Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The lack of green in George’s life only came through the strongest in the summer, when everything was dark, contrary to what everybody else experienced.

The blue of the cloudless sky just seemed lonely and misplaced when there was only the grey of the blooming meadow and lush trees to accompany it.

It only got worse the older George got, and by the time he left for university, shades of brown had faded to only a slightly reddish grey. The same shade of slightly reddish grey.

It had scared George for a while, thinking he was about to go blind or something. 

But he scoured the internet and figured out that maybe his soulmate had some sort of heterochromia, and the thought that his soulmate could have such beautiful eyes only made George smile and forget about going blind.

*

Throughout his first year in university, alone, away from Alex and his family, George made many friends, he was in and out of parties, and got obsessed with astronomy – but it never could bury the homesickness he felt, and his favourite time every day was when he could go back to his room and talk to his best friend Alex.

So when summer came and he’d survived his first year, George was overjoyed to go back home and spend all his time in the meadow with Alex and his soulmate Pierre, and hang around in the backyard with his siblings, and be free of all his responsibilities for a while. 

Seeing Alex with Pierre – it always brought George a surge of hope unlike any other. He and Alex had talked countless times about meeting their soulmates. It was the only thing the two of them had ever wished for. And to see Alex this happy, after all their conversations about hope and love and despair and loneliness – George just couldn’t wait till he found his own.

Pierre was quiet most of the time, but George could tell he was just shy and not trying to be rude, and whenever George saw him smiling up at Alex, eyes crinkling with love, he couldn’t help but feel warmth right in his heart. From what Alex had told him, George knew Pierre had been through a lot. To finally meet him, and see him now, being with Alex the way they were meant to be – it just gave George hope.

Summer was the greenest time of the year; it was the greyest time of the year for George, but that year, it didn’t matter at all, because he was so happy to be home. The grey of the meadows and forests didn’t deter him. All he did was frolic in them until it got dark outside, then he would go inside and sit with his family. 

His parents didn’t so much approve of Alex’s soulmate being a boy, and would occasionally say snippy things about Alex – but George had been best friends with him for longer than they could even remember, and Alex wasn’t even their child anyway, so it wasn’t like they could do anything else. George was lucky they didn’t try and stop them from hanging out, but he didn’t want to piss them off, so all he did was tune out whenever they started saying any shit.

So just like the other times of the year, his favourite time of the day would be talking to Alex, and listening to Alex and Pierre tell him everything they knew about the colour green that George didn’t.

*

Before it was time for him to go back to school, George got a spare week to visit Alex’s university, so he hitched a ride with Alex and Pierre to the city.

George had been to the city before, but it was different from the one he went to university in; it was bigger and busier and it swallowed George whole. George went to university in a city half the size, so it was still easy to feel at home and the buildings didn’t completely block out the sky. 

Alex’s campus was sprawling and lively, even during the summer break. Alex took George around, the two of them barely fitting onto Alex’s bicycle. Alex introduced him to all his friends and his coursemates, and he brought George to so many food places around campus that George didn’t remember being hungry for even one minute, but George’s favourite part was the few afternoons they spent under a tree in the school field, fiddling with Alex’s guitar. 

Pierre would sit with them until pre-season football training started, then it was just Alex and George, sitting quietly while Pierre and the football team pittered around in the distance. 

He came over to Alex and George after training with another boy in tow, who had a pair of goalkeeper gloves hanging over his shoulders accompanying the pair of boots he had that matched Pierre’s. 

Alex stood up to meet Pierre with a kiss as the other boy looked on in amusement. George stood up as well, rolling his eyes although Alex still had his face buried in Pierre’s and couldn’t see him. 

“Hey, um…” Pierre stammered when Alex finally let him go. He gestured at the boy, now looking incredibly out of place. “George, this is Charles. Charles, George is Alex’s best friend.”

Charles smiled up at George, and – 

The grey grass George was standing on burst into a colour George had never seen before. 

The same colour that shone out at George from Charles’s eyes.

George felt all the air escape his lungs and all his blood rush to his head. 

“Hey, George,” Charles said. He was looking directly into George’s eyes, like he was feeling the same emotion George was. 

“Hey,” George managed to say. He cleared his throat. “Hey, Charles.”

The moment was just as magical as George had always imagined it would be.

But he felt a sort of fear slowly eating at him from the inside. 

He gripped Alex’s elbow. “Alex,” he whispered, managing to tear his eyes off Charles. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Alex let George drag him aside. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Charles is my soulmate,” George told him. All the green surrounding them was beginning to overwhelm him. 

“That’s great, George.” Alex burst into a smile. “Charles is great.”

“I just –” George gestured at nothing, but even then he saw his hand shake like they were in the middle of January instead of September. “He’s a boy.”

George’s parents were devout Catholics, and they’d raised George and his siblings as Catholics, and it was the only reason why George had gone to that Catholic school where he’d met Alex. Alex’s parents were different. They weren’t religious and they accepted Alex and Pierre and when Alex went to that Catholic school it was only for his education. There was no way George’s parents were going to act like Alex’s.

“I don’t think I should go back,” George whispered. “I – Alex. You three go ahead. I’ll just – I’ll go back to your room.”

“George.”

“I just –” George tried his best not to let his anxiousness overcome him. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Maybe just get to know him first, yeah?” Alex’s voice was soft. “You don’t have to tell your parents just yet. You can see how it goes.”

George nodded. His palms had begun to sweat, so he wiped them on his jeans. “So...are we gonna head back, or what?”

“We can go out for dinner, just the four of us,” Alex said, hooking his arm in George’s as they turned and started walking back to where Pierre and Charles were standing. “I won’t tell Pierre. I’ll let Charles tell him.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

“George, I’m so happy for you. No matter who he is. You’ve waited so long.”

George couldn’t help but smile then, though every part of him was still shaking with fear and surprise and...excitement. “Yeah, I hope...yeah.”

Charles and Pierre were looking at the both of them with the exact same ecstatic look on their faces when they returned, so George assumed Charles had already told Pierre. The way Charles looked, so hopeful and eager to see George, made George temporarily forget everything else.

Alex and Pierre walked ahead, hand in hand, as Alex led them to wherever the next good food place on his list was. George looked around at all the green surrounding them that he could newly see; the school field seemed to stretch further into the distance, the crowns of the trees rustled protectively above them, and there were some bright bushes lining the dorm buildings. Even the main gates to the buildings had a green tint to them. George marvelled in it as much as he could, he marvelled in all the green he’d been missing out on, in things he didn’t even realise were green. 

Green was – it was soft, and fresh, and royal, and hopeful, and it felt like a hug. It was everything Alex had told him in his stories; everything George had ever imagined it would be, and more.

He turned to Charles, and Charles was looking up at the sky, his neck craned so far back that he almost walked right into a lamppost if George hadn’t yanked him back by his shirt.

He remembered that Charles hadn’t been able to see the sky, just like how Alex hadn’t been able to before, and just the look of pure excitement on Charles’s face brought a smile to George’s.

Charles smiled shyly back at him, and he was wearing a t-shirt of the darkest, darkest green, which brought out the liveliness of his eyes, the liveliness of the first green George had ever seen – and George thought he might be in love.

“You don’t go to uni here, do you?” Charles asked.

George shook his head. “Four hours away.”

“What’s your major?”

“Communications,” George said. “Yours?”

“Art.”

“You’ve been doing art without being able to see the colour blue?” George asked. “You must be a great artist.”

“Yeah, well, I gotta go back and take a look at some of the stuff I used blue to experiment in.” Charles scratched sheepishly at the back of his neck. When he smiled, he had lovely little dimples in both his cheeks, and George adored it. 

They had dinner at a round table in a little student-run Italian restaurant, and George spent the entire time picking at the side salad on his plate, looking peculiar and alien-like now that it wasn’t grey any longer. 

“What do you like to do in your free time?” Charles asked him.

George told him a little about his recent interest in astronomy, and bless Charles, although he obviously didn’t understand it, he listened attentively. 

George didn’t want to fight it, he didn’t want to fight something he’d been waiting for his whole life, but – he wished Charles wasn’t so nice, so it would at least be easier for George to deny that he was completely smitten by this boy and there was no going back.

They dropped Charles and Pierre off at their dorms first, and while Pierre and Alex took their sweet time exchanging their last words of the night – which George didn’t see the point of, because they were just going to talk on the phone again later, anyway – George and Charles stood by the side, quietly.

“So…” Charles started to say. “I’ll...will I see you again before you leave for uni?”

“Yeah.” George managed a smile. “Yeah. That’d be cool.”

“Can I, um…” Charles opened his arms, like he was about to dive in for a hug.

George let him, and he seemed to melt into George, his arms curling around George’s waist and his head fitting right into George’s shoulder, like they were meant to hold each other that way, made to hold each other for the rest of their lives. Charles pushed his face further into the crook of George’s neck, and he smelled like a mixture of deodorant and eucalyptus-scented shampoo, and George – 

Maybe George had been way too hostile to him for either of their liking. 

He had waited all his life, after all.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you,” George whispered.

“Me, too.” George could hear the smile in Charles’s voice.

“I’m – I’m sorry that I was a bit quiet earlier.”

Charles’s arms tightened around George. “It’s alright,” he murmured. “I...yeah. I get it. We should – we probably need some time to process it.”

They pulled apart reluctantly, and when Charles looked up at George and smiled at him and his eyes turned a dark, gloomy green, George felt more complete than he had ever before.

He wished he could love Charles without worrying about anything else.

“Good night, George,” Charles said.

“Good night.” George smiled.

It was only until after they’d showered and George was slotted comfortably into his sleeping bag on the floor next to Alex’s bed did Alex finally speak.

“So what did you think about Charles?”

“He’s cool.” George thought about how Charles must’ve been a very passionate person, given he was into both art and sports, subjects that both demanded the highest level of skill and dedication. “And very handsome.”

“Who would’ve thought that your soulmate would be my soulmate’s best friend?” Alex chuckled. “You were looking for him, and he was right here all along.”

George couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah.”

“It’s funny how things work out, huh?”

Despite everything else, George really thought so, too.

------

For all the stories Charles had ever heard about the colour blue, he had never in his life expected it to be this beautiful. 

George’s eyes not only lit up everything blue around Charles for the first time, it also enlivened the rest of Charles’s world. Maybe things around him just got brighter because Charles could see the sky now, and he could see the colour of his laptop and the row of blue paint in the art studio. But Charles liked to think it was only because George had appeared in his life.

He did have to leave to go back to school in two days, though, so Charles thought maybe they could see each other one last time.

They went into the city the next day, just the two of them, to the pierside summer carnival. George looked nice when he met Charles at the door of his building, in a white, short-sleeved button-up shirt with tiny blue anchors printed all over it. His hair was styled up a bit messily, and he looked young and bright and vibrant.

It was a wonderful, cloudless day, and Charles couldn’t keep his eyes off the sky. He kept almost walking into things, and George had to pull him back each time.

“Is this a ploy to make me hold your hand?” he asked Charles.

“Maybe,” Charles teased back.

When George smiled, it was like fireworks were going off in the day.

George’s eyes were...they were a lighter blue than the sky, and almost transparent, but they held so much more than any other sort of blue that Charles had seen. So many more stories. More of Charles’s hopes and dreams than anything else could ever. 

He did end up holding Charles’s hand, though his grasp was loose and hesitant, like he thought it was something he shouldn’t have been doing. 

The carnival booths had green roofs, which seemed to delight George to no end. It was Charles’s turn to hold him back from walking into things and people as he inadvertently drifted towards the stalls lining the boulevard. 

The sea below them was – it was open, and peaceful, and welcoming, now that Charles could see it. The mountains in the distance were tinted a slight blue, merging the sea and the sky, and as Charles stood by the wooden harbour railings with George, looking out at the palette of blues that greeted him, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of serenity, like the two of them were alone on that bustling harbour. Charles had half the mind to thank George for letting him see all of this, but when he turned to George and George was just gazing at him with a shine in his eyes, Charles knew it wasn’t necessary.

They had lobster rolls for lunch, then strolled along the harbour, stopping at all the game booths. They didn’t win anything except for a little blue shark soft toy that George insisted Charles keep. He seemed quiet, contrary to what Pierre had told Charles about George not being able to shut up, but Charles attributed it to them not really knowing each other well yet.

He didn’t argue against the thousand photos Charles made the both of them take, and Charles was delighted that even though they had to be apart, he had all these photos to look at and remember George by. 

When evening fell, everything was lit up in pretty golden lights, and the red, yellow, and green lights of the carousel pulled them in most strongly. George made it on a taller unicorn and Charles on a little horse, and when Charles looked over at him, perched on his white horse, his eager face flashing gloriously in gold – he felt a strange sense of completeness and fulfilment that he had never felt before.

Their next stop was the ferris wheel; it wasn’t all that high, but the red, green, and blue lights on its spokes were what sucked George and Charles in. As they climbed slowly to the top, the sheer wideness of the sea below them became apparent, and Charles lost himself in the way the lights reflected in the dark blue, the same way George seemed to bury himself in the rectangles of green rooftops below them.

“Do you know you have heterochromia?”

Charles peeled his eyes off the gloomy evening sky and sea to see George watching him. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Your eyes have different colours. It’s called complete heterochromia when someone has two different coloured eyes. But you have central heterochromia. Your eyes are green but the middle of them are brown.”

“So you couldn’t see brown, too?”

“It got harder as I got older, yeah.”

Charles smiled at him. George had been quieter than Charles had expected him to be, but he made Charles feel so comfortable, and when he smiled it felt like Charles was being hugged. He was moving closer to Charles, not just on the seat but his face as well, his eyes trapping Charles, like he was just trying to savour the green and brown he could now see.

“You have really pretty eyes,” George whispered.

“You, too,” Charles whispered back.

He closed his eyes, and a mere second later George’s lips were pressed on his, soft and sweet and scared. They stayed for a short moment, then George was pulling away, sliding to the furthest end of the seat. 

Charles opened his eyes. George refused to look at him again, instead staring right ahead at the carriage in front of theirs as they descended. His hands grabbed the bar so hard his knuckles were white, and he looked anxious, his eyes glistening now not only in the light but also with nervous tears.

The wind had made George’s hair all messy as they stepped off the wheel, and it took every last ounce of strength in Charles’s body to stop himself from reaching over and running his fingers through it. He wanted to take George’s hand again, but George put them in his jean pockets.

They walked quietly down the entire length of the harbour, and Charles didn’t say a word at first, afraid that it would open the opportunity for George to say that they should head home. 

But George had become quieter, more distant, and he didn’t look at Charles again, and Charles – 

He had only known it for two days, but he missed the blue in George’s eyes.

