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lookedlikethebins · 1 month

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i'll say it twice

Finally! The long awaited Valentine's Day producer george x TA matty oneshot! I'm so sorry for taking as long as I did. Thank you for being patient AND a big thank you to the anon that inspired this fic with the prompt about matty coming to a club/one of george's dj gigs! [set ~6 months since meeting each other] ~5.8k words xo side note: i know nothing about being a DJ but a lot about cyclical anxiety and epic poems so i compensated xo

George had been semi-confident—and a bit overprepared—in his upcoming set, until Matty showed George the readings he’d suggested for the next week of class: Lover’s Discourse. The date of his set hadn’t registered until that moment, sitting with his arm around Matty and feeling embarrassed by his own obliviousness.

Valentine’s Day. Of course, the club wasn’t just holding an event to sell more drinks on a cold, mid-February Friday night; they were hoping to max their margins for the first quarter. For every one patron, there would undoubtedly be another—their date. George included.

The set had to be a bit beyond perfect.

For the next two weeks, each time Matty stopped by after his classes and office hours, George had been closed up in his studio. He would've been there most of the day, starting early in the morning (right after Matty left, if he’d stayed the night) and blowing past every mental stopping point in favor of fixing just this one last thing.

After Matty was left waiting outside for the third time, knocking and trying to ring George—phone on silent and face down on his desk—George gave him the spare key. Each time, Matty let himself in with a loud shout, letting the door slam shut; they’d learned George startled easily when he was working. When he was worried.

While Matty shouldered off his bag—as well as coat, scarf, sweater, and unbuttoned and rolled his cuffs—George would unplug his headphones and continue his work out loud. Matty often settled onto the loveseat beside George’s desk and leaned forward to best see George’s screens without hovering over his shoulder. Despite sometimes getting up to dance, Matty would never grow (outwardly) irritated when George would have to stop and adjust, redo, or take note of an idea for later. The only time Matty spoke during George’s work was to exclaim that a certain part of a song was his fucking favorite.

Most times, Matty’s excitable commentary was the reason George had to stop and make slight changes.

It would be Matty’s first time coming to see George work. Matty had asked if he could before—about other gigs and recent shows George was playing with the boys too—but George struggled to say yes. And thankfully Matty never pushed back or took offense when George stumbled over his answer. Granted, George had taken Matty to his label’s holiday party—and he’d been a hit—but his club set wasn’t for a closed group. There would be a room packed with people looking for the smallest pinhole in George’s quiet (misunderstood to be “stoic”) exterior, hoping to peep in on his private life.

But, even with all that fear and discomfort with the unfamiliar, it truly was sort of time for it, wasn’t it?

---

“Oh, fuck,” Matty said with a burst of laughter that seemed to surprise even him. “it’s loud.”

They had entered the club through the back entrance meant for employees. George made sure to pull around to the parking lot purposefully obscured by bins and out-of-place planted shrubs. They used the side streets and alleys of nearby buildings to get in without being seen by the group of patrons lined up outside, waiting to get in.

While George had been getting his bag out of the car, Matty stood by the hood, tapping his foot to the muffled beat sneaking through the club’s opening doors and sparse windows. But now, inside and standing on the farthest edge of the dance floor, Matty didn’t need to move his feet to the music; the floor was nearly moving for him.

It was what George loved the most: how the room, the physical space, came alive when music was loud—almost too loud. The air felt like it was breathing on its own from the shear pulse of the speakers.

It terrified George to think Matty might not like that feeling. The encasement of music. The ever-shrinking proximity to other people, while verbal communication became impossible and almost moot. All George ever had in those moments was the same unavoidable and inarguable beat moving him to keep time with the other bodies around him. That feeling of sharing the same heartbeat. He could live in the same suspended moment with someone, just a few minutes at a time.

“Is that… okay?” George said. He had steered Matty toward the back lounge for the invited guests and hired talent. Once George closed the door behind Matty, the wall of sound became a void, ringing white noise. “Do you want earplugs or something? I, uh, I probably have a pair somewhere. I’m sure I do.”

