Aching Steps Towards Survival [2/5] - Being Human - Annie/George/Mitchell
Part One
ii. George
George stared at his cell phone and willed it not to ring. It was rather the opposite experience than the one he was used to.
His fingers tapped restlessly against his knee, before he shifted position altogether. There was nothing worth watching on the telly, no book capable of capturing his attention, and Mitchell was out - gone for the night. There was nothing to stop his thoughts from wandering 'home' as he sat in his empty house on his empty sofa with a cup of cold tea sitting on a coaster before him. There was nothing to stop him from thinking about -
There was a knock at the door.
On his feet in an instant, George gleefully headed in its direction. He slid free their collection of locks and opened the door with a smile, standing barefoot in his hallway. His visitor, however, made his face cloud instantly.
Standing on the doorstep, Herrick smiled with a flash of short, white teeth. "George, lovely to see you. You're looking well."
George couldn't school himself into any semblance of politeness, not for Herrick's sake. He hadn't seen him in years; had been convinced that Mitchell had put that section of his life behind him. "What do you want?"
"Is Mitchell in?" Herrick asked. He bounced on the balls of his feet. "I have a matter or two I'd like to discuss with him. Two old friends catching up - you know what it's like."
"You didn't do that the other night? You were out long enough." George frowned even more, deep furrows in his forehead, as he realised that he merely sounded jealous. That was not the idea. "Mitchell is out."
"Ah." Herrick remained firmly rooted to the door-step. "Any idea where I might find him?"
"Nope. No. None at all." George rather wished that he had no idea, actually. Knowing that Mitchell was hanging out with Lauren and her ilk was enough to make him queasy, even if Mitchell said he was still clean: he knew where this path ended. They'd been down it often enough. "He said he might not be back for a while. Weeks, probably. Years. Try back in 2015 or so, that'll work."
Eyebrows raised, he was trying very hard to look calm and innocent. His level of success was, perhaps, up for debate.
He was saved mercifully from continued debate when Herrick suddenly had to share space with someone else. Relief was held off, however, by the way his welcome guest was crying, mascara smeared over her face.
"Annie?" he asked, squeaking.
She hiccuped a sob at him in response and he brought her inside without a second thought, flapping his hand at Herrick to show him it was time to leave. Annie wasn't making sense, not a lick of it, and her hair seemed to have grown wilder in response to her pain.
He took her to their couch and let her lean against him, soaking his shirt with her warm tears. His arm around her shoulders didn't seem to help, an offer of tea gained no response, and when he offered to call Owen for her she cried even louder and made a half-hearted attempt at thwacking his head.
In the end, he did nothing practical: nothing concrete.
He sat with her and held onto her, letting her ride out whatever she was feeling. An explanation could come later: for now, steady friendship seemed to be what she most required.
*
"More tea?" George offered, nudging at the pot that sat between them.
With her face tear-stained and ashen, Annie shook her head. Her fingers were curled in front of her mouth as if she was struggling to hold something inside. George wasn't like Mitchell; he wasn't delicate enough to know how to push and nudge her without making her feel even worse.
Clearing her throat, Annie asked, "So where's Mitchell? Out at a wild PA party?" as if they were chit-chatting and there weren't tears on her face.
George frowned at his tea. "I'm not sure. We're quite open." He didn't try to monitor Mitchell's movements, and Mitchell never had to worry about what George was up to. "He'll be back eventually."
Mitchell would stumble in, drugged to the gills, if they were lucky. Grinning, he would kiss George and slobber on his neck as George dragged him to bed to make him sleep it off - in the morning, he would take George's hand and promise that it would never happen again, so earnest that George would almost believe him.
And that was the best case scenario. In the worst case, he would be getting a call from a nearby hospital.
It didn't bear thinking about.
"You still haven't told me what all of this is about," he eventually made himself say. It was difficult, but he had to at least try. "That's alright. You don't have to talk about it or anything, not if you don't want to. I'm here to listen if you do. And we have a guest bedroom - it's yours for as long as you want it."
She sniffed and rubbed her nose against her sleeve at the same time. "You're lovely," she said.
He wished he felt 'lovely' too.
After she had gone to bed, he stayed awake and fussed with the dishes, washing and drying them as he stared out of the window above the sink. The phone didn't ring. Mitchell's key didn't turn in the lock -
Until, long past midnight, George heard him stumbling in. He fell over Annie's shoes in the corridor and hushed them, laughing.
The slurred, gleeful tone of Mitchell's laughter told George everything that he really needed to know about where he'd been that night. It didn't matter, he told himself. They could talk about it later. He turned off the quietly murmuring television and walked through to the hallway.
"It's me, Mitchell," he said to calm him. Mitchell grinned, white-toothed like a shark. "Let's get you up to bed, hmm?"
"George." Mitchell didn't sound as if he had listened to a word that had just been said. He smiled in confusion. "You're here."
"I live here," George reminded him.
He reached out to hold onto his drugged boyfriend, slipping an arm around his waist. "You need to keep it down, alright? We have a guest. Annie. Can you keep quiet?"
