#leatherjacketlovesong

"She's not bad, is she." Elvis says later on, when he's outside, leaning against the pub wall with a cigarette, and you're kicking an abandoned football around the empty space Noel should be.

"She's alright." You're no good at this. You never have been. You've no idea what makes a girl fuckable.

"Think I've got a chance?"

"Probably."

Definitely.

"I don't know. I don't know if she's interested or if I'm just pissed."

He tips his chin up. Fills the air with lazy smoke rings over head.

The popped collar of his leather jacket scuffs the stone and you beat back the urge to reach out and refold it. Busy yourself with kicking the ball against the wall instead.

"What's the difference?"

Elvis huffs a laugh, "Not a lot."

You manage a smile. Shoulder up against him. Ignore the hollow feeling in your chest. "Ask her for her phone number." It's the best advice you can give.

He considers a while. You cherish the moments. Nobody else gets to witness Elvis trying to be 'brave'.

"Yeah," he eventually says, "Yeah, I think I will. Cheers, mate."

—

You're the one who makes it happen.

You stumble back to the student digs with Elvis half slung over one shoulder and singing at the top of his lungs. Noel's well gone, has been for hours. You think he's with Specks — kinda hope so too — but to be quite honest you really don't have a clue. He could be anywhere. Could be tied up naked to a drainpipe for all you know.

"You can have Noel's bed." Elvis slurs at you, when he finally manages the get his key in the lock without dropping it for the thirteenth time. "Can't see him coming back."

"I'll pass." You tell him, when a passing glance into Noel's leopard printed abode makes you feel like you need a bleach bath. "I'll sleep on the couch."

In the kitchen, Elvis pours you both another drink, "Suit yourself."

"What's the deal with Mattie, then? You get her number?" You wait until you're both sat down in the jumble of second hand furniture, battered guitars and pieced together oddities of drum-kit, that passes for a 'living room' before you ask.

Elvis glances at his phone on the coffee table, and kind of gives you smirk and a half-coy shrug. It makes him look oddly innocent, you think. Like back when you were just kids and you found out about his first crush. (Josie Greenwood, all dark hair and even darker eyes and skin as rich as winter molasses. You remember her well. You remember every one of Elvis's crushes.) And it's a somewhat bitter memory. A sour reminder of just how much the two of you have grown up.

"Yeah... I dunno, though. I don't think I'll ever ring her... She was really drunk."

"Mate, she practically got you in a headlock and kissed you before we left. I think she deserves at least a text."

"I dunno... she'll probably regret that when she sobers up."

You spend another ten minutes trying to convince him he's worth something before giving up. Later he falls asleep on the couch ('your' couch) as the sun begins to wake up. You brave a trip into Noel's room to strip the furry blankets from his bed, so Elvis doesn't get cold. Then you flip through Elvis's phone and fire off a quick text to 'Mattie' before climbing into your mate's bed.

'Hey, was really nice meeting you tonight. Fancy doing something together soon? Let me know! x'

—

You're the one who has to pick him up.

Morning after Elvis's first date with Mattie and you're idled outside some middle-class town house with a freshly mown lawn and kitschy little yard ornaments. His text hadn't given you much to go on. Just a standard 'If I give you a fiver, will you come take us home?' and an address you've never seen before.

You don't know if he's bailing on her. You hope not. You've spun so many 'emergency, sick mother/father/sister/dog/hamster' tales for him that you're running out of people to kill off. (Not to mention you're kinda worried karma might come bite you in the arse.)

It's a relief, then, when the front door of the house opens and Elvis doesn't come hurtling out like a bank robber looking for his getaway car.

Instead, you're the sole audience member to a show of smooching and giggling and cutesy-cutesy cuddling and it just makes you want to smash your face into the steering wheel so the image of Elvis scooping her right up into his arms doesn't get stuck in your head.

It's only the aggressive beep of your car horn that gets him to finally disengage.

"Good night?" You ask, when he eventually manages to pry himself away from her and climbs into your car.

He reaches over, tucks a five pound note into the collar of your turtleneck, then gives the top of your head a patronising pat, "First class."