“No, no—I don’t mind that it’s loud. Just sort of forgot. Can’t tell you last time I’ve been to a proper club.” Matty placed his hand on George’s arm, gently squeezing it, before leading him further into the room and away from the door.

“Not a fan?” George asked. He immediately grabbed a bottle of water from the oblong coffee table. He twisted off the cap and handed it to Matty. It was Friday; he’d had his early and late classes.

“Just prefer a place I can sit down,” Matty shrugged. “And if I’m feeling wild: hear my friends talk.”

“You’re really not supposed to chitchat at a club.”

“Name another time I’ve been quiet that long, George.”

George paused. “Okay, so you might actually hate it here.” He was trying to tell a joke, but his chest tightened and twisted into a knot. Like he forgot how to create a laugh. He couldn’t.

“George, love, stop fretting—please? I’m starting to think I’m making you worse.” Matty swung his hand out to playfully hit George on the arm. The open water bottle made a small damp spot on his sleeve; luckily, he was only wearing a short sleeve, cotton shirt. “Pretty sure you’ve been doing all this before I ever showed up. You know what you’re up to—you’re very talented. I’m just here to listen, take a vow of silence, have a drink or two.”

“Oh, I should go get you one, shouldn’t I?” George muttered, looking at his watch and then the clock on the wall—they were a minute apart: George’s watch a minute behind. He was already floundering. The first time he brought Matty—any boyfriend at all for that matter—to one of his shows and everything felt like it was developing into a disappointment. A stumble. Two left feet. George could hear the music muffled in the other room; he just wanted to stand submerged in it.

“That—No, George. That’s not why I said that. I’m not angling for you to go and—Look, I just want to drink after I had to listen to someone wedge Ecstasy of Influence into our discussion for the third class in a row.”

“But I should go get them—they won’t charge me.”

“Oh, so it’s about showing off, not chivalry…” Matty said, offsetting his jaw as he crossed his arms and smirked at George.

“No! I—Matty, it’s Valentine’s Day," George said, taking out his phone. His phone matched his watch but not the wall clock.

“And you’re already going to get laid. I’m not sure why you think you have to butter me up—"

George sputtered in surprise and embarrassment as he heard someone talking just outside the door. “I meant, it’s Valentine’s Day so they’re going to be up-charging, I’m sure. Let me get you a drink. They don’t charge the people they hire.”

“You must not know what happens when a cute guy like me goes up to most bars,” Matty said, lifting one eyebrow. “I won’t pay for anything; Fuck, I’ll barely even need to be paying attention.”

George had never considered how Matty was as a single guy. He’d never really told him. Or maybe George had never asked. There wasn’t much for George to tell Matty, so maybe he’d forgotten people had dating histories that weren’t accidentally shallow or convenient. Had first loves before their late twenties.

The club owner opened the door while still finishing the tail end of his hallway conversation. “—on in twenty, okay? Yeah—George! Good to see you, early as always. What I like to see. JJ walked in five minutes before she was supposed to go on. Again.”

“She likes the spontaneity,” George said with a shrug, placing his bag down in one of the mismatched armchairs. “I can’t argue her style. She’s always great.”

“I just wish she could be spontaneous and not raise my blood pressure,” he said. “You ready to go on in half an hour?” George nodded, checking all three times again. “Great. Anything you need—you can go out and float around JJ when you’re ready. Get either of you a drink?”

“I’m okay, thanks,” Matty said. He placed a hand between George’s shoulders as he hunched down to look in his bag. George’s nervous energy was never something Matty could ignore. “George, did you want something? Or do you want me to get it for you.” Matty was teasing, probably feeling the tension in the muscles of George’s back. Maybe hoping for a laugh.

Instead, Matty’s kind and gentle smile—eyes following George’s hands as they continued to jostle everything in every pocket—was distracted by the owner’s follow up question: “I’m sorry—and I mean no disrespect—but who are you again? George, if this is a new label rep, I’m sorry I’ve forgotten again—”

“Label rep?” George turned toward Matty, who was still touching his back with one hand and had begun to hold his bicep lightly with the other. It was certainly no way to represent a professional relationship.