"I can walk, George," Mitchell said, trying to shove his supportive grasp away. "I don't need your help."
Unwilling to get into a wrestling match, George let him go - only for Mitchell to ignore the stairs altogether and mosey through to the living room. He flopped onto the sofa, with his gangly legs sprawling in all directions. Dark curls of hair fell over his face, and in spite of himself George found it very difficult to stay angry with him.
He felt beside the couch, testing Mitchell's forehead with the palm of his hand. It was slightly warmer than he would have expected, but not nearly enough to alarm him. Mitchell's eyes had closed already. "Where were you?" George asked in a whisper.
He wasn't sure why he bothered. The answer was only going to make him mad again.
"Out," Mitchell mumbled. "Lauren."
And George was not going to be jealous. Lauren was a friend of Mitchell's, nothing more than that. There was a lot to worry about when it came to them, even if he tried to convince himself that Mitchell was drunk not high, but there was nothing sexual about it. That didn't stop the uncomfortable waves of knowledge in his mind, the quiet voice that whispered, Maybe...
"We'll talk about it in the morning," he suggested. He could nip briefly into the office and then come back to work from home: both Mitchell and Annie seemed like they could do with a late start, or even a day off completely. "Get some rest."
Mitchell's hand wrapped around his wrist to prevent him from leaving. "Stay," Mitchell urged.
Pleaded?
George's body twitched and he tried to nurse the dying embers of his anger: didn't work. Never did.
"I'll be here," he promised, which was the story of his life when it came to John Mitchell. "I'm not going anywhere."
He slept on the floor, propped up against the side of the couch, with Mitchell heavy, wheezing breaths whistling past his ear.
He wouldn't complain about it.
Not once.
(Or, at least, not seriously).
*
When he awoke the next morning, there was a steaming cup of tea beside him, incredibly milky. The near-snores by his ear told him that Mitchell was still firmly unconscious. Clutching the mug as if it was life-saving medicine, George gulped the hot tea as quickly as he could manage without scalding himself.
When he got to his feet, his limbs whined and creaked as if they didn't want to cooperate. He felt like a shirt that had been trampled underfoot for days: creased, dirty, and possibly beyond repair. If he strained his ears, he was sure he could hear the creaking whines of his joints as he waddled through to the kitchen.
Sitting at their kitchen table, Annie was settled with a cup of her own, some toast, and a newspaper. She looked as if this was her home, not his, and George didn't even resent her for it: she fit here, like a house mate instead of a guest. Before he could think it through, foggy with sleep, he said, "I wish you lived here," and punctuated it with a yawn.
Annie looked up, startled by the sound of his voice.
George was fairly startled by it too.
"I mean, I wish you had lived here before. As room-mates. I would have wanted to be flat-mates with you at university. That's what I'm saying." he scratched at the back of his neck. "I had a room-mate at uni who was an absolute pig."
Annie smiled, far more gracious than he would have managed to be in the face of a half-asleep mad-man. "I think you'd make a great room-mate too. You're very neat." She paused to take a bite of her breakfast, and George took a seat at the kitchen table, still clutching his tea. "How's Mitchell? I didn't hear him come in last night."
"He was quite late." George didn't know how to answer her question. With anyone else, he would have lied and said that he was hungover but fine, but when it came to Annie he wasn't sure if he was capable of it. "I don't know how he is. I don't know anything any more."
She drew her brows together: so concerned, so open.
"I shouldn't be going on about this. You've got stuff of your own to deal with." He didn't even know what 'stuff' that was, but for it to drive her here so late at night meant that it was bad. "Sorry."
"George," she scolded - and with his name alone she managed to make him feel both foolish and accepted at once. "Talk to me. If you want to, I'd want to listen."
"I left home when I was eighteen. Mitchell was the first friend I made in Bristol. Never looked back." He ran his finger up and down the mug handle, feeling the glaze beneath the pad of his finger-tip. "He saved me. I was working in a shitty diner to pay my way, and I got into trouble with some mates of his. I thought they were going to kill me. He stopped them."
He remembered it still, the blood on his face and the way the rain had poured. The water had clung to Mitchell's curls, weighing them down when George had taken him back to his flat: this dangerous stranger, face pale, body half-starved. George had cooked a meal for him, his personal 'thank you', and if Mitchell had fucked him into the mattress afterwards then no one outside of that small flat had to know.
Annie's words jolted him out of his memories. "What happened then?"
"Nothing much. I saw him a couple of times after that, but we lost touch." He had lost touch, accidentally-on-purpose, after seeing Mitchell high and with another bloke. He didn't want to air any more of their dirty laundry than he had to. "Ran into him again after I graduated, when I was visiting a friend in hospital. I couldn't leave him there, once I saw. I- I wouldn't."
After that, the story ended (began, perhaps - maybe they started a new one, their own sequel) several months later, with Mitchell warm and safe in his bed. Annie wouldn't need all the details. The footnotes were only interesting to them.
