross shivers slightly as he reaches upwards and lets down his hair. There are very few genuine pleasures in life, but Ross decides that taking down your hair is definitely one of them. He shakes out his hair and saunters over to the railing of the balcony, leaning against it and gazing out at the lights of the city. He lights up and is savouring his first drag when his phone vibrates in his pocket.
Ross has to squint one eye to read the message that Waughy has sent him, the fresh air mingling with the alcohol in his system, making him feel even more pissed than he actually is.
Waughy: Come back down? Matty feels bad about messing with you. He’s worried you’re upset.
Ross snorts softly to himself at that. If Matty feels so bad about upsetting him earlier, why isn’t he texting Ross himself? It’s so typically Matty: Talk someone else into apologising for your bad behaviour. Ross considers sending back a sarcastic response but decides against it, mainly because Waughy is just the messenger here and really, he knows that Matty was just trying to get a rise out of him and he had overreacted. Instead, Ross sends back two words and an emoji:
Ross: Gone bed 👍
Waughy responds with a sceptical looking emoji, but Ross doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to go back downstairs. He knows that if he goes back down there, Matty won’t let his reaction drop. Matty will want to have a big, deep, meaningful conversation about Ross’s lack of a sex life and the struggles of male sexuality as a whole or some shit. Or, Christ, even worse, he’ll go off on a drunken tangent about the impact of social media on human connection and how, really, that’s the reason why Ross hasn’t cum in several weeks.
Ross shakes his head and takes a few more drags on his cigarette. The city is alive beneath him – lights turn on and off inside buildings, sounds bubble up and die away. Ross wonders how many people out there are, unlike him, getting laid tonight.
He finds himself getting annoyed again and returning to Matty’s antics from earlier, his drunken brain unable to move on. It was so typical of Matty to take his embarrassment and turn it into a bit. The lap dance – what even was that? And while Ross had been mates with Matty long enough by now to know how much he loved making people laugh and being the centre of attention, tonight it had just fucked him off.
Maybe Ross is just starting to feel the exhaustion of the tour catching up on him. Or maybe he’s homesick – they still have several weeks to go before they have a bit of a break. Or maybe – and here Ross cocks his head to the side and pushes his hair behind his ear as he considers the thought – maybe he is so sexually frustrated it’s getting harder and harder to hide his annoyance at life and just be a normal, functioning adult.
Maybe the reason why he reacted so strongly earlier is because it’s fucking difficult being the only person in the group who doesn’t have anyone. Hann has Carly who’s always doing her best to visit for a few days, no matter where they are. Waughy and his fiancé regularly have cringe, whispered phone sex (a fact Ross only knows because he has the misfortune of sleeping in the bunk directly across from Waughy). Jamie is still enjoying his newlywed buzz and Polly? Polly is always texting someone, meeting someone, seeing someone.
And then there’s Matty and George, and unlike everybody else (who has the common decency to be subtle about how much sex they’re having), Matty and George seem to want the entire world to know they’re fucking. At least that’s what it feels like to Ross anyway.
Like, even take that display in the bar earlier tonight. Ross sighs a puff of smoke out of his nose, his nostrils flaring as his brain replays the scene: George batting Matty’s hand out of the way and then leaning in towards him – his large, tattooed hand grabbing Matty’s jaw firmly and holding him steady. Then, the slick wetness of George’s tongue dragging lazily over Matty’s stubby cheek – slow, considered – and the way Matty had swallowed. That was another detail Ross hadn’t realised he’d noticed at the time. George’s actions had caused a visible change in Matty. They had affected him. Matty had swallowed. Hard.
But again, who fucking acts like that? Ross finishes his cigarette and stubs out the end against the railing of the balcony. He feels agitated again. George and Matty clearly want everyone (including Ross) to know that they’re currently having the best sex ever. In fact, they’re probably having incredible sex right now in a toilet downstairs while Ross is standing on a balcony alone like a twat.
For fuck’s sake.
Ross throws the butt of his cigarette into a flower pot by the balcony door and goes back into his room, his head swimming again. He takes a piss and pulls off his clothes until he’s bollock naked then flops down onto the large bed as the hotel room starts to get a bit spinny again. He just needs a rest, he tells himself, then he’ll get up and get a shower. He’ll brush his teeth. He’ll do today’s Wordle and rub his new high score in Hann’s face at breakfast. He’ll text his mate back home and get post-tour drinks lined up.