Matty looked down at himself. “I just came from teaching—Dammit, George, why didn’t you tell me I look like a corporate drone? Is it the tie? It is, isn't it?”

Finally, George smiled. The plane of his back under Matty’s hand relaxing as he laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t look like a drone, okay? And Matty isn’t my PR guy. He’s—” George had never actually called him his boyfriend in front of anyone before; at the holiday party, the moment everyone saw Matty walk in with George, they knew this was The Date George had after studio sessions so often. “He’s just here with me. No business.”

George couldn’t hear the music as clearly anymore, blood rushing in his ears. Matty moved his hand along George’s shoulder blades, slowly and soothingly. Finally, George’s fingers found the loose pair of foam earplugs in the front pocket of his bag. The last place left. He righted himself and held them out to Matty. He ignored the conversation he’d left paused with the owner for as long as it took Matty to tire from arguing he didn’t need them. He dropped his hand from George’s bicep to take them, his other hand not leaving George’s back.

The clock on the wall kept ticking, faster than the one on his wrist.

“Matty’s going to uh… he’s going to be up there with me.” George pointed loosely toward the door; he didn’t know what was out there, technically. Without being sure where the music was coming from, without being able to feel it faintly pulsing in his chest, he didn’t even know where the dancefloor was.

“Up where?” Matty asked.

“The stage. When I’m doing my set.”

“I didn’t think I would be allowed.” Matty shot the owner a quick look before adjusting his tie.

“Of course you are! But only if you want to. I won’t be offended if you’d much rather... not.” George wanted to give Matty the option to pick how he wanted to spend his evening. How to make it better without George intervening, even by accident, and making things worse—

“George,” Matty said softly. George blinked and realized the owner had already left the room; no commotion, no remark, no insistence Matty become part of the monolithic, pulsing, impersonal crowd. No pushback. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot, you know that, right?” Matty said. He stood in front of George and placed both hands on his shoulders, as if keeping him planted on the ground. George didn’t know he’d been feeling an urge to pace until then. Until he couldn’t. “What’s got you this upset?”

“I always get nervous before I perform anything. You know that. You know me.”

Matty had been sitting on that studio couch every day for those two weeks. He’d been over when George accepted calls for other gigs and immediately interrupted his own train of thought to jot down his immediate thoughts and plans—afraid he’d forget the “genius” of the impulse. Afraid his instincts weren’t really instincts at all, just moments when inspiration would take pity on him.

While talking about his students’ coursework, Matty had told George about the idea of ancient Greek poets praying at the beginning of their works. Of asking the gods of inspiration—the muses, actually; George remembered feeling embarrassed by his own surprise and sense of clarity by this fact and connection—before embarking on their epics. The invocation, Matty had called it with a flourish of his hand.

Matty described it as if the idea was antiquated; no one thought creativity or inspiration was so out of their hands that it had to be requested at the beginning of every project. But sometimes, when George could feel expectations compounding and very separate things interconnecting into one daunting and terrifying moment, he wished there was someone he could hand things off to. Trust he had solid instincts when he was mid-set and suddenly becoming aware of his own hands and expression and body and position with the person next to him—the new DJ that just arrived and hovering too close and asking too many questions, but being so polite and was someone George should be very eager to show the ropes because he never had that... To trust he would have no need to second guess, critiquing himself for too long and missing the window to execute his plan. The swing of his set broken while George was left standing in horrifying, reverberating silence and—

“This isn’t nerves, George. You look like you might pass the fuck out. Or throw up. Maybe both.” Matty ran his hands across George’s shoulders and laced them together behind his neck, pressing their foreheads together. “It’s not me making you this anxious, is it?”

“No, of course not,” George said quickly. “I just want everything to be perfect—”

“Well, it can’t be.”