“I know this doesn’t mean we have to love each other,” Charles said. “But it doesn’t seem like you like me very much. Will you tell me why?”

George sighed. He seemed to avoid answering Charles for a while, instead just walking quietly until they found an ice cream stand at the entrance to the pier, at which point he finally said, “Let’s get some ice cream and sit somewhere.”

Charles obliged, getting himself a lime sorbet in a cup while George settled with a mint chocolate chip cone. They walked further down the pier until they found an empty bench overlooking the water. 

George seemed nervous as he chewed on his scoop of ice cream, his eyes darting around the view in front of them. Charles dipped his spoon hesitantly into his sorbet, afraid of what was to come.

“I was raised a Catholic,” George eventually said. “My parents are – they’re very, very conservative. They’re not going to be happy about this at all. They’re not going to...to allow it. I’ve always been taught that...you know, that it’s only natural for me to be with a nice Catholic girl, to get married to her and start a little family, and – nothing else, you know? That’s all I’ve been taught. That’s all I’ve ever thought it would be. I didn’t think it would be...you.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles said. “I’m sorry that it’s...me.”

“It’s just strange, you know?” George whispered. “I’ve waited for you all my life, Charles. Just ask Alex. I would sit in the fields with him and he would tell me stories about the colour green and it would just give me hope. Green has always been my favourite colour. Even though I couldn’t see it. And it still is my favourite colour.”

Charles smiled. “I’ve always been waiting to meet you, too.”

George was quiet again, and he had stopped munching on what was left of his cone with such earnestness, instead holding the waffle in his lap, like he had lost his appetite. 

“I think this is wrong,” George finally spoke. “I think we’re – I think it’s not right. But that’s on me. It’s on me. It has nothing to do with you.”

Charles felt his heart fall to the ground. “I’m –” He struggled to find the words. “I’m sorry.”

George shook his head. “I think you’re great,” he whispered. “I really, really think you’re great. And I really like you. I...uh, I...I just need some time to come to terms with it.”

“You don’t have to like me,” Charles said softly. “You know? You don’t have to love me if you think it’s wrong.”

“But I do.” George’s voice was on the verge of breaking. “I...I feel something for you. And I want it to be more. I know I shouldn’t, and I can’t, but I – I want it.”

“I don’t want you to love me if it causes you pain.”

“Charles, I –” George’s words caught in his throat. “I’ll figure this out. Okay? I promise you I will. But right now, I...I just want you to know that it’s not your fault, and I really, really like you, and I don’t want to lose you.”

Charles nodded. “And you’ll – you’ll talk me through it. Yeah? You’ll tell me what you’re going through, and I’ll be here for you all the way. Okay? I promise. I’ve been waiting so long for you. So long. I’m not going to let you fight by yourself.”

“Yeah.” George closed his eyes, and he hung his head, and Charles thought he might have started to cry. “Charles. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“No, hey.” Charles bundled him up in a hug, waffle cone and all. “Hey. It’s okay. C’mon.”

George cried quietly into Charles’s shoulder for a while, even though Charles could tell he was trying his hardest not to let it be audible. And Charles. Charles might have waited nineteen years to meet the person who would show him the rest of the world, but if it hurt him this way, then – Charles would rather give everything up.

“Let’s go back, okay?” Charles whispered after George’s shoulders had stopped shaking. “We’ll get some sleep. You have an early train to catch.”

George nodded. He let Charles take him by the hand as they wandered the city to find the bus stop; the dark streets were so blue-tinted under the streetlights, and Charles had known that they weren’t as warm and orange as the nights back at home, but he’d never known that they were this hostile, and that he had been missing out on so much blue. 

But George was warm by his side, and they caught the last bus to campus and were standing outside Alex’s building when George turned to Charles and asked, “Do you mind if I...if I grab my stuff from Alex and – uh, and I’ll hang out in your room tonight instead?”

“Yeah.” Charles smiled. “I’ll wait for you here.”

George came back down a few minutes later with his sleeping bag and his backpack, and they made the short five-minute walk back to Charles’s dorm. They took their showers silently in neighbouring stalls, and Charles watched George do his night prayers, signing the Cross before and after, before he settled in his sleeping bag on the floor by Charles’s bed. His face was lit up by a rectangle of light from his phone, which he pressed to his ear a few moments later.

“Hey, ma,” he said softly. “Yeah, I’m catching the 9:30 train tomorrow. I’m with – I’m with Alex, yeah.” He hugged the top layer of his sleeping bag closer to himself. “Yeah. Good night, ma. Love you, too.”

George didn’t seem to notice Charles watching him. He put his phone aside and curled up on himself, squeezing his eyes shut as his shoulders shuddered with a sudden sob. 

Charles just wished with all his might that he could take all of George’s pain away.

“George,” Charles whispered. He got his laptop from his table. “Hey. You like the stars, right? You wanna tell me all about them?”

George turned around, wiping his tears off his cheeks. He left his sleeping bag on the ground and climbed into Charles’s bed.

They spent the rest of the night sitting together in Charles’s bed, leaning against the wall with the laptop on their legs, talking about all the stars in the sky – and Charles finally understood what Pierre had meant when he’d said that once George started talking, he never showed any signs of stopping.

------

The journey to the train station at nine am the next morning seemed shorter than Charles remembered it being.

The four of them shared a taxi there, and George spent the entire journey staring nostalgically out the window. When Charles took his hand, he smiled.

Before Charles realised it, they were there on the platform, the station having emptied out after the departure of the peak hour intercity train. Alex and Pierre were quiet as they stood in a circle, and Charles hadn’t told Pierre yet about what had happened with George, but he assumed that Alex had probably filled him in a little. 

“Can I talk to you for a bit?” George asked Charles, softly.

Charles walked with him towards the end of the platform. 

“I had a really good time,” George told him. “Thank you for taking me around.”

Charles smiled. “Yeah. Maybe...maybe I can visit you, next time.”

“That’ll be nice. I’ll take you around.”

The wind rustled the stray leaves on the platform, and ruffled George’s hair again, like the gentle fingers of a lover. Like how Charles wished he could.

“George,” he whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve always thought of you as the person who’ll show me the rest of the world,” Charles said. “I think about all the things I could see, all the places we’d go, all the time. And now you’re here, and – it still feels like a dream. I still hope you’ll see the rest of the world with me. But I know – I understand if you can’t. I just, um…” Charles paused to compose himself. “Yeah. I’m just so, so happy to finally meet you.”

“Charles.” George’s voice was soft like velvet and it filled Charles’s heart like it was an empty room. He stopped near the end of the platform and turned to Charles, taking both his hands. “You are the only reason I had so much hope for the future, so much faith. You’re the only reason I never resented not being able to see green, or brown. You’re everything I’ve ever hoped for, but you’re – you’re also everything I’ve been taught not to believe in. And I –” George swallowed loudly, and hung his head like he simply couldn’t look at Charles any longer. “I’m so sorry it has to be this way. I’m sorry.”

Charles pulled him into a hug, and he didn’t resist. He never seemed to. He just seemed to dissolve in Charles’s arms, like he was so near and so far at the same time, and he let Charles cradle him and pat him on the back and kiss him above his ear, and it was honestly everything Charles had ever wished for.

“I don’t want to be sad about this,” Charles mumbled. “All my life I’ve been thinking about you. Thinking about loving you. And I will. Love you. I don’t want to be sad about this and I hope you – that you aren’t, as well.”

“I’m not upset that it’s you,” George whispered. “Okay? I want you to remember that. Please. I’m not upset that it’s you.”

“I’ll remember that,” Charles promised.

“I’ll call you, yeah? I’ll call you anytime I can.”

Charles nodded. He wanted nothing more than to leave everything behind and hop on that train with George so he could hold George through all of this. Nothing more. 

George pulled away from the hug and cupped Charles’s cheeks, slowly leaning forward until his lips were on Charles’s again; and this time, they stayed, and they were hesitant but they were loving and they spoke to Charles the way words couldn’t.

They pulled apart when George’s tears landed on Charles’s upper lip, and George desperately swiped them away, only relenting when Charles helped him with his thumbs. 

George smiled at him, and Charles wanted to live in his ocean eyes forever.

“I’ll go say bye to Alex and Pierre,” George said.

Charles nodded. He trailed behind George as they walked to where Alex and Pierre were at, and watched as George thanked them and gave each of them hugs. George picked up his backpack and sleeping bag when the train pulled into the station, and Charles wasn’t sure what the feeling in his chest was, but it was tugging and pushing at his heart, wanting him to go with George.

“George,” Charles said before George could disappear inside the train. He handed George a piece of drawing paper, rolled up and tied with a brown string. “I made this for you the first night we met. I hope you’ll like it.”

George smiled. He took the piece of paper and hugged it close to himself, then leaned across the platform gap and kissed Charles on the head. 

The three of them followed him down the length of the train as he looked for his seat, and he looked tired as he found it and sat down, though he still flashed them a smile through the window, and waved as the train pulled away. 

Charles just felt so...empty. 

He had only known George for two days, but meeting him and leaving him was a thousand times worse than never having met him. 

“Is everything okay?” Alex asked. 

“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” Charles whispered.

They were quiet for a moment, then Pierre and Alex were hooking their arms into Charles’s and dragging him out of the station in silent agreement. 

They found a nice café and sat there for three hours eating brunch, and though Charles didn't say a word and kept his head buried in his tea, he was suitably entertained by Pierre and Alex talking about weird science stuff from across him. 

And it was the first time Charles had actually been able to see the blue in Pierre’s eyes, and he had never seen Pierre put his entire body into a laugh like he was now capable of doing, so at least he had that to hold on to.

------

The piece of paper Charles gave George was a painting done with only green and blue paints. 

It was of two figures, one blue and one green, sitting on a hillside, looking out at the night sky with a blanket of light blue and green stars. Their silhouettes blended in the middle to make teal. George had thought the hill and sky were black, but upon closer inspection, they were just a mixture of really, really dark green and blue. 

It was amazing how beautifully Charles could paint even though at that point he had only been able to see blue for a few hours. 

George had opened the painting on the train, but was so afraid that his tears would stain it that he bought a photo frame on his way back to uni and placed the painting on his writing desk. 

When he called his parents to tell them he was safely back in his room, he avoided telling them about Charles. 

When he went for Sunday Mass at the local church, he sat in the pew after the church had emptied, too afraid to tell God he was in love with a boy. 

Every night before he fell asleep, he would pray and wish that he could be brave.

But George had never felt further away from God than he did at that point of his life.

*

George’s favourite part on campus began to be the little garden that he had to walk through on the way to his dorm.

In the day, when he was heading to class, he would be surrounded by a warm green hug, from the little flower bushes at his feet to the taller trees in the center of the garden. 

At night, when he was heading back after dinner, he would look up and see a few stars watching him from above.

Sometimes, George sat in that garden and talked to Charles on the phone, and it would feel like Charles was right beside him. 

“The full moon’s out tonight.”

George stopped by the lone wooden bench near the center of the garden. It was nearing the end of summer, so the temperatures were tapering in the night, and George pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands as he leaned his head on the back of the bench. 

“I can see it from here, too,” he said.

“Are you outside?” There was a smile in Charles’s voice.

“Mhm.” George’s voice seemed too loud in the quiet garden. “It’s nice outside today.”

“Don’t get too cold.”

Sometimes, the silences they fell into, just like that night, were George’s favourite part of their phone conversations. 

He closed his eyes and listened to Charles breathe.

He longed to hear that in person; he longed for it to be the last sound he heard before he fell asleep and the first when he woke up, sleepy and heavy and evidence that George had found the one person made for him. 

“I miss you,” he whispered.

“Me, too.” Charles sounded solemn and subdued and everything George could feel in his heart.

It got too cold to stay outside in his flimsy pyjama pants after a while, so George went back to his room. The lava lamp on his bedside table was an electric sort of green, similar to the colour of fresh vegetables he occasionally saw on his plate. The room was bathed in it, and listening to Charles as George lay in his bed in its glow just felt...surreal.

“Do you know I have a green lava lamp?” he asked Charles. “I got it when Alex got himself a blue one and he was sad that he couldn't see it.”

“Yeah?” The smile in Charles’s voice had returned. 

“Mhm. It’s next to my bed.”

“Does it look nicer now that you can see it?”

“Hmm.” George sighed as he lay back on his pillow. “Not as nice as your eyes.“

Charles giggled. “Don’t be gross.”

George just couldn't wait to see him again. 

“Charles,” he whispered. “I’m just gonna – I’m gonna pray for a bit. But – stay here, okay? Stay here.”

“Okay.”

George got on his knees next to his bed; he usually prayed after he got off the phone with Charles, so having his phone next to him on the bed with Charles’s name on the screen as he sought advice from the one being that wouldn’t grant their relationship – it felt strangely defiant, yet…strangely intimate. 

“Heavenly Father, I thank You for the day You have given me. I am blessed to have a school to learn in, I am blessed to have a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in. I am thankful for everybody who loves me and cares for me.

“Lord, I am sorry for all my sins. Please grant me the diligence to understand what You have given me, and the wisdom to know what to let go. Even as I struggle, I am blessed by the faith I have in You, and I trust that You will show me the way. May Your love and grace bless my dad, ma, Benjy, and Cara, and Alex, Pierre, Charles, and everybody else I love. Amen.”

The room seemed quieter than usual after George finished his prayer with the Sign of the Cross. Charles’s name was still on the screen of George’s phone, above the timer counting up the length of their call. 

Charles didn’t speak even when George pressed his phone to his ear. 

George listened for a while, to the sounds he did and didn’t make.

“Thank you for putting me in your prayer,” he eventually said, softly.

George smiled. “Yeah.”

Another short silence, then, “What’s your favourite planet?”

“It changes all the time.”

“What is it today?”

“Neptune.” George settled on his pillow again. “Because it rains diamonds on Neptune.”

George fell asleep in the warmth of his lava lamp and Charles’s voice in his ear, and in that split second before he drifted off, he felt a sort of peace in his heart that he knew he would never be able to describe.

------

Charles’s birthday fell on a Friday that year, and on Thursday after training the team brought him out for a nice big dinner. 

Pierre had opened up a lot more since he’d gotten together with Alex, and he had a better rapport with the rest of their teammates, but he still stuck closely by Charles throughout the night. He sat with Charles at the long table they booked at the fancy burger bar and he tried to include Charles in every conversation. Charles only found enough energy to plow through the night because of Pierre. 

When the night ended, Pierre helped Charles carry all his presents and the big balloon they'd gotten him back to their dorm. It was near midnight by the time they turned the corner and pushed open the gate to their building.