He smells floral instead of leathery and it makes the hair on the back of your arms stand up.

"You could have just caught the bus, you know. It is a real thing, public transport. It does exist. It's not just some fantasy thing people make up."

He messes with your radio. Winds down his window. Gets out his cigarettes. Puts his feet on the dash, then lights up. "I know."

You breath out through your nose, "Oh I know you do, but course it's much easier and cheaper, for you to just text chauffer Dom, right?"

A cigarette jammed into your mouth, Elvis's head against your shoulder, his raw tired laugh, "Mate, I love ya, shut up."

—

You should be happy.

Elvis is happy. For the first time in what feels like years his smiles now reach his eyes, and there's sincerity in his laugh. For the first time in what feels like years he walks with his head up. For the first time in what feels like years he's writing music again.

And for the first time in his life he writes a love song.

"Come over," he tells you, down the phone at seven o'clock one Wednesday evening.

You try to dissuade him. You've been home from work so briefly that you're still walking around in a cloud of motor oil and exhaust fumes, and your mum's following you about the house spraying air freshener. But he insists he has something to show you and he sounds oddly excited in just the right way to pique your interest, so you go.

He's sitting on the floor of his living room when you arrive. Surrounded by crumpled balls of paper and nursing the acoustic guitar that's seen more than it's own fair share of artistic tantrums and has the scars to prove it.

"Sit down." he tells you, gesturing the floor before you even have a chance to speak.

You do as he says. (You always have) Take a relatively clear spot on the carpet, then lean back against the wall. You notice he's wearing his glasses and you realise it's years since he's entertained those too.

"I wrote something." He pauses for your response.

"Oh yeah?"

"It's about Mattie."

When he plays, he doesn't look at you. When he plays he closes his eyes and you're glad, because then it's just Elvis and the guitar and some clumsily sung words, and it's unrehearsed and raw and inelegant and beautiful.

C... "Babe..." A... G... "You're too good for me..."

C... "Darling...." A... G... "You're where I always want to be..."

C... "And honey..." A... G... "I hope you never have to see..."

E... "The dark things inside of me..."

And when he finishes it takes you a moment to become aware of the fact that you closed your eyes too.

Because you should be happy. For him. For her. You really should.

But you're not.

You're not because you wish Elvis's first love song had been written about you.

—

You're the first person he tells.

And to make the whole scenario even more prominent, he comes to you.

That's how you know it's something serious. That's how you know there's something incredibly wrong. When a taxi pulls up outside your house and something bizarrely Elvis-shaped climbs out.

He's all red-rimmed eyes and red-rimmed nose, but at first he doesn't want to talk. Just throws himself down across the width of your bed and fills up your room with smoke.

You play a few records. Sit down next to him with your bass guitar and jam out a few tunes. You know he'll tell you when he's ready. You know he just needs time to pull together enough courage to face whatever's taken a bite-sized chunk out of his heart.

"Mate," he manages at a length. Waits until you turn your head to look at him before he goes on, "It's Mattie."

The first awful thought that jumps into your head is definitely the one you shouldn't vocalise, but your mouth gets ahead of your brain and you instantly splutter out, "She's not pregnant, is she?!"

To which Elvis gives you a glare so deadly it makes your insides wither.

"Fuck. No."

"Oh, well... thank god for that."

"Yeah, thank god for that," His sarcasm is so thick you could chew on it, "No, you knobhead, she's got fucking cancer."

Saying it out-loud seems to either shock or hurt him, and Elvis winces, presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.

You're so stunned you don't know what to say. You're so stunned you rattle out the very first stupid thing in your mind conjures up yet again, "But... it's treatable, right?"

If looks could kill you'd be dead twice over by now.

You take the curling of his top lip and narrowing of his eyes as a 'no'.

"Fucks sake, she's dying, Dom..." And his voice is small, and cracks like glass, and the snarling mask falls away and he's just Elvis. Your Elvis. Hopeless and naive and a little bit scared.

"Said she wanted to tell me before I got too invested. So I could have the chance to back off. But fucking hell, mate, it's a bit too late for that..."