He has great intentions but within five minutes his breathing has slowed. With the room still spinning around him and his head full and clumsy, Ross falls fast asleep.
It starts with Matty.
But then again, everything always starts with Matty so, really, it’s not surprising that Matty is the first thing Ross sees. But this Matty looks different. This Matty looks like Matty from a few hours ago – Matty who has just strutted his way off stage, sweaty and buzzing with applause from the crowd. The Matty that is riding high on the adoration of several thousand people.
The Matty that is topless and wearing a pair of black tailored trousers that are at odds with the mess of his hair and the pseudo-intellectual, transparent-framed glasses perched on his nose.
Ross is sitting down and this Matty – post-gig Matty – is standing directly in front of him, his legs bracketing Ross’s left knee and Ross frowns and shifts awkwardly in his chair. He can feel the low hum of embarrassment running through him. It turns out that this Matty, much like regular non-performing Matty, has no concept of personal space.
“Do you mind?” Ross says sarcastically and Matty laughs and shakes his head, like this is the most ridiculous thing that Ross has ever said.
“Why Ross? Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Ross rolls his eyes as Matty moves closer, purposely wedging his leg directly between Ross’s knees now and Ross feels weird. He forces himself to take a breath and then gets defensive:
“Isn’t it a little too late for your unique brand of fuck wittery?” Ross asks. Then he frowns: “Where are we?”
He glances over Matty’s shoulder just to make sure he’s not still on stage and, therefore, not supposed to be doing something important like playing bass or hitting buttons on a synth. His frown deepens as he recognises the familiar surroundings of the hotel bar, but that too looks different. The colours on the wall seem brighter, like someone has turned up their saturation levels. And it’s hot.
Very, very hot.
“Fucking hell it’s hot.” Ross breathes out the words. He goes to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead but as he raises his hand, Matty grabs it and links their fingers together.
“What are you doing?” Ross frowns.
“What does it look like?” Matty murmurs. He’s studying Ross’s hand, his glasses sliding down his nose slightly in a way that makes Ross feel a strange clashing of emotion. On the one hand, the visual makes Matty look vulnerable, like he needs to be protected but at the same time, Ross has seen Matty on stage and knows that it’s all just show.
He’s seen the man eat raw meat, crawl through television sets and try to hump unsuspecting cameramen for fuck’s sake. Matty didn’t need protection. If anything, everyone else needed to be saved from him.
The word ‘menace’ comes to Ross’s mind and he snorts slightly, immediately straightening his expression as Matty gives him a curious look.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
Matty hums but still doesn’t let go of Ross’s hand. Instead, their fingers still linked, Matty starts to graze his thumb along the side of Ross’s hand and with that small movement, Ross feels his attention zoning in on the gesture.
Something inside him says this is important , but Ross isn’t sure why. He swallows as he feels a shiver running up his forearm at the touch. He shifts in his chair again.
“Okay, now you’re making me uncomfortable,” Ross says and clears his throat, as if by doing so he can somehow lighten the weight that appears to have been added to the air around them.
Matty catches his eye and smirks at him:
“You know you can always let go if you don’t like it. No one is stopping you, love.”
Love.
The way Matty says the word breathes life into it. It’s soft, lilting. Oddly pleasant. Ross feels another shiver dancing up his arm as Matty flips his hand over so Ross’s palm faces the sky and then brushes his thumb against the inside of Ross’s wrist. Their eyes lock and neither of them say anything for what feels like forever.
Ross feels something inside him detach as Matty’s thumb moves against his wrist and everything feels heavy and light at the same time. He leaves his hand exactly where it is.
His eyes move from Matty’s to their hands, all entwined. Aside from his eyes, Ross doesn’t move a muscle.
Instead, he just watches the way the light and shadow plays across both of their hands, he sinks into the gentle softness of Matty’s touch against his fingers, his palm, his wrist. Matty is, Ross realises, a contradiction. Both hard and soft. Both shy and extroverted. If Matty was a texture, Ross decides, he would be a feather or a thorn. Or somehow both at the same time. A juxtaposition.