“You’re not usually this quiet,” Pierre said.

Charles swallowed. “I just, um…”

“You miss George?”

Charles sighed. He nodded. “Yeah, I...yeah.”

Pierre stopped Charles with a tug on his wrist, then wrapped him in a warm hug. “Charles,” he whispered. “You always told me everything was going to be okay. And it is. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Charles felt himself sink into Pierre’s grasp, and he just. He just needed someone to hold him. He needed someone to hold on to, and he hadn’t told Pierre anything more than ‘he’s Catholic and he doesn’t feel fully comfortable with this relationship’ but he knew Pierre would always, always understand more than Charles said aloud.

“Thank you.”

They made it up to Charles's room, and Pierre pushed the door open, and – 

Sat on Charles's bed, holding a small cake with a single candle that lit up his smiling face like an angel’s halo, was George. 

“George,” Charles whispered, feeling tears prick violently at the back of his eyes as he was overwhelmed with a sudden wave of happiness. He dropped everything and ran the rest of the distance as George carefully set the cake down on the bed and stood up to catch him. Charles pressed his face into George’s shoulder, and he smelled so familiar that Charles started to cry. “George.”

“Hey, love,” George breathed into Charles’s hair. “Hey. No crying.”

“Hey, I'm gonna go,” Pierre said softly. “Happy birthday, Charles. I'll put your presents here.”

“Did he help you with this?” Charles asked. 

George nodded. He picked up the cake again and held it towards Charles. “Make a wish and blow it out,” he said. 

“Will you sing for me?” Charles gave his best puppy eyes. “Please?”

George relented with a cheeky roll of the eyes. His voice was soft as he sang, and he peered at Charles with a smile hanging on his lips, and Charles started to cry again with all the love in his heart. 

He closed his eyes and wished that he and George would always be okay.

He was a little greedy, so he also wished that George would allow himself to love Charles. 

George's touch was soft as he wiped Charles’s tears, and Charles knew everything was going to be alright. 

The cake was vanilla and lemon cream flavoured, and Charles didn’t remember telling George his favourite type of cake but George knew , he knew, and they shared the cake with a single fork and Charles had never felt so complete in his life. 

“I got you something.” George pulled out a black velvet pouch from his pocket and handed it to Charles. “I hope you like it. Happy birthday.”

Inside the bag was a mesh bracelet with a single round blue glass charm. Under the dim light, it was a dark blue, darker than George’s eyes and darker than the morning sky; it was the colour of the sea next to the harbour at the summer carnival. It was the colour of the evening sky, when the sun was halfway below the horizon. The first colour of night. When Charles moved it under his bedside light, it turned bright, and it was exactly the same colour as George’s eyes.

“I have one, too.” George reached into his pocket and pulled out another bracelet, identical save for a green glass charm instead of blue. The same green that Charles knew was the colour of his eyes. “It reminds me of you. I mean, it’s okay if you don’t want to wear it. I just, uh...I thought you’d like it. You know, since...since we can’t be together. In the same place.”

Charles placed the blue bracelet in George’s palm. “Put it on for me.”

There was the smallest smile on George’s face as he clasped the bracelet around Charles’s wrist, then let Charles do the same for him. 

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I love it.” Charles moved closer to George and placed their wrists together. The blue and green charms shimmered in unison. “They’re beautiful. I’m gonna be reminded of you whenever I look at mine.”

George smiled, and his eyes were blue but they were like fire, and his eyelashes were thick and long and cast dark shadows over his face, and Charles.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.

George nodded, and the last thing Charles remembered before their lips met was the feeling of George’s lashes on his cheeks as George’s eyes fluttered shut. His lips were soft and wet and they tasted like George had been drinking iced tea all afternoon. His hand was slightly cold as it slid up the side of Charles’s neck to firmly cup his jaw, making Charles shiver and grab the side of George’s shirt to pull closer, deepening the kiss.

“Happy birthday, Charles,” George breathed heavily.

“Mm,” Charles mumbled. 

It didn’t seem to matter, because moments later they were struggling, limbs clashing in an attempt to get closer to each other than it was physically possible. George obliged when Charles leaned back until he was horizontal, his weight comfortable on Charles as he nudged a thigh between Charles’s legs. His hand searched violently in Charles’s hair, tugging and pushing, and he gobbled up all of Charles’s gasps and sighs eagerly. He shuddered when Charles slipped a hand underneath his shirt, his body keening against Charles’s.

Before Charles could react, George had pushed off him and was at the far end of the room in a flash, facing away from Charles, his head almost in the wall. He pushed his face into his hands as his shoulders started to shake. 

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“George. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry. I can’t.” George’s hands clenched tightly into fists at his sides as he paced the room a few times and eventually stopped at the window. “Sorry, I –”

“It’s okay,” Charles whispered. He swallowed everything he was feeling, afraid it would bubble out. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m fine.”

George turned around, and for the first time that night, Charles noticed how tired he looked. Heavy circles decorated his eyes, and his face was sullen, like he hadn’t been sleeping well. He slowly walked over to Charles and sat down beside him again. 

“Charles, I…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Charles said. “Don’t say anything.”

George pressed his lips together like he was trying not to cry. Charles pulled him into a hug, feeling that same familiar relief when George folded comfortably into him without resistance. 

“What’s your favourite number?” he whispered into George’s ear.

“Sixteen.”

Charles’s birthdate. It brought a smile to Charles’s lips. “Okay. We’ll count to sixteen. Yeah? After we’re done, you’ll feel better. Okay?”

George nodded. He listened to Charles count to sixteen, and by the time Charles was done, he had stopped shaking and was nuzzling softly into Charles’s neck. Charles scooted further into his bed so he could lean on the wall and George could rest his head in Charles’s lap, lying upside down on Charles’s bed. His feet were tucked politely into the gap between Charles’s pillow and the wall, next to the blue shark they’d gotten at the carnival, and the sight of it made Charles smile.

“Did you skip lessons to be here?” he asked George.

“Just one. I have one tomorrow I can do on my laptop.”

“And will you stay the weekend?” Charles felt his smile grow when George nodded. He just. He just wanted to spend every minute he could with George.

“Tell me about your day.” George returned Charles’s smile, looking angelic as he peered up at him. 

He was just – George was just so beautiful.

Charles told him about training, and he told him about how the team had replaced his deodorant with whipped cream to prank him, and he told him about all the presents and the burger he had for dinner and how they’d bought him a cake of a flavour he didn’t really like. He told George about Pierre and all the times they had been there for each other and he told George how happy he was that they had both found their soulmates.

George only got sleepier and sleepier, and he looked more and more peaceful, and the sight of it squeezed Charles’s heart like it was being held in a warm, caring fist.

“Happy birthday,” George murmured again before he fell asleep.

Charles smiled. When he took George’s hand and intertwined his fingers but got no response from George, he knew George was fully asleep.

“I love you,” Charles whispered. “I know I can’t. I’m not supposed to. But I do. Very, very much. And no God is going to stop me.”

George sighed in his sleep as he pushed his cheek into Charles’s thigh.

His hair was so soft under Charles’s fingertips that Charles almost felt like he was wandering in a field of wildflowers in heaven.

He held George’s head in his hands for the rest of the night, and it was truly the best birthday of his life.

------

It was Charles’s birthday after all, so George spent the entire day doing whatever Charles wanted.

As it turned out, Charles wanted nothing more than just to sit with George.

So George let him sit in on his online lecture, then he sat watching Charles as Charles painted at his work table. They barely spoke to each other, but the room was calm and peaceful and complete the way it was, and George loved how comfortable they could be around each other without saying anything at all. 

On Saturday, George lured Alex out to sit on the bleachers and watch the football team practice, and it turned out to be three hours worth of teasing by Alex about the permanent smile on George’s face.

He couldn’t help it.

Being around Charles just placed a feeling in George’s heart that nothing else could.

Alex dipped for a while to do some food deliveries, then returned with dinner for the two of them and Pierre and Charles. While the other two decided to go back to Alex’s room, George and Charles sat in the grass in the middle of the school field, lit up by a single floodlight in the corner, and ate their burritos. 

At nine pm, the light went out, so they got on their backs and counted the stars they could see. George told Charles all about the brightest blue star Sirius and Charles told him he’d always seen that star but never known it was blue. He told Charles about Venus and all its gases and Charles didn’t miss a word. 

”Next time, when I miss you, I’ll come here and look at the stars,” he told George. 

George didn’t dare to stop talking; he didn’t stop talking, because stopping meant that the night would end, and soon the weekend would end, and George didn’t know when he would get to see Charles again. He just wanted to lie there forever, looking at the night sky with his Charles, and dreaming about being far, far away. 

That weekend, George was able to forget everything; he was able to drop everything that he’d been worried about, everything that had been haunting him, and he focused only on his love for Charles – and it truly was the most freeing thing in the world.

*

When finals neared, George started to plan his Christmas holidays with his family. 

He hadn’t discussed it with Charles, but he thought it was time to tell his family about them and maybe, if Charles wanted, take Charles home to meet them over Christmas. He was sure Charles wouldn’t mind it. After all, it was George holding things up on his end. 

“Ma.” George finally found enough courage to ask on one of their phone calls. “Is it okay if I want to bring someone with me on Christmas?”

“Sure,” she said. “Who is it?”

George closed his eyes. His heart was beating out of his chest and he began to think it was a bad idea, and he chickened out at the very last second.

“Just a friend,” he blurted. “His, uh...his name is Charles.”

“Sure.” His mum sounded happy about it. “We have an extra place on the table for him.”

“Thanks, ma.”

“What does he like to eat?”

“He likes Italian food,” George told her. “He’s been to all the Italian food places where he studies. And he’s a big meat lover. He inhales steak like I’ve never seen before. He just – ma, I’m sure he’ll love whatever you cook.”

“Okay,” ma said. “You sound happy, George.”

George was just – he was so scared . His phone almost slipped out of his grasp from how sweaty his palm was. He took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “Charles...Charles is a really good friend.”

“That’s really nice.”

George didn’t know what to say then. He just sat there as the room began to spin around him, and he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and his chest clenched tightly but not the way it did whenever he saw Charles. His chest clenched in absolute fear of letting his parents down.

He called Charles after hanging up, and he didn’t say a single word for fear of starting to cry, but Charles understood. 

Charles understood, and he put his phone next to him on speaker so George could hear the scratch of his paintbrush on paper, and George.

George just felt this deep, deep happiness, a sort of joy that ate at his heart from the very bottom until it threatened to spill over and drown all the despair that lined George’s soul.

They didn’t speak to each other throughout the call, and George spent the rest of it thinking about how he’d spent nineteen years waiting for his soulmate only to end up ruining his soulmate’s life.

------

Charles’s family didn’t celebrate Christmas, so it was easy for him to convince his parents to let him spend it at George’s before going home for the New Year. His finals ended a few days earlier than George’s, so he made the trip to where George studied and stayed over a few days before they headed over to George’s home.

George’s university was only about half the size of where Charles studied, but it was more modern and specialised in communications and media, and they had a small digital art department, too, which piqued Charles’s interest. George let Charles stay in his room for a couple of days, and the way Charles hovered carefully around George so he wouldn’t disturb George from studying for his finals was adorable , and it just made George so fucking happy.

George got to fall asleep and wake up to him those few days, and it was honestly everything that he would ever ask for.

“Are you sure you want me to go home with you?” Charles asked as he watched George pack the gifts for his family into a backpack the morning they were supposed to go to the train station. “I can still go back. I can get another train ticket.”

“I want you to come. They’re gonna have to meet you someday, you know? It might as well be now.”

“We don’t have to tell them, yeah?” Charles asked. “We’ll see. We don’t have to tell them.”

“I – I kinda want to tell them. Maybe – maybe it’ll help me accept it better. Accept...myself. You know?”

“Yeah.” Charles smiled, like he was delighted George was trying his hardest to accept who he was. “I just don’t wanna ruin your Christmas.”

“You’re not going to. I won’t let you.”

They took a bus into the city, and the shops were only just opening that morning but when Charles saw the tea shop he immediately dragged George inside.

“What kind of tea do your parents like?” he asked George. “I’ll get them some tea. You know, in exchange for dinner. Maybe it’ll make them like me more.”

George watched him wander the store, sniffing at tea leaves and pushing them into George’s face to make George sniff them. Charles was just. He was so adorable and lively and it always, always made George’s heart drop when he remembered what he was putting Charles through. 

They stood outside the store as Charles checked that he had everything he’d picked out. He looked so eager and excited and it just made George want to cry.

“Charles,” he whispered, tugging at Charles’s arm to get his attention. “I just, um...I want you to know that no matter what happens, I’ll always feel the same way about you. Okay? I’ll always feel the same way about you.”

Charles smiled up at him, his eyes reflecting in the morning light. He looked like an angel.

“I know, love,” he said softly.

George gently pressed his lips on Charles’s.

He didn’t know what he’d done to ever deserve Charles. He was loving, forgiving, and understanding. He was perfect. God made him perfect and God made him George’s.

The two and a half hour train ride to George’s hometown was strangely both the longest and the shortest train ride George had ever sat through.

Charles spent the entire journey with his face pressed up against the window like a little child. He looked fascinated as the tall buildings of the city gave way to more and more sky, and the smile on his face got bigger and bigger, bursting into giggles when George couldn’t resist but kiss his dimples.

George’s parents were waiting at the door for them, and ma looked ecstatic to see George. George was the youngest child, and it’d been hard for her when he’d left for university. He gave his parents hugs, then introduced them to Charles.

“Um, hi.” Charles was uncharacteristically subdued. He held out the bag of tea. “Mr and Mrs Russell. I brought some tea for you. Merry Christmas.”

It made George laugh. He brought Charles inside as his parents cooed over the tea, and introduced him to Benjy and Cara, who were sitting in the backyard. Then he brought Charles upstairs to his room, where they sat quietly on his bed. 

“You can sleep here for the next few nights,” George said. “I’ll take the couch.”

“No, I’ll take the couch.”

“I’ll take the couch. You’re the guest.”

The lightest smile appeared on Charles’s face, and he scooted further into the bed and settled on his back, his head buried in George’s pillows. He turned his cheek and took a deep breath of one of them, blushing when he caught George watching him. 

It was still bright outside, and the light coming in through the translucent drapes bounced off Charles’s eyes and lit up the room in its green. Charles just. He just looked so small and so beautiful, lying there in front of George, surrounded by white sheets and white pillows. He gazed up at George like George was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. His hand found George’s, but only grasped it hesitantly, like he was afraid.