—

You don't see him much.

His texts become intermittent, his phone calls white noise. Nine times out of ten, when you ring his number, he doesn't pick up. Even Noel — who he shares a flat with — admits that Elvis hardly ever comes home.

It's hard to remember that with university and a new relationship with a dying girl, he's probably busy. It's hard not to worry when the last time you saw him there were still the last remnants of tears in his eyes. It's hard to eradicate that gnawing feeling that you never should have introduced the two of them in the first place.

It had been a car crash waiting to happen.

Considering how perceptive you seem to believe you are, you know you should have seen that one coming from the start.

You start to miss the 3am texts for a chauffer.

You start to miss the dusky heady scent of leather and alcohol in your car.

The coarse bark of his laugh. The snap of his jaw. The busy hands that were never anywhere they were welcomed and always where they weren't.

Without Elvis's interference, your life becomes easy and predictable and safe.

Without Elvis's interference, your life becomes a bore.

And you start to resent him. And you start to resent her.

And when the feelings get so strong they keep you awake at night, you pull down the boxing gloves you hung up years ago, then spend your evenings down the gym, punching out your frustrations until every muscle in your body is sore.

Three months of radio silence before he texts.

"Mate, come pick me up?"

To your surprise your answer comes easily, as though it had been waiting for this moment all along,

"No."

—

You're not a bad person.

You remind yourself of this all morning at work, repeat it in your head every time that sharp little mouth of guilt chews a little deeper into your soul. Fifteen years you've been Elvis's doormat. It's about time he went and wiped his feet all over someone else.

You can't explain why then, when your boss announces you have a visitor, your heart drops.

It's him. You think. You know.

But it's not.

A eyesore of fur coat and sunglasses struts into the garage. The scent of hairspray and a thousand different women's perfumes sticks in your throat.

You groan, "Pleeeease don't tell me you want driving somewhere as well, Noel."

"Me? Oh no," he leans against the hood of your client's car, pauses for dramatic effect, then goes on, "I just stopped by to let you know I'm on my way to the police station to pick up your best mate."

"What? Elvis?" For a moment it doesn't register. You drop a spanner in your overalls.

Noel doesn't even give it to you gently. Just fucks you right over. You can already tell from the jutted out hip and jutted out chin, he thinks it's all your fault.

"Yeah, Elvis. Had an argument with his lass yesterday, went out for a few drinks to drown his sorrows and ended up getting done for being drunk and disorderly. Punched a copper. Spent the night locked up."

"Fucking hell." A hand instinctively finds your worktable for support, "And where were you?"

Noel snorts. "Me? What about you?!"

"I'm not his Dad, Noel."

He tilts his head, peers at you over the rim of his Raybans like he knows, "Could've fooled me..."

You frown, "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

But Noel only lifts both hands in surrender, "Listen, buddy, I don't know what happened between the two of you when you were teenagers, during all of your little sleepovers and whatever else you got up to—"

"We didn't get up to—" You start, decide it's not even worth it, and give up.

"—but the truth of the matter is, you're the only wanker in the world that prick actually listens to. And I could really do with your help in sorting him out right now."

He lets his words sit with you for a moment, simmering, before adding, softly — like he's actually pretending to give a shit for once, "Dom, he needs you..."

It's not convincing. It wouldn't even be a very good reason even it was true. But your fingers find your keys anyway and before you realise what you’re doing you’re tossing them at Noel. "Go start my car."

—

You remember Elvis's first run-in with the police.

Nine-years-old, Christmas time, snowflakes coming down the size of golf balls. He stands on your doorstep, bundled up in what appears to be every single piece of clothing he owns. Stuffed school backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes half-downcast half-glaring.

Even with his cheeks tinged pink from the cold, you can tell he's been crying.

"I came to say goodbye."

And when you don't answer fast enough, because you're still trying to work out what he means, he adds, gloomily, "I'm running away."

You know why, you don't need to ask. His mum and dad are going through a messy divorce while still living under the same roof, and Elvis doesn't have any brothers or sisters to turn to.