“I-I know. I know. Nothing can be perfect,” George mumbled, trying to echo Matty’s frequent and always kind encouragement. What George tried to remember when he was feeling his anxiety bind tighter with the feeling things were slipping out of his control. George had invoked Matty’s words a lot in the past week in particular. “Best-case scenario, then. I want the very best-case scenario. For you. I want you to have a good time and—”

“Do you not think I’m having a good time?”

“My set isn’t for another,” George looked at the clock on the wall only. “fifteen minutes. We’ve just gotten here and… literally stood in a room while I’m…” trying not to freak out or throw up or just blurt out that I— “That’s nothing very exciting.”

“Hey, that’s not all we did today; you picked me up from class, we had dinner, you let me read to you that botched essay intro, you told me about that tour invite and the boys, you invited me to see you do your job. George,” Matty stopped to reset his worried expression with another warm smile. “George, you do know you’re the reason I came, right? Not to experience the best DJ set of my life or have one too many and convince your band to dance with me, or even know any of the songs you’re going to play. I just came here because it meant spending time with you. And that’s why I’m having a good time. That’s it. This isn’t a performance review. I am not qualified for that in the slightest.”

“But—”

“George,”

“I’m not trying to argue,” George said. Matty nodded, moving both of their heads. Matty carefully ran one hand up and down the back of George’s neck, encouraging him to continue. “But… this is sort of your first… event with me. Next to me. Associated with me.”

“… And? We talked about this, right? It’s not industry people who know you, so I’ll have to be more… aware of what I’m doing. But just at first, like you said—I get it, George. I really do.”

“No, no. It has nothing to do with that… Or maybe it does. Fuck,” George stopped to take a breath, forcing it out through his pursed lips. “I want to do something you can be proud of. Be someone you don’t mind admitting is your date. I don’t want to embarrass you—"

“Embarrass?” Matty repeated with a soft but tense laugh. He cleared his throat and George could hear a sudden wetness sink his words. “What a preposterous fucking idea. And, actually, even more so: the idea I didn’t come here already proud of you. That I’m not already more than willing to walk out there and tell everyone who’s even remotely paying attention to me—free fucking drinks or not—” Matty gave them both the chance to laugh, the thickness falling away from Matty’s voice and some of the weight shaking off from George’s shoulders. “That I came here with you. I’ll go anywhere with you—anywhere you’re willing to have me.”

George dipped his head down to kiss Matty, quickly and without invitation for any lengthier response, considering the moment and environment. He wanted to say it. He wanted to tell Matty right then—without the expectation of anything in return. Just simply say. But that was sort of the point of the set. George hoped he could say it without the words; without the direct chance of rejection.

Matty kissed George on the cheek, hands sliding from his neck to smooth his collar and flip his silver earring so the engraving of the dagger’s hilt faced outward. His knuckle grazed George’s jaw as he stilled the jewelry from swinging.

“You’re going to be incredible—as you always are.” Matty said, holding the sides of George’s face. “Like, that’s not me setting a ridiculous bar. That’s actually sort of the baseline for you. Anything beyond that will just be genius—which, also very possible, I’m finding.”

George leaned against one of Matty’s hands—warm and firm and unflinching from the request for support—and sighed, a sense of relief hitting him.

George remembered what he was doing there. He could feel the music in the other room. He smiled. And Matty, the central reason for the tailoring of the next hour of George’s night, smiled back.

They waited in silence, George not trusting himself to say anything else. Not wanting to spoil it.

---

The music was too loud. But that was sort of the point. George was up on stage, feeling the rolling pulse of the room and the music, and didn’t have the space or sense in his head to hear himself think about anything other than just that.

The lights, flickering and flashing and swirling. The faces in the crowd—at least those he could make out—lighting up and excitedly reacting to the change in song, speaking to the person beside them—the only person who could hope to hear them.

The person beside him, waiting until George lowered his headphones to lean in to talk to him. Both of Matty's hands gently holding George's forearm. Matty's chest pressed against George's bicep and shoulder as he leaned in, trying to shout in his ear over the music coming from the speakers on all sides of them.