Sometimes, George just got lost in it; he got lost in all his emotions, in all the feelings he had for Charles, he got lost so deep in them that it physically hurt him when he realised it and reeled himself back from it. 

That day, it felt like a stab to George’s heart as he forced himself to let go of Charles’s hand. 

Charles followed quietly behind George as he went back downstairs with all the presents and put them with the others below the tree. He sat with George and his parents as they talked about how they’d been in touch with the rest of their extended family. He went with George into the backyard after sunset, where they could hold hands in the darkness, drinking hot chocolate and sharing a big blanket.

When everyone was asleep, George snuck out of the couch and upstairs to sleep in his bed with Charles.

The way Charles welcomed him, with open arms and already resting on only one side of the bed like he’d saved a space for George, made George’s heart burst in unbridled joy.

“I’ll go back downstairs before they wake up,” he whispered.

He fell asleep in Charles’s arms that night, and for those few hours, in the familiarity of his home and the warmth of Charles – George believed that maybe, everything would be alright.

*

Christmas dinner was a quiet affair, just the six of them. George’s mum cooked up a feast, and Charles seemed to enjoy the fact that she was constantly scooping food onto his plate and asking him if he liked everything. 

Charles joined them for the Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, though he looked confused and awkward and plastered himself by George’s side throughout the night. George spent the entire time wishing he could hold Charles’s hand, wishing he could hug Charles close to him, but the holy presence in the church they stood in froze him in fear. 

When they said a prayer together at midnight, George snuck in a wish for Charles to always, always be happy.

Despite the late night, everyone got up early on Christmas morning to open their presents, giving George barely enough time to sneak back downstairs and pretend to be asleep on the couch. His parents had gotten Charles his own presents, a bright yellow jumper and some socks for the winter, and the way Charles grinned as he hugged his gifts to himself and thanked them made George want to kiss his dimples again.

The days blended together, and though they mostly gathered in the living room to watch TV or play board games, George felt so, so happy to be home. 

“You two never told us how you met,” George’s dad asked one evening while Benjy and Cara wreaked havoc in the kitchen trying to make dinner. 

“Charles is a friend of a friend.” There was a voice at the back of George’s mind telling him not to tell his parents that Charles knew Alex. “One of my coursemates’. Charles plays football and I met him when he came over for a football game.”

“What position do you play?” dad asked. George just knew he’d catch on to that, and Charles looked happy to talk to him about football, and he was hugging a sofa cushion tightly to himself, and – 

George was just so, so in love with him that he was suddenly fearless. 

“It must be hard to major in art without seeing all the colours,” George heard ma point out when he snapped back into reality. “I mean, I’d imagine it would be hard for George without green.”

Charles turned to George, and George could’ve sworn he saw Charles’s pupils dilate when his eyes met George’s. He looked kind and soft and George wished he could give him the entire world. 

“Yeah,” Charles said softly, his gaze resting like a warm hand on George’s face.

George tore his eyes off Charles and turned to his parents. “Dad,” he said. “Ma. I – I can see green now.”

He felt Charles fidget next to him, but.

It was way too late for any regrets. 

“You found your soulmate?” Ma sounded so excited, and it broke George’s heart to have to disappoint her. “Why didn’t you bring her over for dinner? What’s her name?”

George felt fear creeping back into his mind, and he had to turn his gaze to the mug of hot chocolate in his hands. The room was eerily silent for a long, long time, and a sudden overwhelming guilt made George wonder if he should’ve said anything.

But he knew this was part of his happiness, and he knew his parents loved him – he only hoped they loved him enough to let him chase it.

“George?” Ma’s voice was soft and kind and compelling and George gave in right away.

He put his mug on the table and reached for Charles’s hand, letting their fingers intertwine.

“His name is Charles.”

His parents were silent for a long time. 

A long, long time. 

“George,” his dad finally said. He didn’t even look at Charles, like Charles suddenly didn’t exist. “We’ll talk about this another day, okay?”

“Um, I…” Charles pulled his hand out of George’s and stood up nervously. “Uh, I’ll go help Benjy and Cara.”

George watched him disappear into the kitchen, turning around one last time to give George a timid glance.

“Are you sure that it’s him?” dad asked, barely even waiting for Charles to get out of earshot. 

“I’m sure.” Of course George was sure. “It’s Charles, and I’ve finally found him, and I love him very much.” George had never felt so brave as he did saying those words aloud.

“It can’t be right. It’s some sort of mistake.” Ma’s voice was only a whisper, but George heard all the pain and confusion in it. “This can’t be right, George.”

“You can’t see him anymore,” dad said. His voice was low, just like it used to be whenever he was mad at George or his siblings, and it still instilled that same fear in George’s heart. “He’s in a different school, so it shouldn’t be hard. You have to get over this, George. It’s not something you should be proud of. You have to go to church and pray for forgiveness every night and you have to wake up from this.”

George wondered how they had come to this negative conclusion this quickly. “No,” he said. “It’s Charles, Charles is my soulmate, I saw green in his eyes for the very first time. I thought it was wrong, just like you, but he was given to me and there must be a reason behind that. And I’m not going to abandon him because I’m meant to be with him and I’m sorry that you think otherwise but I feel like this is a decision I have to make myself.”

Dad and ma said nothing. They just stared at George from across the table. 

“I don’t want to fight with you, dad, ma,” George whispered. “That’s not what I was looking for when I decided to tell you.”

“I don’t think your friend Charles can stay with us tonight,” dad said quietly.

George wished he could punch something. He imagined himself punching the wall behind his parents’ heads.

“Fine,” he said. 

He stood up and went to the kitchen, and he found Charles helping Benjy to chop some carrots. He took Charles’s hand and brought him upstairs, and he took all of Charles’s things and packed them into his duffel bag.

“What happened?” Charles asked. 

“I’m taking you to Alex’s.”

“George, love. Don’t fight with your parents because of me.”

George shook his head, determined not to let his tears fall. “I don’t care.”

“George.” Charles took George’s hands and turned George to face him. “Hey. Hey, look at me. I’m gonna count to sixteen for you, and then you’re gonna tell me how you feel. Okay?”

George wondered how Charles could still be so soft and patient despite the entire world crashing down around them. He listened to Charles count to sixteen, and even though he was slightly calmer afterwards, he started to cry.

“Talk to me,” Charles whispered.

“I just feel so stupid for thinking that they wouldn’t be angry about this,” George sobbed. “I trusted them and I was wrong. I thought they would be happy that I brought my soulmate to meet them. I know they’ve been religious all their lives but I thought they would try to see that this is also God-given. You’re God-given. They don’t see that and I feel so, so stupid, and I’m so sorry that I thought it would be a good idea.”

“Okay.” Charles ran his hand through George’s hair, pushing it back on his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m gonna take you to Alex’s, is that okay?”

Charles nodded. He packed up the rest of his things and hoisted his bag over his shoulder, and when George led him downstairs he was still too furious to look at his parents, though he made sure that they saw him holding Charles’s hand.

“Hey,” Charles said as they started walking down the street. “I...is it okay if we hang out for a bit? Just the two of us. Before I go to Alex’s.”

George brought him to the endless green meadow behind Alex’s house.

He had never been able to see it before, and with all the festivities they’d been occupied with over Christmas, he hadn’t had the chance to take Charles there. The sight of it brought tears back to George’s eyes. He was brought back to the days he spent with Alex, when they were both missing a colour in their lives, facing the sea on George’s bad days and facing the greenlands on Alex’s bad days.

He’d sat here for years and years, listening to the stories told by the whispering grass, like they were secrets George had to be older to know.

Now he knew them, and he loved them more than he had ever loved anything.

Charles stood by the edge of the cliff, his bag at his feet as he gazed longingly at the sky and the sea in front of him. 

“This is what I’ve always imagined when I thought about my soulmate showing me the rest of the world,” he told George.

He looked beautiful with the wind in his hair and his hoodie and jacket keeping him warm, and George wondered yet again why God would give him such a gift if he was not allowed to have it.

Charles sat down facing the sea, and George sat behind him, facing the green he had never been able to see before. He was disappointed that the winter dulled it slightly. Still, he was grateful it wasn’t just a palette of greys to him any longer, and he knew that Charles was enjoying the way the wintry blue sky blended with the sea, so he held on to that.

They sat there, backs pressed together, not saying a word for what seemed like hours.

“You okay?” Charles asked as the setting sun began to cast gold shadows over everything.

George nodded, but realised Charles couldn’t see him. “Charles,” he whispered.

“Hmm?”

“You know I –” George struggled to hide the fact that he’d started to cry, but his voice hitched in his throat. “You know I love you, right? No matter what happens. No matter what’s going to happen. No matter whether I can say it or how many times I say it or if I will ever get to say it again. No matter whether I’m supposed to. I love you. You know that?”

The chuckle Charles gave rocked his entire body, and George had a feeling it wasn’t just a laugh. “Yeah.” Charles’s voice was thick. “Mhm. Don’t worry about it. I know that. And I love you, too. So, so much.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for all of this. I’m sorry that your soulmate is...me.”

“Don’t say that. I wouldn’t rather have anyone else.”

George had never met someone so patient and so kind in his entire life, and he was so, so glad that this person turned out to be his soulmate.

He wished it was warm enough for them to camp out in the meadow that night so George wouldn’t have to go back and face the wrath of his family, but despite everything else they were put through that day, the weather wasn’t giving them any breaks.

George dropped Charles off at Alex’s doorstep and left after pressing a kiss to his head. He didn’t say anything, too afraid that he would break down right there. He knew Charles would fill Alex in, anyway.

The dinner table was set when George made it home. George bypassed it entirely, along with his family sitting in the living room waiting for him. He went upstairs to his room and managed to shut the door before he broke down crying.

He sat at his window, and in the distance, he could see the rooftop of Alex’s house.

He wondered how Charles was doing. He wondered what he was having for dinner at Alex’s house. 

He wondered how it was possible to love someone as much as he loved Charles.

For all his life, George had known that he would, but now that he was actually feeling it, now that his heart was actually bursting with the love – it was so much more than what he had imagined.

There was a knock on his door after an hour or so, and George’s mum stepped in with a plate of food. She placed it on George’s table, and said, “We saved you some dinner.”

George didn’t want to turn around. He tried not to let his shoulders shake as he continued to cry.

“George.” Ma’s voice was soft and scared. “Baby.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, ma.”

His mum stood in the doorway silently for a while.

“George,” she said again. “You know this is a sin. It’s a sin.”

“You think I don’t know that? I’m trying to figure it out, ma,” George whispered. “I fight it every single day, too. I’m only asking for you and dad to support me while I do it. While I figure it out. With Charles.”

“You know in your heart that it’s not right. You know that me and dad will never accept this from you because this is not what the Lord taught us.”

George squeezed his eyes shut. “I know,” he said. He didn’t. Not anymore.

“Just stay away from him. Okay? Stay away from him, get some time alone, and then maybe your mind will be clearer and you can seek for forgiveness. Okay?”

Ever since George had met Charles, he had known that he’d be defying all of the Church’s teachings if he were to be with Charles. He had known with all his heart that he wasn’t supposed to love Charles.

But he had hoped that someone could teach him the way to accept it, to accept the plan God had given him. He had hoped that his parents, the people George knew loved him more than anyone else in the world, could hold his hand through it.

They couldn’t.

All George had ever wanted was to be told he was loved the way he was.

He wasn’t.

“Ma, please leave me alone,” George whispered.

Ma shut the door softly behind her. George crouched next to his bed, and he clasped his palms together, and he closed his eyes.

“Heavenly Father, thank You for blessing me with another day. It was exhausting, and I am worn out. I’m so, so tired. I don’t understand what You have given me and how I’m supposed to get through it. I know You are trying to make me stronger but it hurts so much and I don’t know what my next step will be. Dear God, please – please bless me with the serenity to understand what I need. Please give me the strength to overcome all the obstacles that You have decided will help me to grow. Lord, please bless ma, dad, Benjy, Cara, and all my friends. Please bless Charles with all the happiness that he deserves. Amen.”

George brought the uneaten plate of food downstairs and put it on the kitchen table, where his parents were having some tea. He left it without a word, feeling his parents staring after him as he went back upstairs. 

He crawled into bed and fell asleep almost immediately from pure exhaustion, hoping that he would wake up and the whole day would’ve been a dream.

------

Spending New Year’s without George was one thing, but spending New Year’s without George after what had happened with his parents was a whole other story.

Charles got to speak to him over midnight into the New Year, and he assumed it was because George still wasn’t on good enough terms with his parents to be with them for the countdown. 

Only a couple of days into the year, George stopped responding to Charles’s texts, and he stopped calling Charles or picking up Charles’s calls, and Charles couldn’t figure out why until he went back to school and met up with Alex.

They’d just finished training, and Alex was waiting in the otherwise empty bleachers. Pierre dragged Charles over with him while everyone else headed to the locker rooms to clean up and change. 

“Have you heard from George?” Charles asked Alex. “He’s not taking my calls.”

“Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that,” Alex said. He tugged on Charles’s arm so Charles would sit next to him. “George, uh...his parents changed his phone plan. They’re only allowing him to call and text them, his siblings, and me, and two of his coursemates. Everyone else is blocked. So he hasn’t been able to contact you.”

Charles felt his heart sink into the muddy school field. 

“What?” was all he managed to ask. 

“He’d wanted to give them your number disguised as one of the coursemates’, but they decided to call and check, so he couldn’t. But they don’t know that I know you. So you can use my phone to call him.”

“I –” Charles couldn’t find the words to say. “Is he doing okay?”

“Um…” Alex hesitated, and he looked like he was going to spill something, but Pierre nudged him. “Yeah, he told me to tell you he’s doing fine.”

It was very diplomatically put, and Charles wasn’t convinced. “What is it?” he pleaded. “Alex. Tell me, please.”

Alex exchanged another glance with Pierre. “George is being sent for therapy,” he said gently, as if he thought that Charles wouldn’t be hurt if he spoke softly enough. “Uh…they call it conversion therapy. With a church in the city. It’s to...they say it’s to change his sexual orientation.”

Charles shook his head. “He shouldn’t have told his parents,” he whispered. “I told him we could wait and see. But he didn’t listen. He said telling them would help him figure it out faster.”

“Hey.” Alex placed a hand on Charles’s shoulder. “I’ve talked to George, and he said that he doesn’t regret anything. He doesn’t regret telling his parents. He said a part of him knew that they’d be angry, but he had hope that they would try to understand him, and for you, he couldn’t just let go of that hope. For you, and for himself. He said that if he’d let go of any little hope he had, then he wouldn’t be worthy of loving you. And he told me to tell you not to worry about him, that he’ll do everything they ask him to do but he knows that it’ll never change what you two have. Never. and I’ve never heard George speak that way, I know he talks a lot and he’s constantly dropping facts on all of us but I’ve never heard him sound so sure about anything, ever. He really, really loves you. So Charles. You just have to trust him. Okay?”