When Matty speaks again, Ross has to stop himself from jumping:
“Am I still making you uncomfortable, love?”
Love.
The word feels intimate, an invitation of some kind, and Ross glances up, his heart jumping in his chest when he realises Matty is still staring at him, his eyes slightly hooded now. Matty’s lips are parted. As Ross watches him, Matty’s tongue flicks against his lower lip slightly and Ross feels the weight in the air between them changing now – it feels like a storm rolling in. An electricity builds – he feels a charge. And as soon as he has that thought, a bolt of embarrassment strikes through him. Ross’s eyes snap down onto the floor and he forces himself to take a breath because he’s clearly having some kind of mental break here.
This is Matty.
Matty.
There is no charge.
You’re drunk.
You’re drunk and imagining things.
When Matty speaks again, the words are so clear that Ross knows he isn’t imagining them:
“I think about fucking you, do you know that?”
Ross looks up so quickly he gets dizzy and before he can react, Matty repeats a familiar gesture: He pulls Ross’s hand towards his body and plants it flat against his lower stomach, arching his back and pushing a low moan out of his mouth. But this moan is different from the moan earlier that night. Earlier that night the moan had been high-pitched, obscene, pornographic. This time it’s low, full of heat.
Ross’s face is flushing so dramatically, he feels like he’s about to combust. He tries to pull his hand back, but Matty grips it tighter, pressing it against his body, holding it there tightly.
Ross can feel the tight, toned skin of Matty’s stomach rising and falling smoothly in time with his breath. Matty’s skin is sticky with sweat but rather than disgust him, it speaks to Ross’s body in some kind of primal language that is beyond words. Ross swallows hard as Matty’s bare skin burns against the palm of his hand. His head is swimming. The heat of Matty’s skin acts like a catalyst, a crucible. It ignites something deep inside him. Something liquid that drips into his stomach, making him feel drunk and terrified in equal measure.
Panicked, Ross looks away – his eyes darting everywhere and anywhere. They move from Matty to the floor of the bar to the artwork on the walls to empty tables sticky with spilled tequila to his feet, but they end up landing back on the tattoo that’s sticking out of the top of Matty’s trousers.
Because everything starts with Matty.
And everything ends with Matty too.
It always has.
Ross has seen this tattoo nothing short of several thousand times – fuck, he was even there when Matty got it – and yet, even though it’s partially covered by their hands, it looks different too. The colours are so vibrant they don’t seem real. But then again, nothing about this current scenario seems real.
Beneath the palm of his hand, Matty shifts slightly, the movement automatically making Ross’s eyes sink lower. They follow the thin line of hair that emerges from beneath his palm and runs down Matty’s lower stomach, disappearing under the low waist of his trousers.
The liquid dripping inside Ross’s stomach is, Ross realises, fucking petrol because at that second it sparks and a burst of heat floods his lower stomach, pushing itself deeper and deeper into the core of his being. His breathing hitches as he feels his cock coming to life in his boxers.
Mortified, Ross tries to force his eyes to the floor, to look at anything else, but his eyes won’t move. They’re stuck and now Matty is moving their hands downwards.
Ross can hear his blood rushing in his ears.
“What,” – he swallows – “what are you doing?”
Matty reaches out his other hand and places it under Ross’s chin, tilting it upwards until their eyes meet. Matty’s eyes are still hooded, his curls are falling into his face. When he responds, his voice is laced with heat:
“I know how hard it is when you just want to fuck Ross,” he says, purposely putting weight behind the word ‘fuck.’ It punctuates the sentence.
Their hands are moving lower and lower and lower.
Ross’s breathing is so shallow he feels like he’s about to start hyperventilating.
This isn’t happening.
“My problem, Ross,” Matty continues, “is that I want to fuck all the time.”
With that, Matty moves their hands to his crotch. Ross’s eyes widen as he feels Matty’s cock straining against the zipper of his trousers. Matty is hard. Rock hard.
Ross’s insides feel like they have been dropped from a height.
“I know you need to fuck too Ross…” Matty doesn’t finish his sentence, but Ross catches the meaning immediately as Matty presses his hand directly against his crotch and Ross surprises himself by letting out a shaky, breathless: “ Jesus. ”
And Ross knows he should say something – anything, really – before something happens that both of them will regret. He knows that he should mention George, mention the band, mention their friendship, but all of it gets knocked out of his brain as Matty starts grinding his cock against the palm of Ross’s hand now.