“I’m going to go get a drink, okay?” Matty said. George only understood when Matty pointed at the blue backlit bar directly across the dance floor. He’d been standing next to George for the entire first half of his set, enthusiastic and smiling. Bouncing and dancing. Trying to get George to do more than his usual simple sway to the music—Oh, come on! I know you know how to move your hips a bit better than that, love.

George gave him a thumbs up and a smile. Matty held up two fingers and lifted his eyebrows. He pointed to George’s empty glass resting on the low railing surrounding the raised stage platform. It had been a vodka soda that, thankfully, had barely had much of the first ingredient. George shook his head and nodded toward the bar with his continued smile.

Matty stepped down from the platform and began weaving his way around the dance floor. He avoided all the clueless drunk dancers, almost bodies possessed by the music, and nosey patrons that bothered to look up at the DJ and see the new face now walking among them, but managed to bump directly into Adam. Which meant within seconds, and a silent cheer of surprise, Matty had also found the rest of the band that had come: Ross, John, and Polly.

As if discussed beforehand, the moment they all saw Matty they collectively looked up at George and waved. As if they knew George would be watching Matty from the slightly higher vantage point. Because of course George was. He answered them all with a quick grin so they would turn away again. After a moment of gesturing and over-enunciated (but mostly unheard) sentences, Ross walked with Matty to the bar. The other three migrated to the side of the dance floor with a cementing nod and lift of a hand: We’ll wait right here.

Watching Matty struggle to get through the crowd to the bar, George quickly rearranged his mental lineup of songs. What use was Matty knowing—dating—the DJ if George played all his favorite songs while he stood in line, cramped in his reach for the bartender between Ross and the back of a guy with shoulders practically as wide as Matty was tall.

For a moment, being able to see Matty from a distance was sort of romantic. It was a thrill to be able to take all of Matty in at once—when most of their romance typically happened up close, barely enough distance for George to see the lips he was about to kiss. From his vantage point, George could watch Matty lean forward on the bar, his weight shifting onto his left foot with his right hovering just above the ground. Could watch as Matty began bouncing his foot with an unknown pulse of anxiety, impatience, or anticipation; George couldn’t see Matty’s expression to know.

George looked back at the decks, needing to focus to ensure his secondary ordering of songs transitioned smoothly. He looked back up at Matty—to see if he’d have to sub in another song before he was back on the dance floor—and saw him angled back toward the rest of the room, smiling and chatting, his face more in view. The only face George couldn’t see was that of the man talking to Matty, one hand braced against the bar railing and the other quickly—and so smoothly George barely noticed—fiddling with the end of Matty’s tie.

George checked his watch, trying to give himself somewhere else to look. He lowered his head and gave himself the chance to hide his flushing and crimson embarrassment. He didn’t mind someone else flirting with Matty—George couldn’t be upset with other men that fell under the very same spell he did after their first introduction. No, George felt embarrassed he’d seen them, that he had been watching at all. That he was observing when maybe Matty had no such idea. Exposing a moment perhaps Matty would rather not have George see; invading Matty’s privacy and knowing something Matty would always think George didn’t know. What a terrible basis for lo—

Finally, George looked back up. Resisting to do so almost like telling himself not to think of something—and only prompting further rumination. George saw Matty shaking his head, hand resting on his own chest, as if holding his heart. When the man nudged Matty’s foot with his own—yet something else George felt he should never have seen—Matty lifted his hand to point at George.

Four sets of eyes were now on him: Ross, Matty, the stranger, and now the bartender returning with Matty’s drink. George froze. He didn’t know what Matty had said about him in their conversation; he didn’t want to betray his point by doing the wrong thing. George had told Matty to keep things lowkey for the night while George acclimated to (very subtly) exposing his personal life, but with someone flirting with him why else would he be pointing at George? Surely, it was romantic sort of point—literal romantic gesture—right?

But how could George ensure Matty knew it was okay he brought it up, that he was happy and so proud to be up there but if only because it meant Matty could turn and point and mouth something that looked a hell of a lot like: that’s my boyfriend.