Charles nodded. He didn’t know what else to do, or to say. He just looked down and cried into his lap and Pierre and Alex just sat there, not knowing how to help him.

Charles just wished that things didn’t have to be so hard.

He wished he could be the nice Catholic girl that George had always wanted.

All the feelings, everything that Charles had held in for the sake of George, it all spilled out at once. All the nagging doubts about whether he and George would make it, the worry that George was choosing the wrong side in the fight between his religion and his soulmate, and the sadness at how meeting his soulmate hadn’t been the magical journey that Charles had always wished for.

Charles had always thought, a little part of him had always thought, that maybe George really shouldn’t be loving him. Maybe he would be right to go along with the Church and reject Charles as his soulmate. Maybe Charles was just...wrong for him. 

“Hey,” Alex said again. “Um, I have to go drop some food off. I’ll pop by Pierre’s room later. Anytime you want to call him, you just come to me, okay? Anytime at all.”

Charles watched him press a kiss to Pierre’s lips and leave on his bike. Pierre sat quietly next to Charles, like he was afraid to get Charles to do anything.

“Charles,” he finally said. “You alright?”

The sound of his voice made Charles burst into tears again. 

“He’s constantly fighting himself because of me,” he sobbed. “Pierre. I watched you do that for your entire life. I watched you fight yourself because of Alex. I know how it feels. How much it hurts. I’d never wish it on anyone else. But now I have to watch him do it. The love of my life.”

“Charles. I’m sorry.”

“I just –” Charles didn’t even know what he wanted anymore. He shrugged. “Yeah.”

Pierre watched him for a while, then slung an arm across Charles’s shoulders. “We’ll go clean up now, okay?” he said softly. “Then we’ll go look for Alex, and you can use his phone to call George. Yeah?”

Charles felt so out of control of his body as he followed Pierre to the changing rooms and changed out of his sweaty clothes. Pierre brought him to a diner for some food but Charles struggled to swallow anything at all, and was forced by Pierre to get a doggy bag for his burger and fries so he could eat them later.

Alex was already waiting at Pierre’s room, which was a relief. He gave Charles his phone and told Charles he could use it for as long as he wanted, and Charles was almost crying with happiness as he crawled into bed and called George, who was saved in Alex’s phone as Georgie .

“Hey, Georgie,” he said when George took the call.

“I told him to change it back to George.” Charles could almost see George rolling his eyes. “Hey, you.”

“How are you?”

“Don’t worry about me, okay?” George said softly. “I’m okay. I’m really okay. I’ll get through it.”

“It’s all my fault. It’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know you don’t blame me and I know you don’t regret telling your parents, and every day I wonder how you can be so brave. And I just – I know this sounds cheesy as hell but I just want to hold you. I just want to hold you.”

“I know.” George sounded tired. He just sounded so, so tired. “I wish I could be there. I really do.”

“George,” Charles said. “If you ever – if you ever decide that you’ve been right all this time, that I’m wrong for you and the Church is right, then...then go for it, okay? I’ll be – I’ll be fine. If you decide that, then I’ll be okay with it. Yeah?”

“Charles,” George whispered. “You feel more right to me than being Catholic ever has. I know I’ve grown up being taught all of this and it’s everything that I’ve ever known and it feels right to me. But you feel – you’re even more than that. You know? You’re more than that. I’ve been taught not to be comfortable with it, but I am, and that’s what scares me. Do you get that? I – you just mean so much more to me than any of this, and I want you.”

“Are you sad?” Charles asked. “That you – you waited your whole life for your soulmate, you spent years and years looking at grey and waiting for it to be green, you spent all that time, and – and it turned out to be me?”

“No.” George’s voice was soft now, like he’d started to cry. “I’m so happy that it’s you. I’m so happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles sobbed. “I’m sorry that it’s not what you’ve always thought it would be.”

“Charles, love. Don’t be sorry. It’s better than what I always thought it would be. It’s you. It’s better.”

“Sometimes I just wish that I could be right for you, you know? That I could be the right soulmate for you.”

“You are. Charles, don’t say that. You’re right for me and I – I’m sorry that I’m not right for you.”

“You are. You’re perfect for me,” Charles said. “I’ve always, always wanted someone to love. Someone to give all my love to, no matter what. And now I have you, and I know you’re fighting hard every day but you’ve never once rejected all my love. You’re perfect for me, George.”

“You know what I’ve always wanted?” George gave a little sniffle. “I’ve always wanted someone to love me for who I am. Just for who I am, without any filters. Just like how I’ve been told God loves me. And you do. I know we haven’t been together all that long and we haven’t seen each other too many times but we’ve already been through so much and you’re still here. And that’s how I know that you’re right for me.”

“I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else, George.”

“I just –” George paused to sniffle again. “Don’t think about what they’re telling me in therapy, okay? Don’t think about it at all. I know you told me it’s okay but I also know you’re worried they’ll change my mind. But I’ve already made up my mind, and I chose you. They’re not going to change my mind. Okay?”

Charles nodded even though George couldn’t see him. “They’re not...George, tell me they aren’t going to do anything physical to you.”

“They won’t,” George said softly. “It’s at a church. They’re all about praying and teaching. Just don’t – don’t think about it, and don’t read about it, just pretend nothing is happening. Okay?”

“I can’t do that,” Charles sobbed. “I want to know what you’re going through. I want to be there for you. And now, I can’t even call you, and I…”

“I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry. We’ll get through this, I promise you.”

“It’s not your fault, okay? None of this is your fault. It’s just...just something we have to go through. Yeah? And if you still want me by the end of it, then it’s just going to make us stronger. Yeah?”

“I think so, too.” There was a little smile in George’s voice. “Get some rest, okay, Charles? Take care of yourself. And you have Alex, and you can go to him whenever you wanna call me. Okay? I’ll be right here. Right here.”

“I love you so much, George.”

“Me, too.”

Charles returned Alex’s phone to him next door in Pierre’s room, then took a long, warm shower to refresh himself. Then he sat in bed with his laptop and leftover burger and he spent the entire night reading about the Catholic church and conversion therapy.

He only fell asleep when the warm blue of sunrise flooded the room in a way Charles had never noticed or appreciated before, hugging Charles the same way the colour did when Charles looked into George’s eyes.

------

Charles didn’t get to talk to George every day like he used to anymore. He barely even heard from George after that first phone call. 

The first day George went for therapy, Alex appeared at Charles’s room, his phone held out with Georgie on the screen.

“Hello?” Charles said as he put the phone to his ear. George didn’t respond. “Hey, love. How’d it go?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” George whispered. Charles could hear him crying. “Can we just...can you just sit with me for a bit?”

“Okay.”

Charles put his rolls of drawing paper down and climbed into bed. George was still crying quietly, and Charles decided not to disturb him. Instead, he just listened, his heart cracking further and further open with every sob he heard, until he was crying alongside George at everything the world was putting George through.

As much as he admired George for fighting so hard, he also wished that George...didn’t have to.

He sat there for what seemed like hours and hours, thinking about how deeply in love he was with the boy over the phone.

“Hey.” George’s voice was soft when he finally spoke, like he was afraid to disturb Charles. “You still there?”

Charles swallowed his sob, but he wasn’t sure if George heard the little gurgle he made. “Yeah,” he said. “George, I – I’ll always be here. Always. Do you know that?”

George gave a little chuckle, and he sounded like he was still crying when he whispered, “Yeah. Thank you, Charles.”

“Try and get some rest, okay?” Charles told him. “Do you want me to stay with you till you sleep?”

“Is that okay?”

“I’ll just go next door and ask Alex, yeah?”

Alex was planning on staying in Pierre’s room for the night, anyway, so he let Charles hold on to his phone. 

Charles brought it downstairs to the school field, and he lay in it, watching the stars George had pointed out to him the last time they were there together. He listened as George put him in his nightly prayer again, then climbed into bed and settled into it with a loud rustling noise. 

“I’ll see you real soon, okay?” Charles whispered. “Really, really soon.”

“Mhm.” George sounded so sleepy. “Charles. I – I love you, you know?”

“Yeah.” Charles tried his hardest not to cry again. He knew George loved him. He knew. He just didn’t know for how much longer George was going to love him. “I know that, Georgie. I love you, too.”

Charles told George all about the stars he was looking at, and George sounded proud that Charles had remembered. He waited until George’s soft murmuring had stopped and he’d fallen asleep, then he hung up the phone and returned it to Alex. 

He took a shower and climbed back into bed, and he dreamed of holding his George in his arms for the rest of eternity.

------

George’s birthday fell on a Monday that year, and the weekend before it, he managed to get away to a nice beach house Alex’s parents had rented out for the four of them for George’s birthday.

His parents didn’t know he’d left campus for the weekend. George didn’t bother telling them because he didn’t want them to ask too many questions.

It wasn’t like he told them too many things these days.

It was his first time seeing Charles since Christmas, though, so he was quite excited. He took a bus to the little seaside town to meet the other three, and as he trudged down the last stretch to the beach house, he saw a figure charging at him like a raging bull. 

“George,” Charles breathed as he crashed into George’s arms, knocking his duffel bag out of his hand. “Oh, George.”

“Hey, love,” George whispered. “Charles. Hey, you. I missed you so much.”

Charles pressed his face into George’s shoulder, and George heard him inhale deeply, and it felt like Charles had inhaled George’s entire heart. 

“How are you?” George hugged him more tightly. “You’ve lost weight.”

“ You’ve lost weight.” Charles pulled away slightly, enough to hold George’s face in his hands. He examined George closely, his eyes travelling down and back up a few times. “You’ve lost so much weight. And you look so tired.”

George was tired, but. “I’m alright. Don’t worry about me.”

“Did they – they didn’t...do anything to you, did they?”

George shook his head. “Promise.”

Charles finally smiled at him then, though it was a small, tired smile. It did nothing to stop George from wanting to kiss him, so George leaned over. 

Kissing Charles felt like coming home. 

It felt like coming home more than anything else had ever. More than going back home to his parents did.

“This weekend, we’re just going to forget everything, okay?” Charles whispered against George’s lips. “We’re gonna forget the real world exists, and we’re just gonna live in our own little world, and we’ll let ourselves be happy. Okay?”

George nodded. He pressed another kiss to Charles’s lips, and for the first time, it felt freeing instead of suffocating. 

Pierre and Alex were already inside the beach house, hanging around the kitchen making some sandwiches. Charles brought George to one of the big bedrooms with a giant bed facing directly out a glass window that overlooked the sea. 

“I called dibs on this room for us,” he announced proudly. 

He sat on the bed and watched George unpack his bag, but a moment later he was by George’s side, picking up something from the floor. Once George heard the rattling of pills, he knew.

“What is this?” Charles asked, examining the translucent orange bottle that had fallen out of George’s bag. “George. What is this? You said they weren’t doing anything to you.”

“It’s just something to help me sleep.” George tried taking the pill bottle from Charles, but Charles held on to it tightly, staring at the label like he was memorising the name of the medication so he could look it up later. “It’s from a doctor. Not from the church. I promise.”

“You have trouble sleeping? Why didn’t you tell me?” Charles had tears brimming in his eyes, and George. George was just so disappointed in himself. “George, I –”

“Shhh, don’t say a word.” George pulled him into a hug. “Not a word. Charles. I’m fine. I just have trouble falling asleep. It’s nothing serious at all. Okay? Charles. This weekend, we’re gonna be happy, like you said. Yeah? We’re not going to think about all of this.”

Charles sobbed quietly into the front of George’s shirt for a while. Then he whispered, “I know you don’t want me to worry, but I want to know everything. I want you to tell me everything. Just so I know what’s going on, and I can be there for you. You know?”

“Okay. I’ll tell you everything.”

“You’ll take care of yourself, yeah? When I’m – when I can’t be with you.”

“I’ll take care of myself. For you.”

Charles smiled up at George then, and he looked like an adorable little puppy and George just wanted to take him everywhere.

He ended up just taking Charles outside, where there was a wind blowing, cold but not too biting. They nipped some of Pierre and Alex’s sandwiches and started walking down the long stretch of sand, armed with their sweaters and scarves. He knew it’d be cold, but George longed for the feeling of sand between his toes, so he took his shoes off and found the sand to be tolerably cool. 

Charles didn’t say much, just walked with his hand loosely in George’s. The feeling of the blue bead on his bracelet pressing against George’s wrist was – it was freezing but warm at the same time, and as they walked, it just reminded George about how lucky he was to have Charles. About how they didn’t need to do anything or say anything, they could just be walking silently down a cold beach with loud waves by their side, and it would still be George’s favourite place in the world. 

Sometimes, George wished that his favourite place didn’t make his heart chew him up from inside out with guilt.

Pierre and Alex were sitting on the back patio of the beach house when they returned, watching as the sun hung low above the horizon. The sunset was mild, it being just the tail end of winter, so the sky was still a greyish blue as Charles sat down next to Alex and the both of them started talking about how they’d thought blue looked like before they’d met Pierre and George. 

It still fascinated them, the same way green still fascinated George even after six months. 

Pierre appeared by George’s side a few minutes later, a mug of warm tea in his hands. He handed it to George. “Fancy a walk?” he asked.

George walked with him. He’d never really hung out alone with Pierre before, and he didn’t think he had anything to say to Pierre that wouldn’t be nerdy rambling, so he was relieved when Pierre started talking as they stepped back on the cold sand.

“Alex is always talking to me about you,” he said. “He’s always asking if I think you’re alright.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make everyone worry.”

“No, I just –” Pierre sighed. “No, I don’t mean it that way. I just want you to know that we all care about you. Yeah? You’re not alone. You’re never alone. The three of us, we’re just one call away. Okay?” 

George nodded. He watched the grains of sand fall through the gaps between his toes.

“You know what I used to tell Charles?” Pierre asked. “I told him that whoever his soulmate was, they were very, very lucky.”

George smiled. “Yeah?”

“Mhm. I wasn’t...I know I was never the best friend to him. Never as good to him as he was to me. I was always angry and I never listened to what he tried to tell me. But he stuck by me all along. All these years, he’s held me and picked me up and he’s never given up on me. Sometimes I think he’s kinda like my platonic soulmate, you know? Just like Alex is yours.”

“Yeah.”