The ability to process thought and language leaves Ross completely as Matty throws his head back and moans loudly and before he knows what he’s doing, his hand is in the waistband of Matty’s trousers and he’s pulling Matty down into his lap roughly, kissing him hungrily, the edge of Matty’s glasses pressing against the top of Ross’s cheeks.
If Ross is a bottle of tequila, Matty is a match and he moans into Matty’s mouth as they kiss. A fire rips through him and he feels half mad with the desire for friction, the floodgates of arousal swing wide open inside him.
Matty laps at his mouth and it feels wet and hot and good. Ross’s hands move over Matty’s back, his skin so scorching, it sears, it brands, and if sex with Matty is a fire, Ross is fully prepared to burn himself alive.
“Fuck,” Ross moans, the word half-muffled as Matty bites down on his lower lip and then arches his back, pushing the length of his cock directly against Ross’s now. They dry hump against each other and Ross feels his cock leaking at the thoughts of whatever is about to happen next. He grabs Matty’s arse and pulls him closer, wanting more, always more.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Ross pants as he breaks the kiss.
Matty licks his way over Ross’s jawline towards his ear and says two words:
“ Fuck me.”
The scene changes.
Air heaving with sweat and the smell of sex.
Everything is burning.
Ross is sitting on a generic, leather sofa, the kind that exist in dressing rooms across the world. He’s naked and sweating, fucking up into Matty who is riding him - his hair messy and glasses askew on his flushed face as he takes everything Ross gives him.
Matty is moaning so loudly, it’s surprising that no one has caught them yet and Ross feels an electric little thrill running through his cock as he thinks about security walking in and seeing them like this.
He reaches a hand up towards Matty’s face and grabs his chin, pulling Matty down towards him so he can watch his face. He wants to see Matty cum. Because Matty is fuckable at the best of times, always has been, but Matty being fucked looks like some kind of unique art.
Ross moans as Matty smirks at him and then slams down hard against him, arching his back and Ross feels the slickness of Matty’s dripping cock running down his stomach.
“Harder,” Matty says, his voice breathless and Ross obliges, gripping his hips, thrusting as hard and as deep as he can.
Matty closes his eyes, throws his head back, his mouth slackening, his face flushed and Ross knows he’s close.
“Don’t stop,” Matty breaths, his voice hitching. “Don’t stop, please, please, harder.”
Ross’s body responds to the command. His body alights with how good Matty feels wrapped around his cock. He can feel his orgasm shimmering on the horizon.
“Harder Ross,” Matty groans, his voice full of heat and desire.
Ross moans and then he feels the unmistakable thickness of a cock sliding against his own arse, swollen, slick and ready to fuck.
He hears a voice directly against his ear:
“Are you ready to cum for me?”
Ross wakes up just as his orgasm rips through him. He’s lying on his stomach and he is, he realises as pleasure rocks through him, practically fucking his mattress.
“ Jesus ,” he moans out the word as his cock releases, thick threads of cum spurting against the black bedspread in his hotel room. He gets lost in the feeling, fucking against his mattress until his cock stops twitching.
As his orgasm subsides, Ross rolls over onto his back. His heart is pounding. His sheets are wet and sticky with cum. And the words are ringing in his head:
Are you ready to cum for me?
George’s words are ringing in his head.
******
The crowd is so dense, it doesn’t look human any more. Instead, limbs all move together like waves cresting on some unknown sea. Faces blur, screams get lost in the music, everything bleeds into everything else.
They’ve been on stage for the bones of two hours now and Ross is dissociating. Physically, he is standing on a stage, playing bass to a crowd made up of several thousand people. Mentally, he is caught between reality and a dream.
That dream to be specific.
After his little seminal fluid mishap last night, Ross hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. Instead, he had stayed up all night long, anxiously scrolling through sites that decoded the most complex of dreams and trying to convince himself that dreaming about fucking (and being fucked by) two of your closest friends was a completely normal, human experience.
If sharing too much information about his lack of a sex life over drinks was awkward, having this dream was hysterical in terms of how much more awkward Ross now felt.