Still, you think it's a pretty stupid idea to tell people that you're running away. Not unless you want them to stop you. And you're quite sure Elvis doesn't want to be stopped. Not from the sixty layers of clothes he's gone through the trouble of squeezing into anyway. You don't think he has any intention of taking them off any time soon.

And it's then you realise, slowly, stupidly, that he hasn't come by your house to say goodbye at all. He's come because he wants you to run away too.

"My mum's probably worried about me." You say, later on, when the two of you sit hunched together in a closed shop doorway in the dark, blowing on your fingers to chase away the cold. "Your mum's probably worried about you as well. And your dad."

Elvis stuffs crisps into his mouth then leans into you. "Fuck 'em." He growls, "Fuck 'em all."

You end up spending the night under the branches of the big Christmas tree in the city centre, where it's a little bit sheltered and a little bit warm and the fairy-lights paint twinkling freckles across Elvis's nose.

In the early hours of the morning you're accidentally stumbled upon by a policeman doing his rounds.

Elvis punches a copper then too.

—

You're the glue that holds everything together. You've always known that.

And it's tiring being Dominic Wood. It's tiring trying to keep Elvis's life from falling apart.

You pick him up at the station and take him home. Issue apologies on his behalf. To the policeman he assaulted. To Mattie. To Noel.

"I'm sorry. I should have been there. I didn't know."

You gather in the kitchen with Noel and Mattie, as Elvis rides out the worst hangover in history with his head halfway down the loo.

Mattie hauls herself up to sit on the counter top next to you. It's the only way she can get anywhere near eye-level. "It's not your fault that Ellie's a knob."

Noel raises a sceptical eyebrow. Gives you a 'look'.

You know exactly what he's thinking because you have the same thought.

It is your fault. You're his enabler. You always have been. Elvis wouldn't have grown up like this if it hadn't been for you.

From the bathroom comes the sound of heaving. Then coughing. Then groaning and what one might misinterprate to be a sob. All three of you cringe. All three of you find a shit ton of interest in looking at the floor.

Noel's the first to glance back up, "At least he's paying for it. Maybe it'll do him some good."

You doubt it. You've witnessed Elvis's horror-show hangovers before. Cleaned up after all of them too. Elvis never learns.

"I'll stay the night," you offer, "keep an eye on him so Mattie can go home and you can get some sleep. It's the least I can do. Make sure he's alright."

Mattie's tiny hand on your shoulder. Her lips on your cheek. "You're a good mate, Dom." You can tell she actually means it too. "I wish I had a friend like you."

And you don't know why it is, but in that moment you realise something's changed.

You don't resent her any more.

You throw an arm around her shoulders. Give her a side-long hug.

"No need to wish. You already do..."

—

You forget Mattie's dying, sometimes.

She stands in the front row whenever you play shit songs, to shit crowds, in even shittier bars. She hauls your shitty amps and manages your social media like you're all already super stars. And whenever you're too tired, or too drunk, to chauffer everyone home at the end of the night, she has absolutely no qualms at all about driving your shitty car.

Mattie's a woman in charge of her own destiny, and you admire that.

She also doesn't mind telling you straight out that your band is actually total and utter crap.

"You need another guitarist." She says, pacing the floor of the Student Union's backroom an hour before your show.

Elvis looks offended, you can practically hear the shatter of his proud rockstar ego, "But I'm the guitarist."

"Well obviously, and you're great, you really are, but you can't sing and carry an entire song on your own, Ellie. It just doesn't work." And when she perhaps realises she's been just a tiny bit too harsh, Mattie offers him a simpering smile and plucks just the right string on Elvis's heart, "Even The Libertines had two guitarists, you know that."

This seems to placate Elvis.

But you raise an eyebrow as you plug your bass into your amp, and grumble a low, "We're not The Libertines, though..."

"Tell that to Pete Doherty over there." quips Noel.

You both watch Elvis, decked out in ratty leather jacket and stained jeans that should have been through the wash weeks ago, down a can of lager then toss the empty on the floor.