"Now it's all going wrong again and I don't know how to help. I never know. I just make it worse."
He fell quiet when he felt warmth wrap around his hand, skin against his own. Looking down, he could see Annie's hand clinging to his palm. Next to his dustbin lid hands, she looked tiny.
"God, your skin's warm," Annie commented. "You're like fire or something."
"Tea," George said with a watery smile, nodding to the tea-cup that he had been nursing between his hands only moments ago.
Annie patted the top of his hand. "You and Mitchell are lovely," she said. "I know I don't know anything, not really, but you're brilliant. Whatever's wrong, you'll work it out."
Still unsure whether or not he believed her, George nodded nonetheless. Annie, as sad as she felt right now, had hope for them. That meant something.
George had to believe that it meant something.
*
He left the pair of them at home in their cosy pink house while he popped into the office to keep things ticking over. "Is Lauren in today?" he asked at the front desk.
No one knew where she was. No surprise there.
Minus two assistants, he soon discovered how difficult it was to run his office by himself, darting around to try to find files and answer phones and type up vital letters all at once: everything took five times longer without a helping hand or two.
When the phone went off again, he answered it in a fluster. "Hello, George? Sands. I'm George Sands. This is my office." He really needed to learn the spiel that Mitchell answered with. "How can I help?"
"George?" asked a kindly-sounding woman.
Instantly, George's blood ran cold.
He clutched the telephone as tightly as he could. Swallowing, his throat was sandpaper. "Mum," he said, breathless and light-headed. This was why he'd wanted to avoid this phone call - not because of her, but because of this forgetful reaction.
"This is - I work here, Mum. You can't call me." Maybe this was a professional matter and she needed a lawyer. If that was the case, he would point her in another, more neutral direction.
"You wouldn't pick up anywhere else," she said. It was a fair point. "I just want to talk to you."
George transferred the phone to his other ear. "Does Dad know you're phoning me?" he asked, tight and controlled.
"He'd understand."
"That's a 'no', then." Figured. George would never have expected anything more, not even after all these years had passed. He'd left for a reason, hadn't he? "I've got to go."
"George, please. We're sorry. We want to make it right."
Closing his eyes, George didn't answer. He needed time to focus on himself and on nothing more than the gentle lilt of his own breath. "I've got a busy day," he said, before he placed the phone down.
He didn't give her time to say goodbye.
His hand lingered on the handset for a moment after he had hung up, while his heart pounded with pointless adrenaline. The afternoon pulsed with a sense of unreality.
Meetings waited for him, paperwork was required, and Annie and Mitchell both needed him to be at home. There was no time to mope and moan: he had to keep moving, had to keep going - but, for this one second, he stopped. He thought. And he grieved.
*
When he came home, there was dinner on the table and tea in the pot. He placed his keys into the bowl near the door and wandered through the warm rooms of his home, so tired and glad that he had managed to leave that working day behind: it had absorbed more time than he had hoped it would.
Reaching towards his neck, he pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned a few poles on his shirt. As he walked into the living room, he shed his suit-jacket, slowly getting rid of the office professional. Annie was curled up on the sofa, wearing one of his old shirts with the sleeves rolled up over her elbows.
She sniffed at the sight of him, her eyes red and damp. "Mitchell's upstairs," she said, cutting him off with a raise of her hand as he tried to ask if she was okay. "He's pretty hung-over. Probably wants a cuddle."
It made her sniffle again, but she flapped her hand even more at him when he tried to take a step towards her. Leaving her alone, he walked up the stairs; his relief at being home from work was fading with every creaking steps. He wasn't supposed to feel this way upon going to see his partner, was he?
Entering their bedroom felt like stepping into a bear's lair, somewhere dark and musty. The thick curtains were tightly drawn and he expected to see skeletons of past meals on the floor like an animal's trophies. Lumps on the bed revealed Mitchell's body underneath the blanket in peaks and troughs. He carefully picked his way through the room, stepping around and over the junk on their floor. He tidied as frequently as he could, but Mitchell was a chaotic whirlwind.
"Mitchell?" he murmured, sitting down at the edge of the bed. The mountain of covers shifted, but no messy head of curls appeared yet. "Mitchell? How are you feeling?"
Like a hedgehog or a turtle that had been on a bender, Mitchell poked his head out from the mound. "I'm dying," he announced.
George rolled his eyes and tossed his fingers through Mitchell's hair. "You're not dying," he said, more affectionate than he should have been. Mitchell shuffled and nuzzled until his head rested on George's thigh, a weight that proved he was still there: George still had him, for however long that might last. "Drinking last night?"
The answer was probably 'yes and more', but Mitchell didn't say it. George was grateful for that, though he didn't know why; it allowed him to pretend this break-down wasn't happening, to live in denial for a little while longer. Cowardly, he knew. Mitchell snuggled further into George's lap, his face buried against the strong muscles of George's leg. "Annie brought me tea," he said. "Lots of it."
"She does that, yes."
"It was nice. We should keep her."