He shivers as the dream eclipses real life again for a second and he sees Matty, head thrown back, glasses askew, perfect jawline tilted towards the sky, breathing, sweating, cock leaking down Ross’s hairy stomach...
Stop.
Ross’s vision clears swiftly as Matty (real life, non-cumming Matty) starts to speak:
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are The 1975 from Manchester, England. Thank you and goodnight!”
Ross breathes a sigh of relief. It’s the pre-encore sign off. There’s just one more song left on their set and once that’s over, he can get off this fucking stage, go back to the bus and have an existential crisis in private.
Go back to the bus.
Ross sighs inwardly at the thought. Bus nights were his least favourite thing about touring. If you were having a shitty day, being cooped up on a tour bus guaranteed that it would extend into a shitty night as well.
Ross casts his eyes out into the moving sea of people in front of him and realises that he would happily kill for another night in a hotel. One of the worst things about being on a tour bus was the fact that there was zero privacy. Christ, he was grateful that his little wet dream last night hadn’t happened on the tour bus. How the fuck would he have handled that?
Before they had left the hotel that morning, he had accidentally-on-purpose spilled a minibar bottle of Jack Daniels on his sheets and left a hefty tip for housekeeping in the hopes it would make their day less shit when they realised they were not only cleaning up whiskey but also so much backlogged cum it looked like someone had an orgy in the room. But he couldn’t do that on a tour bus. If anything happened on the bus, everyone would know.
And wet dreams at 34 – how the fuck was that a thing?! You’ve already had first puberty and it was shit, but here’s second puberty because you clearly didn’t suffer enough the first time around. What the actual fuck?
Ross shakes his head and rolls his eyes at himself as he thinks about it. The main cause of wet dreams in your thirties is – as Google had told him in the wee hours of the morning – sexual frustration, most likely. And after last night, despite all his current worries, there is only one thought on Ross’s mind and it is this:
I need to have sex immediately.
A raunchy sex dream about Matty and George? His dry spell had reached the point where it was clearly fucking with his mind now (no pun intended).
The pre-encore song ends and Ross gratefully walks off stage, pulling off his bass and handing it to his tech while he accepts a towel from one of their crew. He knows this part of the show like clockwork. They have approximately four minutes. Just enough time to wipe away sweat, grab a drink and have a smoke.
In front of the stage, the audience is screaming so loudly now it’s hard to think.
“Drink?”
Ross looks up to find Hann extending a bottle of water to him and he takes it while Hann glances over his shoulder and frowns.
“What?” Ross asks, mostly just to fill the silence and to avoid any questions from Hann about last night or why he’s been so quiet today.
“What’s up with them?” Hann asks and Ross follows his line of sight.
Matty and George are standing towards the back of the stage. They’re talking to each other in hushed tones and Matty is gesticulating wildly. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that they’re having an argument. Ross notices the crew doing their best to avoid them.
Weird.
“I swear they bicker like they’re married,” says Hann.
“Speaking from experience Adam?”
Hann widens his eyes and gives a small smile, making Waughy laugh as he joins them.
Across from them, Matty rolls his eyes and throws his hands up in annoyance.
“Mate?” Waughy calls after him but Matty ignores him as he storms past them and back out onto the stage two minutes later, leaving George standing there and looking irritated.
“I guess that’s our queue?” Hann frowns.
“Fuck’s sake,” Ross mutters as they start following Matty.
It always begins and ends with Matty.
Always.
The crowd goes wild as they join Matty on stage and Ross allows the noise to wash over him as he slips his bass back on. Regardless of how he feels on the inside, this part of the show never gets old. The screams of the crowd feel reverent in some way, almost cleansing, they flood through him and they take away anything inside him that’s clogged or stressed or worried.
None of them are religious but this part of the show has always felt like a baptism.
He stands there and he allows the screams to settle him into his body. Matty is hyping up the crowd – walking from one end of the stage to the other, holding out his arms like some type of Jesus character.
The screams get louder and louder until finally Matty approaches his mic stand.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is our last song and it’s a good one,” Matty says as the crowd hushes slightly.
Ross frowns as their in-ears suddenly crackle to life and George’s voice appears. It says two words: “Matthew don’t.”