“I still think you’re very, very lucky, George,” Pierre continued. “He’s the kindest soul. He’s so patient and he never gets angry. He’ll always listen and he has such a big heart. And I just know he’s gonna stick by you the way he stuck by me, and he loves you to tiny tiny bits, and I hope you don’t ever feel like he’s giving up on you because I know he never will.”

“Thank you, Pierre,” George said. “I know I’m really, really lucky to have him. I just – I just hope he feels the same way about me.”

“He does. You let him love you. That’s all he’s ever wanted. Ever.”

George sighed. “Yeah, well,” he said. “I think he’s very lucky that he didn’t meet his soulmate because they ran into him with a bike and nearly killed him.”

Pierre’s laughter was genuine and warm and louder than the roaring waves. “I honestly don’t think anyone can ever top that.”

“Yeah, Alex really did take his shot.”

They got back to the beach house before it was completely dark, and walked into town to have dinner at a cozy local restaurant with warm chicken pot pies and roasted lamb. Even though it was still two days to George’s birthday, he got a nice strawberry cream cake and he got to blow out the candle and wish that he and Charles would have a life together in the future. 

Charles’s nose remained pink throughout like he was simply not dealing well with the cold, and it was the most endearing thing George had ever seen. 

When he laughed, his eyes crinkled at the corners and he got so breathless, and George didn’t want him to ever stop laughing. 

The four of them hung around in the living room for a bit, watching a random movie that was playing on TV. At about half past ten, Alex and Pierre, who’d been whispering conspiratorially all night long, stood up hand in hand.

“We’re gonna go inside,” Alex said. “Uh, we’re – yeah, good night.”

“Good night, guys,” Pierre added.

They disappeared into their room, and George heard the lock click loudly shut.

Charles gave a little giggle from where he was, nestled comfortably under George’s arm. “Do you think they’re gonna…”

“I think so,” George said.

“It’s a good thing their room is at the opposite end of the house from ours.”

George laughed. “Yeah.”

“Let’s go inside.” Charles turned off the TV and took George’s hand as they made their way to their bedroom, and he had one of the sofa throws draped over his shoulders, and he looked like a mix between a superhero and just a really comfy person, and it brought a smile to George’s face. 

Charles sat in bed scrolling through his phone, but George really had limited options to do anything on his, so he just lay beside Charles and watched the rectangle of light illuminate his face like a little angel. Charles seemed to be scrolling through some artists’ social media, and he was happy to share when George asked. They spent some time just scrolling and talking quietly about the different types of artwork Charles showed George, and George was just...so happy to hear Charles talking about what he loved.

“You know, when Alex and Pierre first told me about you, they said that once you started talking, you never stopped?” Charles asked.

“Yeah?” George couldn’t help but laugh. He got that a lot. “Sometimes I just get excited, you know?”

“Yeah. I like it when you get excited. Like whenever you’re telling me about astronomy,” Charles said. “But you’re...you’re quieter around me than I expected.”

“I just don’t feel like I need to talk a lot around you,” George whispered. “Sometimes, between us...the silence is so nice, you know? Just knowing that you’re around. It’s not that I don’t have anything to share with you. I just feel like...everything I want to tell you, you already know. And if there’s any more, you know I won’t ever shut up.”

Charles smiled. He put his phone aside and pressed himself up against George, his lips finding George’s in the darkness. His arm curled around George’s waist, and he was so warm, and George instinctively pulled him even closer, on top of him as he rolled on his back. Charles’s gasps were hot and wet and George was just so hungry for them, and he searched for more, his hands in Charles’s hair and around his neck and under his shirt, but he just fell short of it being enough. 

Their bodies rocked in unison as Charles straddled George’s hips, his hands holding George’s face up towards his own. And George. George just loved him so much and he craved being this close to Charles, he craved holding Charles and he craved the friction between their skin, but – 

The feeling started eating him up from inside again; the guilt, the remorse, the freezing fear that he was doing something he wasn’t meant to do. George’s hands stuttered on Charles’s hips, and Charles pulled away slightly to see what was wrong, but George pulled him back in, afraid that if he stopped kissing Charles, the feeling would eat him alive.

They both gave a coordinated shudder when George’s hands slipped under Charles’s shirt again, Charles keening closer to George, the entire length of his body pressed on George’s chest. And George was sure, he was sure this was what he wanted to be doing, he was sure he loved Charles and trusted him enough to do whatever they were leading up to, but he couldn’t help the anxiety that crept up on him.

George was just – he was so out of breath, and he was so uncomfortable, he was so uncomfortable but he didn’t want to be, and he accidentally let it show when his lips stopped moving against Charles while he focused on stopping his hands from shaking.

“George.” Charles’s lips were warm against George’s jaw. “Hey.”

“I’m okay. It’s okay.”

“No, hey.” Charles sat up and placed his hands gently on George’s chest. “We’ll stop. Yeah? We’ll stop if you’re not okay with it.”

He started climbing off George, but George steadied him in place with his hands on Charles’s hips. “No, just – just stay here.” George swallowed hard. “I just – I want to. I really do. But I...I can’t. Not right now.”

“And that’s completely fine. Yeah?” Charles smiled down at him. “That’s fine.”

George wondered how he could be so, so beautiful inside and out.

He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort not to cry. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. Charles, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t say that,” Charles whispered. He leaned in closer to George again, his thighs tightening around George’s hips as he held George’s face in his hands, softly, like a jewel. “Hey. Do you want to be kissed? Is that gonna be okay?”

George nodded and let Charles press a brief kiss to his lips. When Charles moved to place soft kisses on George’s temples, his eyelids, his cheeks, then his nose and his mouth again, repeating it once more and all the while counting up to sixteen with each kiss, it made George smile and his heart burst with joy.

“Better?” Charles asked with the tiniest smile.

And when George looked into his eyes – when George looked into his eyes, he saw no trace of regret, none of pity, and no sign of any sadness. 

It was just full of love, full of love and acceptance of George and whatever he was comfortable or uncomfortable doing. 

The room was dark, but Charles’s face and his eyes were so bright to George, and the way his hair stuck out in all directions made him look adorable and snug and George couldn’t help but be reminded that Charles was his favourite place in the world.

“Charles,” he whispered, fingers tracing Charles’s jaw. “I...it’s not you, okay? It’s not because of you.”

“I know that, love. We’ll take our time. Okay? We have forever. We have an eternity.”

George wished he could live out that eternity right then. Just the two of them, together.

They settled into a comfortable silence, Charles still sitting on George’s abdomen and softly holding on to his hands. Eventually, George felt like he could breathe again.

“You know, when Alex told me about Pierre, I said that I’d never expected his soulmate to be a boy?” he asked Charles.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And he said Pierre was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, and I told him to wait until I met my soulmate, and then we’ll see.”

Charles smiled. He let his fingers drum down George’s cheek. “And what about now?”

“I was right. My soulmate is the most beautiful person.”

Charles’s smile grew, and even under the dim light, George could see his eyes twinkle.

He reached up and placed a palm on Charles’s cheek, and Charles leaned into his caress. 

“You’re so beautiful, Charles.”

Charles’s fingers returned to George’s cheeks, this time tracing the dark circles George knew were there.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

George shut his eyes, and for the first time in a long, long time, he felt peaceful.

“Do you wanna take your pill and go to sleep?” Charles asked.

“No.” George sighed. “I just – I don’t wanna waste a single moment with you.”

Charles climbed off him and pulled the duvet over the both of them. Then he took George’s hand and they spent the whole night just talking, talking about what Charles did in the art studio and what George learned in his ethics class. About how every time Charles picked up some blue paint he would think about George, and how whenever George looked out his window and saw the trees he would miss Charles with his entire heart.

The waves sang lullabies to them outside their window, their sounds a soothing embrace in the night. It reminded George of being back at home, near the sea, and the quiet nights when he'd be able to hear the waves if he listened closely enough.

Charles fell asleep first, in the middle of a sentence and with his face pressed close to George’s, and George followed soon after – the first time in a month that he could fall asleep without any medication.

*

When George awoke the next morning, the sun was still rising to the right of their room, and Charles was sitting at the foot of the bed, looking out at the sea.

He was so quiet, and so small, and his silhouette against the brightening sky just made George feel this inexplicable nostalgia.

He wished, again, that he could give Charles the world. 

George crawled out from under the covers and sat next to Charles, wrapping his arms around Charles’s waist and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Good morning,” he whispered.

“Morning, love.” Charles smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

George nodded, and he wasn’t lying. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so well.

Charles reached for his bag by his feet and pulled out two gifts, one wrapped and one unwrapped. He placed the unwrapped one in George’s lap. It was a small heart-shaped box of chocolates.

“It’s Valentine’s Day today, so...happy Valentine’s Day. You’ll always, always be my Valentine.”

George smiled. “Thank you.”

Charles placed the second gift in George’s hands; a small box, wrapped in gold paper. “This is for your birthday. Happy birthday, love. I hope you like it.”

George unwrapped it, and inside was a small blue velvet box containing two bracelet charms. One of them had a green four-leaf clover engraved on it, and the other had two constellations, one on each side.

“The clover for good luck,” Charles said softly. “And the constellations for both our zodiacs. ‘Cause you like stars, yeah? You can add them on your bracelet if you want.”

George did exactly that, right away, one on each side of his green charm. Charles helped him put it back on, and when he smiled, it lit up the entire room.

“Thank you,” George whispered. “I love it.”

Charles held a palm to George’s jaw, and he took a long, deep breath, like he was trying to compose himself so he wouldn’t cry in front of George. “George. Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will. Just so you won’t worry.” George held on to Charles’s wrist. “You have to take care of yourself, too, yeah?”

“Promise.”

“I got you something, too.” George grabbed the wrapped gift from his bag and handed it to Charles. “For Valentine’s Day.”

It was a personalised jigsaw puzzle made with one of their first photos together, in front of the ferris wheel at the summer carnival the year before. Once Charles figured out what it was, excitement took over him completely, and he dragged George to sit on the floor with him as he poured out all the pieces.

“Let’s do this together,” he said.

George had barely ever seen Charles as happy as he was that day, sitting on the ground snuggled close to George as they deliberately took their sweet time to complete the puzzle. And it really was that simple, but it was everything that George could’ve wished for on his birthday, and he had the time of his life that weekend, living out his eternity with his Charles.

------

The worst part about not being able to call or text George on any whim was that whenever something happened to Charles that reminded him of George, he couldn’t tell George about it right away.

They only got to talk about once or twice a week, mostly on the weekends, and even then it wasn’t for too long, because it was Alex’s phone after all and he would be busy with deliveries until it was late. Sometimes, George just wanted to talk to Alex, and Charles would let him. 

To cope with never being able to talk to George, Charles started making and collecting little things that reminded him of George, so he could give them all to George when they saw each other again. He didn’t think it would be until the summer, at least, if not longer. But the thought of George’s smile and the look on his face when he listened to Charles explain each thing, it was simply too good to resist.

Every day, Charles would make something for him; he would write a little note about his day, or he would do a simple watercolour painting, make a tiny clay figurine, or embroider something, and whenever he went into the city during the weekends he would make sure to get George something. His collection got bigger and bigger, and he got more and more excited because he’d kept it a secret from George and he just couldn’t wait to see George’s reaction.

Charles did get busier and busier as summer approached, though, dealing with his cultural heritage exam, writing two essays, and completing an oil painting as part of his final grade. So maybe, just a small part of him was glad that he and George managed to live independent lives.

On the final day before the deadline for his oil painting, he discovered that the top layer of paints had cracked because Charles had accidentally left it near his window and let the top layer dry too quickly under the sun. 

He spent the morning trying to fix it with anything he could possibly find in the art studio, but failed. In the afternoon after his last class, he rushed into town to look for any oils he could apply to smoothen the cracks, only to return to his room and find out that they didn't work. And on top of that, he hadn’t even gotten George anything from the city. 

Left with no other choice, Charles spent the night recreating the oil painting he’d spent two weeks on previously, trying not to cry as he realised he was never going to complete it before the noon deadline the next day and was going to have to beg for an extension or submit his ruined work. 

He had a two-hour nap, then headed to the art studio before his art history lecture to pass the painting to his advisor and see if he could wring out an extension. He didn’t come close to being successful, so he had to turn in his cracked oil painting with a description stating that he’d intended for it to have a cracked effect, just to hope that it would save him some points.

He barely had any time to dwell on it and how it would probably make it hard for him to edge over a passing grade, because immediately after his lecture came football training and preparation for their last few matches of that semester. It was an intense session, not only because they were in the critical period of their season, but also because Charles had only had two hours of sleep and a couple of days where nothing at all had gone right. 

It was hard to focus, and Charles wasn’t as quick on his reflexes in goal as he liked to be. But he knew he hadn’t yet suffered the complete wrath of the day when he fell awkwardly on his arm and twisted his wrist under him, and the resulting pain shot up to his left shoulder. He sat between the goalposts cradling his arm, and he was so exhausted from trying not to cry for the entire day that he just let the tears flow as the feeling slowly came back to his arm, a hot, searing pain that he could feel in his bones.

“Hey.” Pierre was the first person to run up to him. “You okay? Charles, why are you crying?”

“It really hurts,” Charles sobbed. 

“Where?” Pierre asked. By then, the rest of the team had gathered around Charles, and Charles. Charles just felt suffocated. 

“My wrist.” Charles couldn’t even hold it up. Pierre pressed two fingers to it, and Charles almost went blind with the pain. “Fuck. Don’t press on it, it hurts.”

“I barely even touched it,” Pierre pointed out. “Okay. Everybody scatter, go back to training, and I’ll take Charles to the hospital.”

Charles didn’t have it in him to argue. He got an ice pack strapped to his wrist, then Pierre was bundling him into the back of an Uber and to the emergency room, where Charles had an x-ray taken of his rapidly swelling wrist. 

“You alright?” Pierre asked when Charles re-emerged with a temporary brace holding his wrist straight. Charles sat down next to him and started crying again, and Pierre looked a mixture of sad and terrified as he swept Charles’s sticky, unkempt hair from his forehead. “Charles. What’s going on?”

“I’m just so tired,” Charles whispered. “Today was a shit day, and yesterday was a shit day, and now I won’t be able to finish the season because my hand is shit.”

“You’ll be okay, yeah? Your health is more important than the season,” Pierre said. “Do you want to call George? I can get Alex to drop by.”

Charles shook his head. “I don’t want him to worry about me. He has enough to think about.”

He was given the choice to go home and wait for his x-ray result, but he decided to stay at the hospital in case they made him come back again. And despite his multiple attempts to get Pierre to go back and have some rest, Pierre refused, and he just sat silently next to Charles holding his good hand until a nurse came by and told Charles he had a hairline fracture and a torn ligament in his wrist and had to be put in a cast.