Smiling, George wrapped one of Mitchell's black curls around his forefinger. "Doesn't she get a say in the matter?"
Mitchell shook his head, before he sighed and rested heavily against George's thigh. "My head's bloody aching," he admitted.
George swallowed around a tightness in his throat and didn't say anything for a moment, allowing them to sit there, breathing. "My mum phoned me at work today. Wanted to chat." Resting against him, Mitchell froze: he knew as well as George did the history that would bring up, filth from the river bed. It was good to have someone who knew him that well. "I need you right now, Mitchell. I need you clean. Healthy. I'm sorry."
Mitchell's hand sought his and their fingers tangled. Mitchell's palm was damp with sweat. "I'm clean," he promised, and George grunted his disbelief. "I'm going to be clean. Nothing's as important as you, alright?"
Tears prickled like needles at his eyes. "Alright," George said. His voice sounded like an echo.
*
Annie slipped home to pick up some clothes that evening, bringing George and Mitchell with her in case she ran into Owen. "I can't talk to him," she said. "Not yet."
Ever since they'd spotted the bruise on her face and put the story together for themselves, George was far from keen to make her talk to Owen at all. Mitchell had been ready to go and pick a fight, pale and sickly as he was.
Annie picked up her work clothes - pressed blouses and expensive black trousers - and was back in their office the next day, thrashing at the keyboard as she fought to catch up. Mitchell came along too, and George decided not to complain if he did a shaky job for a while. They were here, both of them. That counted for something.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, glad that this was a phone conference instead of a video one, George reminded himself that yelling at his fellow lawyers rarely helped him get his own way. "If you'll read that section again, I think you'll find that it's much more agreeable," he suggested, the words coming out on a sigh.
Three people started talking back at once, and George had to fight very hard not to hang up and walk out of the office. Tempting, but inappropriate. Any other day, he might have loved arguing with them over the slightest points, but this wasn't 'any other day'. It wasn't only Mitchell that was having difficulty focusing at work, but George's clients needed him to be on the ball at all times. Frowning, he tried to pull himself together.
When he managed to escape and leave his inner office behind, having accomplished very little despite spending hours on the phone, he found another argument going on outside: Lauren and Mitchell were sniping at each other over the top of Mitchell's desk, while Annie had buried herself fully in work as if that meant that she would become physically incapable of hearing them.
"You started this," Lauren hissed, unaware that George had slipped back through. "You dragged me in here with you - you don't get to back out now. It's not fair."
Standing in his open doorway, George stepped further inside the room to interrupt them. "'morning, Lauren," he said.
She looked up at him, the twee smirk-smile on her face saying everything that she wouldn't be able to express verbally. "George. Gilbert wants you to swing by his office sometime today. Something about Sykes being a twat again."
While George doubted if those were the exact words used, he nodded, able to sense that the pair of lawyers must have been having yet another bickering match that someone needed to mediate. "Thanks for letting me know," he said. "Next time, feel free to just call the office. No need to come trekking all the way up here to visit."
Her smile sharpened, small white teeth like the threat of a dog's bite. "Of course. Fancied stretching my legs. I thought Mitchell could do with seeing a friend anyway." Reaching across the table, she ruffled Mitchell's messy curls of hair and laughed, darting away, when he tried to hit her arm. "See you tonight!"
With a wink and a sweet, devious smile, she left the office behind with only silence in her wake.
"George," Mitchell said.
George held a hand in his direction, physically holding his words in the air. "Don't," he said, pleading. "Not today. Please. I've got- work. Work to do."
He tried to think of the clients that needed his attention and the situation between Gilbert and Sykes which would no doubt require his brightest brain power to resolve. Personal life was supposed to take a back-seat here at the firm: when imagining his high-flying future, he had never factoring caring for his drug-addled boyfriend into the equation. He had to do something, he realised, get help, but he didn't know where to turn.
"I won't be coming for lunch today. Go yourself." He retreated into his inner office, blinds closed and doors shut. Outside, he could hear the murmur of Annie and Mitchell talking to each other, but he couldn't make out the individual words. For the best, really. If it was about him, he didn't want to know, didn't want to hear it.
They went for lunch together and he heard the quiet open and close of the office door as they left. Behind his desk, George leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, in then out, and fought hard to assure himself that everything was alright- but he didn't know yet how he could stand to watch Mitchell tumble down this path again, watching him slip further and further away. Yet what choice did he have? Getting Mitchell clean would be wrestling the impossible until he wanted to do it, but George had to try; and simply turning his back and leaving Mitchell was too heart-breaking to consider. It couldn't happen.
At this point, every single option available to him was beginning to look equally disastrous. There was nothing left to do but muddle on through.
*
And muddle they did for the rest of the week, with George on edge and Mitchell jonseing and Annie angsting in their spare bedroom. Heartache was profitable for Burke and Edwards, as George brought work home to keep him occupied for the long hours in the evening when Mitchell disappeared into the night: he would go out to buy a paper and it would take him five hours before he made it back.