If Matty hears it, he chooses to ignore it and continues speaking to the crowd:
“I think you’ll agree that this is one of the best tunes we have.”
“Matthew,” George tries again, but Matty is on a roll now:
“In fact, ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to dedicate this song to Ross. Because if anyone needs more sex in their life right now, it’s him. For you, big boy!”
The crowd erupts as Matty starts playing the intro to ‘Sex’ and Ross’s stomach drops so violently it takes him several seconds to react before he realises he’s supposed to be playing. Ross’s cheeks are burning so much, he knows he looks mortified. Not wanting videos of him looking like a twat to appear all over TikTok, he turns around to face the back, ignoring George who keeps adding in a few drumstick flourishes to try and grab his attention.
Ross doesn’t want George’s sympathetic looks. He just wants to get off this fucking stage.
In his in-ears, he can hear Hann speaking to Matty:
“Matty you dickhead, not cool.”
But if Matty feels bad, it doesn’t show. Ross can’t see his performance, but he can hear it and Matty hits every single note perfectly.
His face burning, Ross finishes the song, pulls off his bass and walks directly off the stage.
******
“I just don’t get why you’re so upset.”
Matty is sitting at the tiny table in the front lounge of the bus. He’s smoking a spliff and Ross can see his eyes starting to get hazy.
“It was just a bit of fun,” Matty says, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
As he says that, Hann – who’s sitting opposite Matty – lets out a low whistle and does his best to focus on his phone. Hann has always been skilled at sensing when a fight is about to kick off.
Which it is. Right now. Because Ross is about to murder Matty on their tour bus.
“I’m so fucking upset because you had no right to say that,” Ross snaps. He’s standing in front of the table and his jaw is aching from clenching it so tightly. It’s post-show and they’re crammed onto the bus, already heading to their next destination.
“I was just messing – jokes, innit,” shrugs Matty and Ross wants to punch him directly in his fucking face.
“Jokes?!” he says, his voice rising enough that Hann looks up from his phone and George gives him a worried look.
“Oh don’t be like that love,” Matty waves the spliff in his direction and then seems to have an idea, “have some of this – it’ll help.”
“Fuck off Matty,” Ross says. He slaps Matty’s hand away and moves towards the back of the bus.
“Where are you going?” Hann asks quietly.
“Bed. Away from this dickhead,” Ross nods his head in Matty’s direction.
“Ross come on,” Matty says. He scrambles to his feet and pushes himself directly in front of Ross, blocking the tiny path that leads to the bunks.
“Move,” Ross says.
“No.” Matty shoves the spliff in his mouth and crosses his arms and Ross’s temper spikes. He just wants to get the fuck away from Matty. He’s tired and confused and both of these emotions are swirling together, creating some kind of mixture that’s full of anger and irritation.
“I said: get the fuck out of my way,” Ross says, his voice tight.
“I’m not moving.”
And Ross isn’t sure if it’s the horniness or the embarrassment or a potent mixture of the two, but his temper peaks:
“Then I’ll fucking make you move, prick.”
He pushes Matty, who pushes him back and then before he realises what has happened, Ross has grabbed Matty by the front of his t-shirt and slammed him back against the wall that separates the front lounge from the bunks.
Hann is immediately on his feet and Ross shrugs off Hann’s hand as he places it on his shoulder.
“Ross, mate?” Hann asks, his voice cautious.
“Ross, you better calm the fuck down,” says George, who takes a more assertive approach – the undercurrent in his voice contains a message which is very clear: Get your shit together or I will intervene and kick your arse.
But Ross doesn’t move.
Instead he and Matty stare each other down, both of them breathing heavily. A distinct tension falls over the bus. For a second, it feels like everything is turned down. The noise of the road disappears. There is just Ross and Matty and the gentle sway of the bus.
Then something changes in Matty’s expression. His eyes soften and Ross is about to ask him what the fuck his problem is when, without warning, Matty leans into him and presses their lips together.
The kiss is over as soon as it starts and Ross drops his hands as he stands there stunned, unsure of how he’s supposed to react.
It takes a second, but then he settles on anger because anger is easy:
“What the fuck is your damage?!” he snaps and Matty just gives him a smirk:
“You’re welcome love. You didn’t even have to ask for it.”