You don't want another guitarist. You've got enough on your plate looking after this one.

"We really don't need a Carl Barat an' all."

"So, say we were to get another guitarist," Elvis goes on, "where on earth are we supposed to find one that'd wanna join this shit show?"

Neither you, Elvis or Noel expect Specks to chime in. But when she perks up from the back of the room, and offers a casual, "My twin brother plays the guitar."

All three of you chorus a resounding, "FUCK NO."

To which Mattie only shrugs a shoulder and cocks her head and grins a decisive, "Well that's settled then. Call him. Get him to come down. I think they'll get along."

—

You didn't expect this.

Julian's all denim jacket and turned up Levi's and cigarette propped behind the ear like he's channelling James Dean. Sandy hair. Quirked eyebrow. Summer tan skin.

He looks nothing like Specks. He looks nothing like Specks at all.

He beams a smile when he shakes your hand, introduces himself as 'Jude'. And you've got absolutely no idea why you struggle to keep eye contact. No idea why the glimpse of paint under his fingernails makes your voice wedge in your throat.

"I'm an artist." He offers, later, when the six of you are sat around a table after the show.

Elvis either doesn't hear him or doesn't care, "What're your musical influences? We need to know."

Noel nods his agreement. You fiddle with the straw in your coke.

"The Rolling Stones..." Julian turns his gaze to Noel. "A touch of The Smiths..." A pointed look at Elvis. "And a sprinkling of The Who." His eyes settle on you.

It's your polo shirt, you think. The polo-shirt and parka combo. You're a dead give-away. That's how he knows.

Elvis is wearing his Morrissey-glasses.

Noel always looks like he just dragged himself out of an orgy at Woodstock.

"If I'm being completely honest, though," he's still looking at you, still eyeing you as though he can see into your soul, "Johnny Cash is my hero."

An hour later the bar closes. The girls piss off with Elvis and Noel (you could almost swear Mattie did it on purpose...). And you're the one tasked with driving a slightly tipsy Julian back home.

"Don't you own a Vespa?" He asks as he follows you out to your car.

You try to explain that it'd be a bit too inconvenient trying to get both a drunk Elvis and a drunk Noel onto the back of a scooter. You're a mechanic. You're practical.

"You should get one." He says, putting his cigarette out before he opens the passenger side door, "You'd look good."

—

You don't know how they manage to survive. Elvis and Noel.

Not when their kitchen cupboards are just stockpiles of Pot Noodle and Carlsberg. You're almost certain they should both be riddled with scurvy.

So you do their shopping. Bring back bags full of anything other than lager and ready meals and cheap fizzy pop.

"We're poor students," Elvis explains, as you pull a bottle of milk so sour it's solidified out of the fridge, "what do you expect?"

"Fucking hell, Elvis, you could make your own cheese with this."

Noel eyes the fruit on the counter as though the oranges might be the ones to eat him. "Yeaaaah, we're not posh like you. We don't have enough money for vitamins."

"Oh, piss off, Noel."

You're the last person on earth to carry the 'posh' label.

You were brought up in a single-parent household, where your mum worked three jobs to provide for five kids. You started two paper-rounds when you were eleven and mowed the neighbour's lawns in summer to help your mum with the rent. Sometimes, in winter, when ice made intricate patterns on the inside of the windows, you had to wear your coat to bed.

"What's you guys take on this Jude bloke, then?" Elvis leans against the counter with his arms folded. Watches you put all of their food away.

"He's alright." Noel shrugs, makes a face like Julian's some kind of furniture he could take or leave. Then adds, as though an afterthought, "Gay, though."

Elvis frowns. Your mouth dries up.

"What?" You manage to croak, "Did he tell you?"

"Oh, no," he cracks open one of the lagers you'd put aside ready for a trip into rubbish bin, "can just tell."

You share a look with Elvis, who arcs a dubious eyebrow at you and then presses, curiously, "You can? How?"

But Noel only shrugs, apathetic to it all again, either unable or unwilling to answer.

He grabs his sunglasses and his coat and heads for the door.