Sitting at the kitchen table with him as he worked in the early evening, Annie twitched and fidgeted, either impatient or bored.
"I'm going to go and see Owen," she announced.
Impatient or bored? More like mad.
George peeled off the reading glasses on his face and frowned at her. When she didn't immediately elaborate, he gave a high-pitched, "Hmm?" to prompt her.
"I know what you're thinking," Annie said. "But he's Owen. My Owen. And I should talk to him at least. Patch things up, maybe?"
"He hit you." They hadn't formally been told, but they were smart enough to work it out. "He doesn't deserve to patch things up with you."
Annie shook her head as he talked, and he could feel that she wasn't going to change her mind. Too stubborn. Too strong. "Seeing you and Mitchell, what you're willing to go through... It makes me think that we should give it a try."
The thought made George's stomach lurch. "Please, Annie. Don't do that: don't say that you're doing this because of me and Mitchell - that's an insult. We're not like that. We don't go around slapping each other with our..." He paused, flailed, hunted for words, "our filthy man-hands."
Annie pressed her lips very firmly together. She was trying not to laugh and George wanted to tear his hair out: "This isn't funny."
"I know. Yeah," Annie agreed. "Just you and your filthy man-hands. You're very cute."
"I don't want to be cute," George sighed. He placed his hands over the top of Annie's. His hands swamped hers like a wolf's paws. It wasn't like that with Mitchell. "You should be here. We want to look after you."
She didn't look up at him, bowing her head to stare at their hands. "You guys don't even know me. I'm your employee."
It's a cliché to lust after your secretary, George thought, but he batted it away as soon as it registered. He'd left home as a teenager after coming out as gay: he didn't think about Annie in that way. Wouldn't.
"I hope I'm your friend," George said, over-earnest in a way that managed to make him cringe.
Within his hands' embrace, Annie twisted until she captured his fingers in her grasp, squeezing. "Friends let friends do stupid things."
"Very stupid things."
"Or very smart things," Annie suggested, so George made sure to frown at her.
He wasn't going to get her to stay; he could see that now, as terrifying as it was. The most he could do was sit here and wait, blindly hoping that those he cared about would make it back to him in one safe piece.
*
The house was quiet when they were both gone, and he couldn't focus on his work: only the slow ticking of his watch, every second fading away and taking his sanity with it.
At two a.m., when he had fallen asleep open-mouthed on top of his papers, he sat up sharply when the front door opened. The kitchen light as still on, harsh on his sleepy eyes, but his ears were alert enough to be aware of shuffling footsteps and intoxicated giggles.
"Through here," he called, voice raised. Behind his glasses, he reached to wipe his sleep away with clumsy fingers.
The doorway darkened as Mitchell approached - and behind him George could hear the sound of someone going up the stairs. "Who's here, Mitchell?" he asked - and he sounded shrill, sounded like his mother from an entire decade ago. "You've brought someone back with you, haven't you?"
Mitchell's grin, wide, remained unaltered. Shaking his head with indulgent glee, he stepped into the kitchen, right in front of George, until he grasped George's face in his hands. His sticky palms pressed against George's cheeks. "I love you," he vowed, a whispered confession that George thought he already knew.
George's attempt to push his hands away from his face was ineffectual. "You've been using," he said.
Translated, that meant: don't touch me.
Mitchell didn't know or wouldn't listen. He leaned down, bending his knees into an uncomfortable squat, and pushed their mouths together. As uncomfortable as a first kiss, it was still almost enough to make George forget everything. He no longer knew why he was angry at Mitchell from the moment their lips touched.
It felt like the first time that Mitchell had kissed him, nerves burning with the knowledge that this was big, that everything might go wrong.
This time, George didn't give in.
This time, he pushed Mitchell away.
"There's someone in our house," he said, careful and strong in his pronunciation. Even so, he doubted how much Mitchell picked up on.
"We have to help her. Save her," Mitchell said. He kissed George's forehead sloppily. "You saved me."
If this was Mitchell 'saved', then George thought he had done a piss-poor job of it. "Who's upstairs?" he asked.
He didn't want to know. He had to ask.
"It doesn't matter," Mitchell said, making an aborted attempt to kiss him again. "Don't think about it."
George stood up, heading for the stairs despite Mitchell's warnings. Knowing who was up there without being told, he still had to see it for himself.
Half-way up the stairs, Mitchell caught him, bracketing him against the wall with a hand placed at each side of his head, strong and firm against the wall as if he was forming his own prison. When George was bigger and stronger and stockier, it didn't work as a threat: Mitchell nuzzled against his lips and George thought that, maybe, it wasn't supposed to be one.
"I love you," Mitchell whispered. "Please, George."
George wondered if he knew what he was pleading for. His pupils were blown and black - his skin was a pale clammy mess. He wasn't in his right mind; George had to wonder if he ever was. "It's her, isn't it?" he said.
"She needs our help," Mitchell whispered. "I got her into this. It's my fault she's hooked."