Before George could short-circuit much further, Matty put his fingers to his lips and blew George a kiss. He then folded his hand at the knuckles in a flapping wave. Almost like a joke. A tease. A giddy gesture that had George feeling like he was growing sunburnt under the minimal, flashing lights. A youthful, almost teenage, motion done with complete honesty and infatuation. For a moment, George felt relief, felt certain for a moment that his very ridiculous and overthought plan would work...

With his drink in hand—and small black straw between his lips—Matty started going back toward the rest of the group. His eyes were busy searching each face he passed for Adam or Polly he didn’t look back up at George at first. It was just as well; George was already so anxious, he was sure if Matty looked directly at him as the next song started, his entire heart would’ve dropped into his shoes. Maybe bruised, maybe shattered, maybe resilient enough to bounce back up.

Although, as the song started, George felt like his heart had stopped. Its internal pulse absent from his ears as the beat around them took over, pounding against his chest, ribs, temples. George dissolved into the music; hoping that the joy and repeatedly expressed excitement Matty had shown listening to it in George’s studio would appear on the dance floor in front of him.

Just one more time, George. Play that part just one more time… For me?

After a deep breath, George forewent any subtlety and made no effort to hide he was watching for Matty’s reaction. He pulled his headphones down around his neck. The sound diluted into the vastness of the room, in comparison to being fed directly into George’s ears, but he preferred it. He wanted the space and breathing room. At least for the moment.

Matty stopped his gesticulating and conversation with John, pausing as he registered the song. His pivot from speaking to emphatically starting to sing along was split-second. Adam stood sort of confused, amused, and dumbfounded as Matty’s apparently dire point faded away and he started dancing: swaying mostly his hips with the beat and holding his one arm up, while the other steadily held his drink in front of him.

Matty lowered his arm and went to take another sip just as the chorus was about to hit again, his usual stopping point when listening with George, but the song swung back around to the start of the verse. Just that part, one more time. For him.

Matty’s declared favorite, all over again. Right on time—jumping to that exact thump of the brutally danceable kick drum. George wasn’t sure Matty would even notice; he probably hadn’t heard the song that many times to know its structure the way George had to. Oh, maybe it was all a bit ridiculous to think—

But Matty had stopped dancing. His lips still moved along to the lyrics, but now like trying to whisper across the cacophony to George. The lyrics almost being stripped and returned to its poetic form. Spoken with slight disbelief.

While everyone else seemed slightly confused—feeling more betrayed by their memory than upset about any music decision or direction—Matty continued to melt right back into the song. Dancing just as he had, holding the back of George’s chair with gleeful distraction.

As George began to fade between the songs—no threat of the verse cycling a third time—Matty pushed his empty glass into Ross’s hands and began hurriedly snaking back through the crowd to the platform. Despite his evident excitement—shifting and shuffling his feet while he pulled at his sleeves—Matty still stood and waited for George to give a cue he was finished with his task at hand.

Admittedly, George wanted to stay in the momentary reprieve between his gesture, the reaction, and his direct confession—the purpose of it all. In that moment, he could only be relieved that he’d done it in the first place. He hadn’t yet had enough time to worry or feel embarrassed by his own ornately constructed vulnerability.

But if George stayed in that moment forever, he’d never hear Matty’s reaction. Good or bad, it would still be Matty. And that sure as hell beat a solitary moment of acquiescing to fear.

George lowered his headphones again and turned to Matty with the very best look of neutrality and obliviousness he could. Matty was looking back with that minute, timid smile: the one meant for George and almost undetectable by onlookers. A glimpse at the joy thrumming inside of him; almost too full to even attempt to express; settling for an undersell rather than falling short.

“Need something, Matty?”

“I love that song!” Matty leaned in toward George’s ear. His hand gently curled around George’s hanging safely under the table and out of view. He tugged and pulled George toward him, able to slightly lower—soften—his voice. “You know I love that song—thank you.”

“I-I wanted you to have a good time! A chance to know some songs—your favorites!”