But not before stopping directly in front of you. Giving you a long, discerning look, and adding, in exactly the right tone to make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, "Just do."

—

You didn't realise when your mum said she'd invited everyone, she meant everyone.

Including Specks and Jude. Who rock up to your house at precisely noon and who's presence makes Noel just about as unimpressed with the Sunday Dinner guest-list as you.

Noel doesn't like to spend time socialising with Specks on the best of days. Sitting around the kitchen table, listening to her talk, you hope he doesn't fuck her in your bedroom in order to get her to shut up.

You realise Julian's a vegan when he turns his nose up at your mum's roast. And you thank fuck the bastard's got at least one flaw.

Elvis is straight into it like a starved dog though, ripping a leg off the chicken with greasy hands, while Mattie pulls a face and your mum laughs.

She always liked Elvis, your mum. Sometimes, when you were younger, you worried she loved Elvis more than she loved you.

After dinner, Julian finds interest in the old championship boxing belt hanging on your mum's living room wall.

"I didn't know you used to box."

You half-shrug one shoulder and hope to brush it off, but as expected right on queue your mum starts up, "Oh, he did. He was bloody good at it too. Won that when he was fifteen. He used to whine about it, but I forced him to go. It kept him out of trouble and without his dad around and living in a house full of women, I didn't know what else to do."

You sink low into the sofa. Try to make yourself small.

Your mum sighs. And it's the sigh of a woman who's weary and tired, but undoubtedly proud. "He was always getting himself into bother, our Dom. Running away... Getting into fights... He even a punched a policeman once, you know!"

Immediately you share a glance with Elvis. To your amazement he actually looks apologetic for once.

Nobody knows it was him. Even ten years on.

In the urgency of the moment and knowing what Elvis's parents were like, it had been easier to just say the one who threw the punch had been you.

Growing up, you happily took the blame for every one of Elvis's misdeeds.

Growing up, you just thought that was something that best mates should do.

—

You don't know what love is.

You think it might be going to boxing classes, even though you never wanted to box.

You think it might be letting your sisters cut your hair and put little bows in it, and dress you up for 'fashion shows'.

You think it might be opting to stay at home and get a full time job, while all your mates go to university and start living it up.

You think it might be being in a band when you never wanted to be in a band, because playing the bass in front of people gives you anxiety attacks.

You don't know what love is.

But when Elvis gets into a fight at 3am with some pissed up knobhead of a bloke on the way home from the pub, and your first instinct is to throw yourself in front of him and knock the other guy out with a single right hook, you start to re-evaluate that thought.

You don't know what love is.

But scrubbing your hands clean in Elvis's sink even though there's no blood, you realise just how dangerous your fists are.

And checking the newspaper obsessively every day to make sure there's no mention of some dude getting left for dead in the road, you realise just how dangerous it is to let your unattainable best mate take up such a dominant space in your heart.

You don't know what love is.

But watching Mattie feed Elvis grapes as though he's an emperor, you think, "it's definitely not that."

—

You get lonely. You're only human.

While Elvis spends time with Mattie and Noel's off chasing every potential bit of skirt, you and Julian start hanging out.

Sometimes you go over to his studio and play music while he paints. Sometimes he comes over to your house, sits on the edge of your bed and helps you write songs. Sometimes, when your head's are so busy that neither of you can sleep, he calls you up at three in the morning just for a chat.

He's got a voice that's all refined whisky and vintage furniture and The Velvet Underground.

Not like Elvis. Elvis who's all paint stripper vodka and charity shops and someone getting their face smashed into a wall.

And you realise you really don't mind listening to Julian talk.

"Have you ever been in love?" you're laying in bed when he asks, ear pressed against your phone, staring into the half dark.

"I... I don't know."

Your eyes immediately track across the room to the picture pinned above your desk of you and Elvis in your early teens, all big crooked grins with matching crooked teeth and you don't know why it makes your stomach turn.

"Have you ever been in a relationship?"

A beat. A pause. Dread in your throat.

For fuck's sake, Dominic, you're almost twenty-one.