"No." George shook his head. She got herself into this. They had no obligation towards her; he had nothing to do with her. He dipped underneath the blockade of Mitchell's arm and darted up the stairs, into their bedroom.
She had taken her t-shirt off and sat curled on their bed in her black bra and skirt, her small breasts encased with cheap lace. Her short hair curled around her face, and as she caught sight of George she laughed, trying to hide it with her hand.
"Lauren," George said, clinging onto the door handle. It hurt his palm, but he didn't let go. His voice was firm, despite the slight tremble of emotion. "Get out. Now, please."
He didn't want to shout, wasn't sure if he could stand it without shattering into broken pieces of mirror, but he needed her gone.
"George," Mitchell said, standing behind him. He placed his hand on George's shoulder, burning like a brand; George could remember, not so long ago, being convinced that all of this was behind them. "I need to help her. I can't do it alone."
George was barely aware of shaking his head. "If you want to 'help' her, you've got to go too," he said as he watched Lauren scramble to find her clothes.
"George..."
"I mean it. I won't have this in my house."
He wanted Mitchell to stay; he wanted to believe that he was more important than this lifestyle and this poor, broken girl was to Mitchell, but as he felt Mitchell's kiss against his cheek he knew the truth. He flinched away.
"You deserve so much better than this," Mitchell said. Hidden behind a mountain of substance abuse, he still managed to sound clear and intelligent. "I'm sorry. For everything; I'm sorry."
George's throat ached in a tight, solid knot. He wanted to take back everything, but he wouldn't part his lips.
Mitchell's thumb brushed back and forth over his cheek, and only the wet way that it moved allowed George to know that he was crying. It didn't feel like this was goodbye for just one night. Knowing that George wouldn't allow him to kiss him, Mitchell must have opted to hug him instead, because George found himself pressed against Mitchell's chest. He rested his head against Mitchell's shoulder and breathed in through his nose, trying to remain steady and calm.
"Mitchell," Lauren said, standing with a hand on her hip, swaying slightly. "Can we go? I'm bored."
Mitchell's warmth remained pressed against him for a few moments longer - but then he was gone.
He was really gone.
*
Annie was at work the next day, shaky but happy; she was staying with Owen, moving out of George's house after being there for less than a week. Now it rumbled without her, without them, and George wasn't sure what he was supposed to.
Mitchell was gone - Lauren too. Nobody had work had heard from either of them, and it made George's head ache to hear the whispers chasing him through the halls: how they'd left together, walked out on him, cheating on him behind his back this whole time, the poor dear.
"George," Annie said as he entered the office post-lunch. Handling Mitchell's work as well as her own, she looked flustered. "There's someone in your office. She didn't have an appointment, but-"
"It's fine," George assured her with a rushed smile. He brushed crumbs from his shirt and didn't break stride.
Inside his private office, he caught sight of who was waiting for him and slowly closed the door behind himself. She was so much older than she had been when he first turned his back on her. Ten years older, in fact.
"Mum," he said. He walked behind his desk and tried to feel like a lawyer again, a grown-up professional instead of an angry teenage boy. It didn't work.
"George," she said. He had to close his eyes to the sight of her. "I wanted to see you again."
His jaw locked; speaking was too difficult.
"We miss you."
He wished it was Mitchell here to say this to him. Blood was supposed to be stronger than water. It was not that way in their family.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked, though he had to clear his throat first.
"Come back home with us, sweetheart," his mother said, never missing a beat. In her hands, she twisted a dry tissue - expecting tears. "Bristol is such a long way from us."
That was the point. 'Home' was a long way from here.
Yet, with Mitchell gone and their pink house empty, George was beginning to wonder if it might, finally, be time to return.
***
Part Three
ii. George
George stared at his cell phone and willed it not to ring. It was rather the opposite experience than the one he was used to.
His fingers tapped restlessly against his knee, before he shifted position altogether. There was nothing worth watching on the telly, no book capable of capturing his attention, and Mitchell was out - gone for the night. There was nothing to stop his thoughts from wandering 'home' as he sat in his empty house on his empty sofa with a cup of cold tea sitting on a coaster before him. There was nothing to stop him from thinking about -
There was a knock at the door.
On his feet in an instant, George gleefully headed in its direction. He slid free their collection of locks and opened the door with a smile, standing barefoot in his hallway. His visitor, however, made his face cloud instantly.
Standing on the doorstep, Herrick smiled with a flash of short, white teeth. "George, lovely to see you. You're looking well."
George couldn't school himself into any semblance of politeness, not for Herrick's sake. He hadn't seen him in years; had been convinced that Mitchell had put that section of his life behind him. "What do you want?"
"Is Mitchell in?" Herrick asked. He bounced on the balls of his feet. "I have a matter or two I'd like to discuss with him. Two old friends catching up - you know what it's like."
"You didn't do that the other night? You were out long enough." George frowned even more, deep furrows in his forehead, as he realised that he merely sounded jealous. That was not the idea. "Mitchell is out."
"Ah." Herrick remained firmly rooted to the door-step. "Any idea where I might find him?"