Ross doesn’t react as Hann and George start laughing and Matty, loving the attention, pushes his way past Ross and goes back to his seat.
“Fuck this,” Ross breaths, his voice deathly quiet. Not wanting to be anywhere near Matty, he moves towards the door and opens it so he can go to his bunk.
“Goodnight big boy!” Matty calls after him.
“Oh fuck off Matty,” Ross says quietly, not caring if no one hears it.
The rocking of the bus wakes him. It’s still dark. Ross lies in his bunk for a few minutes contemplating how badly he needs a cigarette. He feels restless and agitated. He sighs as he remembers the show, Matty humiliating him on stage, Matty kissing him.
Fucking twat.
Ross decides he already has enough that he needs to process from the last twenty-four hours without adding this to the list. What he really needs right now is a smoke. And seeing as how Matty had stolen several of his cigarettes, now was the perfect time to return the favour. If anything Matty owes him after that fucking display on stage and that kiss.
Ross decides to go into the back lounge where Matty keeps his stash of tour smokes – smokes designed for when he’s on the bus – and steal a couple of those.
Unsteadily and quietly, he pulls himself out of his bunk and walks towards the back lounge. He’s about to barge in, when he sees the thin strip of light at the bottom of the door. Someone is already in there. Assuming it’s just Hann on the phone to Carly, Ross quietly opens the door a crack and is about to slip in when he sees Matty.
Matty is sitting on George’s lap, completely naked, his back pressed against George’s chest and one of his hands reaching up and disappearing behind George’s neck. His mouth is open, his face is flushed and his eyes are closed. George’s hand is wrapped around his cock.
Ross feels like he’s glued to the spot as George squeezes Matty’s cock painfully slowly and Matty moans softly, arching his back. The sound Matty makes unlocks something inside Ross’s body and he feels his own cock responding, starting to swell, but he can’t react to what the fuck he’s seeing
George murmurs something into Matty’s ear that sounds like “quiet” and Matty’s face flushes an even deeper shade of pink.
“Please,” Matty responds. He arches his back again and George begins to move his hand, pumping Matty’s cock slowly.
Ross swallows, his eyes drinking in the scene directly in front of him. Matty’s cock is hard and swollen, precum glistening on the tip and Ross’s heart picks up speed as he remembers his dream. Matty’s face looks eerily like how it did in his dream – right down to the glasses that are sitting on Matty’s face right now as George touches him.
Ross watches as George stops his movements and runs his fingers over the tip of Matty’s cock and then brings them to Matty’s mouth and Ross feels his insides clench violently as Matty sucks at George’s fingers, his tongue lapping at them. Matty moans softly, tasting himself on George’s thick fingers and then George leans in and kisses him.
The kiss is all heat and tongue and sex.
Ross’s head is swimming as he watches from the doorway unnoticed. Scenes from his dream float in front of his vision, almost tangible now – Matty begging him to fuck him harder, the feel of George’s thick cock as it slid up against his arse. Those words by his ear: Are you ready to cum for me?
Everything inside Ross is telling him to move. That he shouldn’t be standing here watching this and yet, he can’t. The command to “MOVE!” that his brain is sending to his body is getting lost somewhere - intercepted by the maddening pulse of his cock as it grows harder and harder, his boxers getting tighter and tighter.
In front of him, George moves his hand back to Matty’s cock and is pumping him faster, Matty becoming more undone with every stroke.
Ross can hear Matty panting audibly now as pleasure rolls through him. His cock starts to leak, a thick trail of precum oozing from the tip and down his shaft.
Ross swallows as he sees it glistening, he finds himself getting more aroused, more excited as Matty gets more and more worked up. He wants – he realises – to watch Matty cum. He wants to see Matty explode over George’s hand. He wants to watch what happens next. He wants, he wants, he wants…
Ross’s eyes are moving over everything, greedily taking in the sight in front of him when, suddenly, George glances up and their eyes lock.
Time stops.
Everything goes quiet.
The world comes roaring back in a split second and Ross’s heart lurches so violently in his chest, he feels like he might vomit it up and out of his body. Panicked, he turns and quickly walks into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
He leans up against the door, his heart and his cock pounding at what he has just seen.
******