Charles was just…

He was so tired that he didn’t even care anymore. They could put his entire body in a cast and he wouldn’t care. He just wanted to lie down and have some sleep. 

He tried not to think about anything else, about the unfinished season that loomed ahead and the failing grade that awaited his oil painting. When he got back to his room, armed with a brand new white cast and a bag of painkillers, he immediately crashed in bed, the last thing he remembered being Pierre folding a hoodie to elevate his wrist before closing the door quietly as he left.

*

It didn’t seem to matter how tired Charles was, because he only slept for two more hours before waking up in a cold sweat. 

The first thing he noticed was that his bracelet with the blue bead wasn’t on his right wrist, his good hand, where he always wore it. 

Charles didn’t remember the last time he’d seen it. He’d been so distracted the entire day that everything seemed to blend together. What he did know was that he didn’t remove it on his own, so it must have broken and fallen off. 

Charles felt a sudden, heavy sense of doom descend on him. 

It was a sinking feeling and it was overwhelming and it took Charles’s breath away, and he knew it didn’t make any sense but he suddenly had the feeling that something had happened to George. 

After all, it would only be one more bad thing to cap off a day of bad things.

The feeling only intensified when Charles got out of bed and saw his broken bracelet on the floor under his table, the blue bead flung further away in front of his wardrobe.

When Charles picked them up, it felt like he was holding pieces of George in his hand. 

And he suddenly forgot everything – he forgot everything save for the deep emptiness that came with missing George, with never getting to see him and rarely talking to him. Everything save for the worry that suddenly overcame him and the need to see George right away and see for himself that George was okay.

He burst out of his room and stood outside Pierre’s door for a while, but the fact that it was almost two am on a Tuesday night stopped him from going ahead and knocking on it.

Instead, with his newfound adrenaline, he grabbed the box of things he’d collected for George and packed some essentials into a backpack, and he waited fifteen minutes for an Uber to take him to the nearest car rental place.

Charles took out the smallest, cheapest car he could get, and he put everything in the backseat and he drove for four hours straight, one-handed and in tears, until he got to George’s university. It was dark and the roads were empty and the highway was clear, but Charles struggled with his one working hand, trying not to let his tears blur his vision. 

All he could think of was what he was supposed to do if George had died.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t think of anything he’d do. He couldn’t bear the thought of George not existing, much less think about how he would cope. 

He had to get to George. It was running in his head like a mantra. I have to get to George. And all he could hear alongside it was the pounding of his heart and the rushing of blood in his ears, encouraging his foot to push harder on the pedal so he could get to George quicker. 

We have an eternity. Charles wanted that eternity. He wanted so badly to live out that eternity with his George that he was willing to do anything as long as he got to keep it.

It didn’t matter what it took him, as long as he got to see George again.

The birds were already chirping and the sun beginning to rise when Charles got out of the car safely with his backpack, his knees almost buckling as his feet hit the concrete. He keyed in the number code for the front door, which he had memorized, then rushed up the stairs to George’s room and hammered on the door.

George pulled it open a minute later – the longest minute of Charles’s life – looking sleepy and flustered and confused, and it sent a wave of relief rushing over Charles so intensely his legs almost buckled under him again. 

“George,” Charles sobbed, collapsing into George’s arms. “Oh, George. I thought something happened to you.”

“Hey.” George’s voice was still thick with sleep. “Hey. Nothing’s happened to me. Charles. I’m fine. I’m right here. Why’d you think that?”

“My bracelet broke. I thought something bad had happened to you.”

“Charles.” George squeezed him tight. “How did you get here? You could’ve just called me.”

“I couldn't call you. It was so late and Alex and Pierre were asleep and I didn't dare call you with my phone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I just –” The words struggled to find their way past Charles’s tears. “I thought you’d – I thought you –”

“Hey. Hey, shhh, it’s okay. I’m right here.” George wrapped Charles up again, and Charles felt the first slivers of peace return to his body. “I’m so sorry. Charles, please, I’m sorry. Please don’t cry.”

“I can’t be without you tonight. I can’t.”

“Okay. Okay.” George pulled Charles and his fallen backpack into the room and closed the door. He sat down with Charles on the bed. “What’s going on? What happened?” 

“I just had such a horrible day,” Charles said softly. “I had such a shit day, and it just got worse and worse, and I just had to see you. I had to see you, George – I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have woken you.” The seriousness of what Charles had done, renting a car and driving here in the middle of the night, suddenly hit him. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“No.” George seemed to only just notice the cast on Charles’s hand. “What happened to your hand?”

“I broke my wrist during training.” Charles broke down sobbing again. He felt his heart clench and the room close in on him, and he couldn’t breathe, and – “George. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come here, I just didn’t know what to do, I woke up and I thought something had happened to you and –”

“Shhh, Charles,” George whispered. He took Charles’s face in his hands. “Charles. Hey. Just try to breathe, okay? Look at me, and breathe with me. Okay? Can we do that?”

The way he held Charles was – it was soft and gentle and it felt like Charles was being cradled by a bunch of clouds in the blue sky. His gaze was worried and tired but it was still Charles’s favourite blue in the entire world, and he got lost in them, lost and floating in an endless blue expanse, until George gave his cheeks a squeeze and he was pulled back into reality. 

Charles just felt...so healed by George’s gaze and his grasp and his everything.

“Better?” George whispered.

Charles nodded, though it sunk in again that he was here, four hours away from school, in the middle of the night, all because he had an irrational panic attack. He hung his head in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Stop saying that.” George gave Charles’s cheeks another squeeze, then moved his hands down Charles’s shoulders and arms. “You’re so cold. Do you feel cold?”

Charles didn’t have any time to respond before George was getting up and grabbing a dark green hoodie draped over the back of his chair. He tugged it over Charles’s head, smiling as he adjusted it over Charles’s shoulders and made sure Charles was warm and comfortable.

“How did you get here?” he asked. 

“I rented a car.”

“And you drove here with one hand?”

Charles nodded.

“Why?” George asked.

“Because I love you.” Charles thought it was obvious.

George smiled. He pressed a soft kiss on Charles’s lips. “I love you more,” he whispered, then gently lifted Charles’s injured wrist. “Does this hurt?”

Charles had been too high on adrenaline earlier to notice that it did hurt quite a bit, but now that George mentioned it, it was the only feeling Charles was aware of. His arm was heavy as lead and his shoulder hurt from supporting the cast, and his good hand was sore from gripping the steering wheel so hard. Exhaustion settled over Charles once again as the euphoria of seeing George slowly faded and was replaced by the rest of Charles’s troubles.

“They gave me painkillers,” he said. 

George helped him get them from his backpack, and Charles was so rapidly overcome with fatigue after taking them that he was ready to fall asleep again. He was grateful when George pulled him into bed, and he plastered himself against George’s side, wrapping his injured arm and one leg around him like a bolster. 

“Charles,” George whispered. “Don’t feel bad about coming here, okay? I love that you’re here. I missed you so much.”

Charles was just – after the day he’d had, all he had hoped for when he’d started his journey here was that he could see George safe. 

And he had, and nothing else really mattered. 

Charles fell asleep with a smile on his face, his cast resting on George’s heart. 

*

George had a lecture two hours later which he took online, and Charles was awoken by him getting out of bed to take his laptop. 

He easily fell back asleep, still draped over George, the sound of his lecture a soft drone in his earphones as he occasionally pressed small kisses on Charles’s head. 

The next time Charles woke up, George was gone, replaced by a stack of clothes for Charles’s wrist to rest on and a post-it note placed in his palm.

Called Alex and Pierre to say you’re okay. Am out for a walk. Love you. G.

Charles dragged himself out of bed to take his painkillers, then decided to go downstairs and wait for George in the garden in front of his dorm, where George had told Charles he always went when he missed Charles. 

The empty bench that Charles sat down on was surrounded by bushes, small and tall, blooming in the start of summer with pink and white flowers. And Charles really understood why George said it felt like being hugged by the colour green. 

George came back about a half-hour later, with a paper bag. He was smiling as he sat down next to Charles, and for the first time, under the daylight, Charles saw how tired he was and how much more weight he’d lost. He was almost just a sack of bones. His eyes were exhausted above all, but they were a little puffy, like he’d been crying. 

“How was your walk?” Charles asked him. 

“It was okay. I take one every day, just to clear my head,” George said. “How was your sleep?”

“It was nice.” Charles leaned into George’s grasp as George placed his hand in Charles’s hair. “Are you alright? You look –” Charles tried to swallow his worry. “You look so tired.”

George nodded. “I just still can’t believe you’re here,” he said softly. “Charles. It’s just – I really, really love that you’re here, but...don’t do that again, okay? Don’t drive here in the middle of the night on two hours sleep and with a broken hand. I just – I don’t want you to get in an accident. I wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened to you like that.”

Charles sighed as the enormity of what he’d done sunk in again, and the thoughts that had haunted him on the way here last night crept back up on him, and he realised that he would never wish them on George if he had the choice. “Yeah, I’m – I’m sorry.”

George shook his head. “Just...just take care of yourself. Yeah? I don’t – I’m sorry that I can’t be close to you.”

“Yeah.” Charles looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry, too.”

“I got you a burrito.” George placed the paper bag in Charles’s lap. “And some nachos.”

“Have you eaten?” Charles asked him. 

George hesitated before shaking his head. “I’m not hungry.”

“George.” Charles slid closer to him on the bench. “You have to eat something. Is there anything wrong? Talk to me.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” George whispered. Charles noticed that his palms were red and his fingertips were raw, like George had just been nervously rubbing his hands together the entire morning. 

“George. Love.”

“I just don’t want to make everything about me all the time.” George sounded small and scared and Charles hated seeing him that way. His shoulders started to shake, like he’d started to cry.

“Hey,” Charles whispered, pulling George close. He placed a kiss on the top of George’s head, but the sight of him crying and the feeling of him shaking in Charles’s arms put Charles on the verge of tears. “Hey. You know it’s not like that with us. It’s not like that.”

“Every morning – every morning I wake up and it restarts,” George said, breathless between his sobs. “Every morning I wake up and I’m made to feel horrible because I have feelings for you that I shouldn’t have.”

“Who’s to say that?” Charles hurriedly wiped his tears with the back of his hand. “Who’s to say you shouldn’t have them?”

George looked up at the sky, his eyes red-rimmed, and Charles already knew the answer.

He had always known the answer, and he resented it.

Now, he could feel it pulling George further and further away from him. 

“Is this why you have trouble sleeping?” Charles asked. “Because you know you’re going to feel this way when you wake up?” 

George shrugged. “Maybe.”

It was probably why George took a walk every day. He’d spend his whole day fighting it, fighting the feeling, and by the time he felt comfortable enough, it was time for bed, and time for another day. 

Charles understood.

“George,” Charles whispered. “I’m gonna count for you, and then I’m gonna tell you something, and I hope you’ll consider it. Okay?”

George nodded, so Charles took his hand and counted, twice as slowly, to sixteen. 

“I think it’ll be good for you to go home in the summer, and spend some time with your family,” Charles said softly. “Maybe it’ll help you...realise what you really want. What really makes you happy. Maybe it’ll help you really discover which path you have to go on in order to not keep feeling this hurt.”

“I’m not choosing any path that doesn’t have you in it.”

“George.”

“I’m not. I’m not. ”

“Love, I – I’m starting to think that I can’t give you happiness. And that’s all I want. That’s all I want to give you. And I’m sorry I can’t do it.”

“You do. Charles, you do. You make me so, so happy.”

“I just don’t want you to keep fighting yourself. To keep fighting who you are.”

George heaved a deep, long sigh. He took the paper bag back from Charles and placed it on the bench, so he could take both of Charles’s hands, even the one that was half-covered with the cast. 

“I’m not fighting against who I am,” he said, softly, his voice shaking. “You know? I’m not. I’m fighting against who I thought I was. And I just – I just have to snap out of that, and realise that I was wrong all along. Because this is who I am. Not what I thought before. It’s just that it’s been twenty years, and it’s hard to let go of that, no matter how badly I want to. Especially now with the therapy, telling me – telling me I’m going in the wrong direction. That I have to come back or else I’m no longer God’s precious son. I’m trying to be both, you know? I’m trying to be God’s precious son and love you at the same time. It’s just so many voices all the time, all the time , and I –”

“Okay. Okay.” Charles stopped his anxious rambling with a finger to his lips, then cupped his warm cheek in his palm. “Yeah. I get that.”

“I don’t want to lose you, Charles,” George sobbed.

“You’re not going to lose me. I’m gonna be right here. Always.”

“I’m just so afraid that you’re going to get so sick of me, so fucking sick of me.”

“There’s nothing you can possibly do that will make me feel that way. I’ve waited all my life for you, George. I’m not letting us go without a fight.”

George finally smiled, then, and the way his cheek moved under Charles’s palm made Charles fall in love all over again. “Charles,” he whispered. “I know it’s hard for you, too. And sometimes, I’m just so scared that I’ll end up chasing you away if I keep dwelling on this. And it’s just – it’s not that I don’t trust you or I don’t want to talk to you. It just makes me so scared.”

“I know that, love.” Charles gave his cheek a squeeze. “I just hope you can trust me. The same way I trust you.”

“I do. I’m trying so hard. And I know you are, too.”

Charles pulled George’s hand up to his lips, and the smile George gave lit up the entire world. “We’ll get through this together, like we said. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. One day, we’ll make it. Yeah?”

George nodded. “Do you have your bracelet?” he asked. “Can I see?”

Charles found his broken bracelet where he’d left it, in the pocket of his sweatpants. He handed it to George, who examined it for a moment before asking, “Do you wanna go into the city with me today? We can get you a new one.”

Charles finished his burrito on the way into the city, and they shared the nachos as they strolled down the streets before finding the shop where George had bought the bracelet. Charles managed to get them to repair the old bracelet instead of him getting a new one, because he was sentimental that way.

George got him two new charms, one with a G and a C on each side, and another with a paintbrush and a football. Charles wore them proudly with his blue bead, and it even made George smile, which was a bonus.

Charles had never really been to this city a lot, so he listened to George point out the different stores he liked to go to and the park in the middle of the city he sometimes went for a walk in. George was talking a lot, and he seemed to have forgotten how upset he was earlier, so Charles was distracted by the look on his face and the fact that he was returning to some semblance of his old self, and didn’t notice that George had pulled him into a mobile phone store in the middle of a row of shops.

“I’ve been saving some money from my allowance these few months,” he told Charles. “Now I have enough to get myself a cheap phone and a prepaid plan every month so I can call and text you.”