"Nope. No. None at all." George rather wished that he had no idea, actually. Knowing that Mitchell was hanging out with Lauren and her ilk was enough to make him queasy, even if Mitchell said he was still clean: he knew where this path ended. They'd been down it often enough. "He said he might not be back for a while. Weeks, probably. Years. Try back in 2015 or so, that'll work."
Eyebrows raised, he was trying very hard to look calm and innocent. His level of success was, perhaps, up for debate.
He was saved mercifully from continued debate when Herrick suddenly had to share space with someone else. Relief was held off, however, by the way his welcome guest was crying, mascara smeared over her face.
"Annie?" he asked, squeaking.
She hiccuped a sob at him in response and he brought her inside without a second thought, flapping his hand at Herrick to show him it was time to leave. Annie wasn't making sense, not a lick of it, and her hair seemed to have grown wilder in response to her pain.
He took her to their couch and let her lean against him, soaking his shirt with her warm tears. His arm around her shoulders didn't seem to help, an offer of tea gained no response, and when he offered to call Owen for her she cried even louder and made a half-hearted attempt at thwacking his head.
In the end, he did nothing practical: nothing concrete.
He sat with her and held onto her, letting her ride out whatever she was feeling. An explanation could come later: for now, steady friendship seemed to be what she most required.
*
"More tea?" George offered, nudging at the pot that sat between them.
With her face tear-stained and ashen, Annie shook her head. Her fingers were curled in front of her mouth as if she was struggling to hold something inside. George wasn't like Mitchell; he wasn't delicate enough to know how to push and nudge her without making her feel even worse.
Clearing her throat, Annie asked, "So where's Mitchell? Out at a wild PA party?" as if they were chit-chatting and there weren't tears on her face.
George frowned at his tea. "I'm not sure. We're quite open." He didn't try to monitor Mitchell's movements, and Mitchell never had to worry about what George was up to. "He'll be back eventually."
Mitchell would stumble in, drugged to the gills, if they were lucky. Grinning, he would kiss George and slobber on his neck as George dragged him to bed to make him sleep it off - in the morning, he would take George's hand and promise that it would never happen again, so earnest that George would almost believe him.
And that was the best case scenario. In the worst case, he would be getting a call from a nearby hospital.
It didn't bear thinking about.
"You still haven't told me what all of this is about," he eventually made himself say. It was difficult, but he had to at least try. "That's alright. You don't have to talk about it or anything, not if you don't want to. I'm here to listen if you do. And we have a guest bedroom - it's yours for as long as you want it."
She sniffed and rubbed her nose against her sleeve at the same time. "You're lovely," she said.
He wished he felt 'lovely' too.
After she had gone to bed, he stayed awake and fussed with the dishes, washing and drying them as he stared out of the window above the sink. The phone didn't ring. Mitchell's key didn't turn in the lock -
Until, long past midnight, George heard him stumbling in. He fell over Annie's shoes in the corridor and hushed them, laughing.
The slurred, gleeful tone of Mitchell's laughter told George everything that he really needed to know about where he'd been that night. It didn't matter, he told himself. They could talk about it later. He turned off the quietly murmuring television and walked through to the hallway.
"It's me, Mitchell," he said to calm him. Mitchell grinned, white-toothed like a shark. "Let's get you up to bed, hmm?"
"George." Mitchell didn't sound as if he had listened to a word that had just been said. He smiled in confusion. "You're here."
"I live here," George reminded him.
He reached out to hold onto his drugged boyfriend, slipping an arm around his waist. "You need to keep it down, alright? We have a guest. Annie. Can you keep quiet?"
"I can walk, George," Mitchell said, trying to shove his supportive grasp away. "I don't need your help."
Unwilling to get into a wrestling match, George let him go - only for Mitchell to ignore the stairs altogether and mosey through to the living room. He flopped onto the sofa, with his gangly legs sprawling in all directions. Dark curls of hair fell over his face, and in spite of himself George found it very difficult to stay angry with him.
He felt beside the couch, testing Mitchell's forehead with the palm of his hand. It was slightly warmer than he would have expected, but not nearly enough to alarm him. Mitchell's eyes had closed already. "Where were you?" George asked in a whisper.
He wasn't sure why he bothered. The answer was only going to make him mad again.
"Out," Mitchell mumbled. "Lauren."
And George was not going to be jealous. Lauren was a friend of Mitchell's, nothing more than that. There was a lot to worry about when it came to them, even if he tried to convince himself that Mitchell was drunk not high, but there was nothing sexual about it. That didn't stop the uncomfortable waves of knowledge in his mind, the quiet voice that whispered, Maybe...
"We'll talk about it in the morning," he suggested. He could nip briefly into the office and then come back to work from home: both Mitchell and Annie seemed like they could do with a late start, or even a day off completely. "Get some rest."
Mitchell's hand wrapped around his wrist to prevent him from leaving. "Stay," Mitchell urged.
Pleaded?
George's body twitched and he tried to nurse the dying embers of his anger: didn't work. Never did.