“You didn’t have to do that—what about everyone else here?”

George pulled back to better see Matty’s entire face. “Yeah? What about them?”

Matty’s smile faltered as he lowered his eyes to George’s earring, now swinging in the air after being pressed down by his headphones. His lips parted as if he was going to speak but then pressed them back together.

“Matty,” George said, although not loud enough. “I’m really glad you came tonight.”

“Hm?” Matty moved his fingers behind his ear—as if his hair was even remotely long enough—to politely hint he couldn’t hear George.

“I…” George cleared his throat, hoping it would still be there even if he couldn’t hear it. Couldn’t hear anything but the music flooding his body just like the flush creeping up his chest and over his cheeks. “I love you.”

“What?” Matty cupped his ear and leaned forward toward George.

George found himself repeating the sentence, but far softer. “I—I love you.”

Matty lowered his hand and looked at George with a furrowed brow. “I-I’m sorry, George. I can’t hear you!” He gestured toward his ears with splayed out hands, mimicking the pulsing, pounding soundwaves thudding against him from the surrounding speakers. “Don’t forget though, okay? Tell me later?"

George nodded, smiling. Like he could ever forget.

"Sure, yeah. Later!"

Like he was ever thinking about anything else.

---

After his set, despite the band congratulating him and offering a few rounds on them, George wanted to go home. Wanted to get out of the noise. He was beginning to feel spoken over, crowded, and pushed out by the thumping music—then even more so when it was no longer him behind the decks.

Thankfully—and once again forgetting the holiday—no one teased George for turning in earlier than them. He and Matty were able to be back in his car, sitting in the parking lot, thirty minutes after his set finished.

“George, you’re incredible, you know that right?” Matty was speaking too loudly, but George didn’t mind; his ears were ringing too. And it also meant Matty laughed a bit louder than he usually did, too. “I don’t think I’ve had that much fun in a very long time.”

“I’m glad you came,” George smiled, his own laugh sounding muffled to his ears but feeling stronger in his chest. Matty lifted himself from his seat to lean over the console and kiss George, quickly but firmly.

“Thank you for inviting me, George. I was happy to be there with you not on business,” he said. “Happy to be your date tonight. Proud to be—even if we’re still the only people here that really know I was.”

George thought about saying it again—a third time—but he didn't think he could stomach the trade of an oblivious, neutral response to his intended confession for open, undeniable, almost amplified (possible) rejection.

Instead, he kissed Matty again. He braced his hand on the console and caught Matty's lips again before he moved all the way back into the passenger seat. Matty broke the kiss—without pulling away—with a near-muffled, definitely mumbled confession of his own:

“I heard you, you know,” Matty said when George inquisitively pulled away at the sound spoken against his lips. “After you played my song—what I told you not to forget; I heard you. I-I just wanted to see if you’d say it again. If you wanted to—If you meant it.”

“Do—would you like me to... say it again?” George asked. It was a nicer response than quietly pleading, please don’t break my heart. I’m sorry if I—

“No, no, you don’t owe me another one," Matty held the sides of George's face, anticipating his emotional and physical retreat and apology. "Especially since I still haven’t answered.”

“You don’t have to right now. Let's just go home and—"

“George, I think I should tell the man I’m in love with that I do love him, don’t you? Seems like a reasonable thing to do.”

George reached for Matty's face, holding him and trying to get a good look at the man in love with him. Trying to spot the moment Matty would break, would maybe lie and soften what he'd admitted to. Matty held his joyful—and increasingly teary—look at George.

"You do?"

"Yes! Yes, George. I love you! Of course I do." Matty laughed and pulled George in again. His hands dropped from holding George's face to rest flat on his chest. Feel the beat of his heart.

"Wait," George muttered, turning his face to break the kiss but not pull away. "Say it one more time... For me?"

#gatty #gatty fic #matty x george #george daniel x matty healy #producer george and TA matty fic #andfacedown fics #(not yet i know but shh)#producer george oneshot #THANK YOU for waiting & enjoy MWAH!!

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