Silence that drags on until you finally give in, until you feel there's nowhere left to turn, because you're a shit liar and Julian has you exposed.

There's the phantom presence of Elvis's hands round your neck, squeezing, as you force out a pathetic, "No."

And Julian breaths something that sounds a bit like disbelief down the phone.

"But... you've slept with people, right? I mean surely. Obviously. You've fucked girls and all."

Pressure on your windpipe. The residual scent of leather jackets and cheap cologne.

"...I haven't. No..."

—

You can't pinpoint exactly when it started.

You've tried. Spent hours racking your brains, trying to figure it all out. Trying to isolate the moment it all went wrong. The moment something inside you 'broke'.

Only you've never been able to find it, because it's not a minute, or an hour, or a day. It didn't happen all at once.

It came slowly. Filtered into your life in little pieces. Like a puzzle that would take years to work out.

It's in milky breath in the classroom on a warm summer's afternoon.

It's in several dozen borrowed pencils returned to you, all chewed.

It's in P.E lessons and scabby knees and growth spurts that made his football kit too short.

It's in grazed elbows and climbing trees and every nervous birthday present you bought.

It's in the first cough from cigarettes nicked off his dad.

It's in the first black eye when Nathan Jefferson calls him a fag.

It's in cracked knuckles and cracked laughs and a voice that took too long to break.

It's in a flash of teeth and flash of skin and every single "I love ya, mate."

It's in Liam and Noel. Morrissey and Marr.

It's in Lennon and McCartney. Doherty and Barat.

It's in every broken guitar string and every practiced autograph.

It's in every schoolboy crush and every broken heart.

Only you never saw the pieces at the time. It's just how having a best mate feels, you thought.

You only noticed them when he crept up on you so close he could finally hang his noose around your throat.

—

You know it's coming before he does.

It's the night of some cheap little gig at a rundown working men's club out of town, that Elvis has been banging on about all month, and Mattie's so pale she looks grey. She struggles to untangle the microphone wires, trips over her own feet, and gets out of breath carrying Noel's cymbals in from the car.

You collar her in the back room while Elvis is doing his sound check out of earshot.

"Are you alright?" You know something's up.

At first she looks quizzical. Makes her face scrunch. "Of course." Chirps a laugh that's too hollow and tries to push past.

It's only your hand on the wall in front of her, your arm blocking her into the corner, that makes her stop.

She closes her eyes. Drops her head. Takes a breath so deep it's as though all of the air has been sucked from the room.

You wait.

(You're good at that.)

And when she doesn't give in, you wait some more.

(You're good at that, too.)

Until she finally expels tension from boycotting bones, melts back into the wall, and looks up.

There's something glassy in her gaze when her eyes meet yours. And you know what she's going to say before it's even come out of her mouth. But hope to heaven's above that you're wrong. Because you can't do it.

You can't.

Not when she's dying. Not when it's going to break his fucking heart. Not when she should be at home or in the hospice, not lugging around heavy equipment and breathing secondhand smoke in the back room of a scummy bar.

The two of you stand in silence for what feels like an eternity before it eventually comes out.

"Please don't tell, Ellie... Not tonight. He's been looking forward to this show all month..."

"Mattie..." You cup the sides of her face in your hands, "I need to take you home. I need to take you both home. You're not well."

But Mattie only shakes her head, eyes pleading as she begs a tragic, "Please, Dom..."

—

You don't remember the gig.

You don't remember the crowd.

You don't remember the scorching press of Elvis's back against yours as he leans against you during your solo.

You don't remember Julian's accidentally unplugged guitar.

Or Noel magically acquiring a pink feather boa.

You don't even remember Elvis playing up for the girls in the front row and smashing his lips into your cheekbone at some point during the encore.

(Which is surprising, really, considering.)

What you do remember is ringing ahead to the hospital afterwards.

Elvis carrying Mattie out of the back door wrapped in Noel's fur coat.

Telling the girls hanging round in the alleyway to fuck right off, when they screech and grab Elvis's elbow.

Running every red light and then some.

Elvis pacing frantically up and down the hall.

The forbidding tick of the clock on the wall.