“You didn’t have to do that.” Charles thought it was unnecessary for George to spend all this money on him; technically, only for him. “It’s working out okay with Alex.”

George shook his head stubbornly. “I saved up just for this. I just wanna be able to talk to you whenever I want. Yeah? I’ll save all my minutes just for you.”

Charles knew he couldn’t do anything to stop George, so he helped George pick out a cheap second-hand phone and saved the number in his contacts, finding that he felt that much more carefree now that he knew George was in his pocket, one call away.

It was just before dinnertime when they passed the city church, an old white building nestled in the middle of a row of modern shopfronts. George stopped in front of it, still tightly holding on to Charles’s good hand.

“This is the church I come to every weekend,” he told Charles. “And every other week for...for therapy.”

“Yeah?” Charles smiled. “That’s nice.”

“Could you, um…” George sounded anxious again. “Could we go inside for a little bit?”

It was the only time George had taken Charles to church with him besides that time for Christmas Mass, so he wondered why they were making this sudden excursion. But George looked broken and upset again as they stepped inside, and Charles knew he’d only brought Charles there because he trusted Charles to be with him while he was most vulnerable. 

The main hall was empty except for the two of them, but the lights in the back hallways were turned on. Charles sat in one of the pews as George went up front and did his prayers in front of the big cross. He was teary-eyed when he returned, and he sat in the pew across the aisle from where Charles was sitting. He didn’t touch Charles. Perhaps he didn’t dare to.

Everything else seemed to fade away as George gazed at him from across the burgundy carpet, too far away for Charles to touch but close enough for Charles to hear him breathing. His gaze switched from Charles’s face to the cross at the front, then back to Charles, and his eyes were a deep, thoughtful blue, and Charles almost felt like George was introducing him to his Holy Father.

As they sat there silently, there was gradually such a strong presence of something else in the room that Charles couldn’t describe, a presence that made him legitimately believe that George really had brought Charles there in person to seek for advice, to show God that this was his soulmate, and to tell God how much he loved Charles. That he was saying, God, you gave this to me, now tell me what I’m supposed to do with it. And maybe right then, George was going to be able to get some clarity.

George didn’t say a word; he didn’t say a single word for more than an hour, and Charles was just mesmerised by the look of him, peering up at the ceiling, at his Lord, at his God, against the backdrop of the stained glass windows on the roof. The look of fear and dejection and uncertainty that was now so familiar to Charles. 

Just more than half a year ago, the radiant, vivid stained glass would have been missing a colour for Charles. One of its brightest, most vibrant colours. 

But now the windows were in their full glory, and Charles was there to see them with the only reason why, and it was a bittersweet feeling but Charles knew that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He watched George silently, forgivingly fight that same battle he’d fought since the first day he’d met Charles. 

The walls of the church wrapped them up in a way that was suffocating but warm. Charles could feel it, he could feel the embrace and the care of the God that George believed in. He was sure George felt it a thousand times stronger. 

The whole time they were there, for almost two hours, George only uttered one sentence.

“What am I supposed to do when the one thing I’ve waited for my whole life is a sin?”

Charles didn’t hear any answer. He didn’t know if George did.

He didn’t dare ask.

The sun had set by the time they stepped outside, and although Charles felt like he could finally breathe again, it also felt like they had left something behind in the warm confines of the church walls. A secret, or a prayer, or a wish that remained only between God and George.

They didn’t speak as they took the bus back to George’s campus, and Charles got the box of George’s things from the car before they headed upstairs.

“I’ve been collecting and making these things for you every day,” he told George after they’d showered and George was sitting in his bed. “Just small things that remind me of you. I saved it all for when I would see you again.”

George looked so happy at the sight of it. He dug into the box like a child on Christmas morning, holding every single thing in his hand and admiring it.

He looked so beautiful and so carefree when he smiled, and Charles just wished that he could be free of all his troubles.

George laid everything out on the floor, all of them arranged nicely in rows, and made Charles explain to him the significance of each single thing. All the watercolour paintings, mostly done in blue. All the little random keychains and magnets and books and other small things Charles got from the city. The nicely folded letters that lit up George’s face with a smile when he read them. The toy plasticine figures that Charles made for all the things that reminded him of George; a ferris wheel, a tiny carousell, several pairs of detachable clay dolls representing the two of them, and a little 2D rendition of a beach, among others. 

They spent the whole evening just sitting there on the floor, and it was simple and nothing anyone else would have expected for their first meeting after four months, but Charles honestly did not want nor wish for anything more than to be by George’s side.

------

George did end up going home that summer, if only because he didn’t want to miss his family’s annual holiday with Alex’s family.

He spent most of the time just chilling with Alex, away from his parents. Benjy and Cara, who both knew about Charles, would occasionally join them; although they’d been raised exactly the same way George was, they seemed more accepting of George and his relationship with Charles. Benjy even took George alone on a hike one day, through the greenery that George hadn’t been able to see on their last trip there. He talked to George about everything he’d ever learnt about the Church and homosexuality, and he listened to George tell him about Charles, and he told George that no matter what happened, George would always be his little brother. 

George didn’t tell him about his new spare phone. He didn’t tell anyone about it. Only Alex. 

At night, when they were all burrowed in their separate bedrooms and Alex was in his own bed across the room from George, George would take out his phone and call Charles and talk to him until his minutes exploded. 

When they went back home, away from the bright blue beach that was the epitome of summer, the holidays just got so much duller. 

Sure, there was a cliff and a raging sea just a five-minute walk down the street, behind Alex’s house, but it was the way that George was confined with his parents all day that made him want to run away and hide. 

But all was quiet for a while, and neither dad nor ma made any mention of Charles, so George decided maybe this really was the best way out – to let it tide over. Let them forget about Charles. Maybe one day, a long time later, in a place far away, George would finally be able to be with him without his parents knowing or caring.

George just...felt so stupid to have ever thought that it would be that simple.

He was sitting in the backyard, nestled in the green grass and watching the neighbour’s kids play on the lawn across the street, when Benjy came outside to get him. 

“George,” he said quietly, squatting down next to George. “Hey, uh...mum and dad are asking for you. I...they have something to tell you.”

“Is it important?” George asked. He was very much comfortable where he was and didn’t wish to move.

“Yeah, uh...George.” Benjy sounded serious, and it was not at all like him not to start calling George names when he saw George, so George’s attention was piqued. “Just – listen to what they have to say, and don’t get angry just yet. Okay? I know you can be such a dickhead when you’re mad. But we’ll talk about this, you’ll talk about this to them, and maybe we can work this out. Okay?”

It sounded really serious, and George suddenly didn’t want to leave the warm, comforting green of the backyard.

He trailed behind Benjy as they went inside. Their parents were in the living room, sitting together on the sofa. They stared at George as George sat across from them. 

“Remember what I said, dickface,” Benjy whispered before leaving, and George felt just enough relief from the familiarity.

But he hadn’t really directly spoken to his parents since the whole thing had happened over Christmas, so to have them suddenly summon him that way was a bit terrifying. 

“George, you’re turning twenty-one in February,” dad started off saying.

George didn’t understand why or how that was a relevant topic to start their conversation with. It was only the middle of August. “Yeah,” he said.

“We think that’s a nice age for you to get married, and by the time you graduate, it’ll be time to start a family,” George’s dad said. “There’s this really nice girl who lives just down the street. They moved here just before you left for university. We know her parents from church, and she turns twenty-one this December, so she’s just the right age for you.”

The meaning of what his dad was trying to tell him sunk in quickly and heavily on George.

“No.” Despite the rush of feelings that overcame him, he only had enough strength to let one word burst out of his mouth. 

“We’re going to meet her and her parents on Sunday,” dad continued, as if he’d long decided not to heed any of George’s protests. “You’ll come with us, and you’ll get to know her. And then we’ll plan the wedding.”

“I’m not going,” George said.

“We’re going to have a nice little lunch after church.” Ma was softer than dad was, like she was hesitant to force anything on George. “Her name is Anna. She’s a nice girl. Catholic. We’ve met her a few times. I’m sure you’ll like her.”

“I’m not fucking going.”

“George.” Ma sounded sad and disappointed and worried, and George hated it. It looked like it pained her to say the words. “You’ll meet her, and you’ll like her, and you’ll marry her in February. And then we can move on from what happened.”

George couldn’t think of anything to say that would change their mind or make the situation any better, so he got up and went upstairs to his bedroom and shut the door.

It opened a couple of minutes later. “Hey, George,” Benjy said softly from the doorway.

“Go away,” George snapped. He didn’t want to. Not at Benjy. He just – he just felt so humiliated and betrayed in that moment. 

The door clicked shut a few moments later, leaving George alone again. 

George just couldn’t keep still. He tried sitting at the window and looking at all the nice green trees in the distance, but he ended up standing up and pacing the room. 

His spare phone was where he’d left it, hidden in the pillowcase of the bottommost pillow stacked on his bed. It was where he kept his green bead bracelet as well; he avoided wearing it around his parents so they wouldn’t ask him questions. He dug it out along with his phone and dialled the only number in the contact list.

“Charles,” he breathed when the call connected.

“Hey, love.” Charles’s voice brought a wave of relief that almost made George shiver. 

“How’s your hand?”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt so much anymore. I’m going to the hospital next week and they’ll take the cast off and we’ll see.”

George could barely hold in his tears at the sound of Charles’s voice. He’d heard it so many times, over the phone and in person, but it still was his favourite sound, and he still craved it every second. “Mm,” he mumbled. “That’s good.”

“What’s going on?” Charles asked gently.

George burst into tears, and he crouched on the floor as his legs finally gave way. 

“They’re marrying me off,” he sobbed. “My mum and dad. They – they found this Catholic girl, and she’s turning twenty-one, and I’m turning twenty-one, and they’re making me meet her on Sunday, and next – next February, they’re gonna have a wedding, and they say it’s gonna help us all move on from this.” George couldn’t feel his hands, nor his legs, and panic took over him again as he struggled to breathe. “My dad, he – they’re marrying me off. They’re not going to change their minds. They’re – Charles, I don’t want to do it. I’m so scared.”

There was a stunned silence on Charles’s end for a few moments.

“Can you talk to them?” Charles’s voice was small and timid and defeated and it snatched all of George’s hopes away to hear him like that. “Can you talk them out of it? Say it’s not what you want?”

“I can’t. I told them I wasn’t going, but they just completely ignored me, like I didn’t exist, and they were simply telling a robot what to do. Charles, you should’ve seen their faces. I can’t do anything. I don’t want to get married. I don’t – I thought they’d forgotten about us. I listened to them and I went to therapy and I didn’t call you with my phone. I listened to them. I did everything they asked me to do. I put myself through all of this and I hurt so much every day because of them and they did this. They betrayed me, Charles, I – I –”

“Okay,” Charles whispered. “Okay, okay. George. I’m gonna count for you. Okay? Listen to me, yeah? Listen to my voice.”

The sound of Charles counting never, ever failed to calm George, no matter what sort of storm was brewing around him. The room settled down and the walls stopped closing in on George. Air returned to his lungs and his hands stopped shaking as they gripped the phone. He clutched the bracelet close to his chest.

It felt so familiar, holding that phone and talking to Charles; it was what had helped George through his two weeks of final exams and that week-long holiday with his family, and the two weeks he’d spent so far at home. And even in a moment like that, crouched like a scared mouse in the corner of his old room, it was still George’s favourite thing to do. 

“I’m not going to do it,” George whispered once the counting had died down. “I’m yours. Charles, I’m yours. I’ll always be yours.”

“George, love…”

“Don’t give up on me.” George’s chest was so tight, and he was so breathless, and he couldn’t see, and he thought he might’ve been having a panic attack yet again. “Please. Please don’t give up on me.”

“I’m not.” Charles’s voice was resolute and convincing, despite everything. “George, I swear. I swear to whichever God you want or don’t want to believe in. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and nothing will ever, ever change that.”

“I just –” George’s vision came back slowly to him, but his heart was still going like a freight train. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Charles whispered. “You do what you have to do, yeah? I’ll be right here. Always.”

“I don’t want to get married, Charles,” George sobbed. “I just...I just wanna run away. I just wanna go far, far away and never come back.”

“Me, too,” Charles said softly.

“If I could leave this family, I would.” George had always thought the words, but he’d always been too afraid to say them aloud. “Charles. I swear – the next time something happens, I’m leaving.”

“Don’t do that. They’re your parents. They just want the best for you. You can’t just leave them.”

“This isn’t the best for me,” George said. “They don’t know. They don’t understand. I’m an adult now and I know myself and I know what I want. And I choose you. I’ll always choose you. Charles, I’ve loved you since I was born. Since before I even knew you. They can’t stop me from loving you, from choosing you every day of my life.”

Charles sighed. “George, I just…” He sounded so helpless and hopeless and it tore George apart. “I don’t know what to do. I really, really want to help you. But I don’t know what I can do.”

“If I –” George tried his hardest not to start crying again. “If I marry her...what happens to us?”

“Nothing will change the way I feel about you,” Charles whispered. “Yeah? You know that. But...it’s going to be so unfair. To you and to her. If we’re still...yeah. While you’re married.”

“Yeah.” George closed his eyes as coherent thoughts began to come back to him. Charles was so – he was so even-tempered and his love for George was so undying and unconditional, and George didn’t think he would ever be able to give Charles anything close to what Charles had given him. “Charles, it’s so unfair to you, too.”

“It’s just what life is, yeah?” Charles’s voice shook at the end, and it broke George’s heart again. “Listen. Just...just go meet her, yeah? See what she’s like. Maybe you’ll like her. Maybe she can make you happy. And then we’ll...we’ll see. Yeah?”

“Charles,” George sobbed.

“Just...just remember why you’re fighting. Yeah?” Charles got softer and softer, and George could barely hear him. “Before you run away, remember your God. Remember everything He has taught you. Remember why you’re still where you are and remember why you haven’t given up on being Catholic yet. You’ve stayed so long for a reason. And remember that I will never blame you if you choose the Church or your parents over me. Never. Okay?”

“No,” George said stubbornly. “No. Charles.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Charles whispered. “I’m so sorry. I gotta go for a bit. I’ll...I’ll text you. Yeah? I love you so much.”

“I love you.”

There was a brief pause before Charles hung up the phone, and even in that short moment George could hear him sob a little.

George knew this was as hard on Charles as it was on him, and he wished with all his might that he could take it all away somehow, but even the power of God couldn’t let him do that. 

So he just let go for a bit; he let Charles be alone for a bit, and he let himself be alone for a bit, and he stared at the rooftops outside the window, dreaming of better days.