"I'll be here," he promised, which was the story of his life when it came to John Mitchell. "I'm not going anywhere."
He slept on the floor, propped up against the side of the couch, with Mitchell heavy, wheezing breaths whistling past his ear.
He wouldn't complain about it.
Not once.
(Or, at least, not seriously).
*
When he awoke the next morning, there was a steaming cup of tea beside him, incredibly milky. The near-snores by his ear told him that Mitchell was still firmly unconscious. Clutching the mug as if it was life-saving medicine, George gulped the hot tea as quickly as he could manage without scalding himself.
When he got to his feet, his limbs whined and creaked as if they didn't want to cooperate. He felt like a shirt that had been trampled underfoot for days: creased, dirty, and possibly beyond repair. If he strained his ears, he was sure he could hear the creaking whines of his joints as he waddled through to the kitchen.
Sitting at their kitchen table, Annie was settled with a cup of her own, some toast, and a newspaper. She looked as if this was her home, not his, and George didn't even resent her for it: she fit here, like a house mate instead of a guest. Before he could think it through, foggy with sleep, he said, "I wish you lived here," and punctuated it with a yawn.
Annie looked up, startled by the sound of his voice.
George was fairly startled by it too.
"I mean, I wish you had lived here before. As room-mates. I would have wanted to be flat-mates with you at university. That's what I'm saying." he scratched at the back of his neck. "I had a room-mate at uni who was an absolute pig."
Annie smiled, far more gracious than he would have managed to be in the face of a half-asleep mad-man. "I think you'd make a great room-mate too. You're very neat." She paused to take a bite of her breakfast, and George took a seat at the kitchen table, still clutching his tea. "How's Mitchell? I didn't hear him come in last night."
"He was quite late." George didn't know how to answer her question. With anyone else, he would have lied and said that he was hungover but fine, but when it came to Annie he wasn't sure if he was capable of it. "I don't know how he is. I don't know anything any more."
She drew her brows together: so concerned, so open.
"I shouldn't be going on about this. You've got stuff of your own to deal with." He didn't even know what 'stuff' that was, but for it to drive her here so late at night meant that it was bad. "Sorry."
"George," she scolded - and with his name alone she managed to make him feel both foolish and accepted at once. "Talk to me. If you want to, I'd want to listen."
"I left home when I was eighteen. Mitchell was the first friend I made in Bristol. Never looked back." He ran his finger up and down the mug handle, feeling the glaze beneath the pad of his finger-tip. "He saved me. I was working in a shitty diner to pay my way, and I got into trouble with some mates of his. I thought they were going to kill me. He stopped them."
He remembered it still, the blood on his face and the way the rain had poured. The water had clung to Mitchell's curls, weighing them down when George had taken him back to his flat: this dangerous stranger, face pale, body half-starved. George had cooked a meal for him, his personal 'thank you', and if Mitchell had fucked him into the mattress afterwards then no one outside of that small flat had to know.
Annie's words jolted him out of his memories. "What happened then?"
"Nothing much. I saw him a couple of times after that, but we lost touch." He had lost touch, accidentally-on-purpose, after seeing Mitchell high and with another bloke. He didn't want to air any more of their dirty laundry than he had to. "Ran into him again after I graduated, when I was visiting a friend in hospital. I couldn't leave him there, once I saw. I- I wouldn't."
After that, the story ended (began, perhaps - maybe they started a new one, their own sequel) several months later, with Mitchell warm and safe in his bed. Annie wouldn't need all the details. The footnotes were only interesting to them.
"Now it's all going wrong again and I don't know how to help. I never know. I just make it worse."
He fell quiet when he felt warmth wrap around his hand, skin against his own. Looking down, he could see Annie's hand clinging to his palm. Next to his dustbin lid hands, she looked tiny.
"God, your skin's warm," Annie commented. "You're like fire or something."
"Tea," George said with a watery smile, nodding to the tea-cup that he had been nursing between his hands only moments ago.
Annie patted the top of his hand. "You and Mitchell are lovely," she said. "I know I don't know anything, not really, but you're brilliant. Whatever's wrong, you'll work it out."
Still unsure whether or not he believed her, George nodded nonetheless. Annie, as sad as she felt right now, had hope for them. That meant something.
George had to believe that it meant something.
*
He left the pair of them at home in their cosy pink house while he popped into the office to keep things ticking over. "Is Lauren in today?" he asked at the front desk.
No one knew where she was. No surprise there.
Minus two assistants, he soon discovered how difficult it was to run his office by himself, darting around to try to find files and answer phones and type up vital letters all at once: everything took five times longer without a helping hand or two.
When the phone went off again, he answered it in a fluster. "Hello, George? Sands. I'm George Sands. This is my office." He really needed to learn the spiel that Mitchell answered with. "How can I help?"
"George?" asked a kindly-sounding woman.
Instantly, George's blood ran cold.
He clutched the telephone as tightly as he could. Swallowing, his throat was sandpaper. "Mum," he said, breathless and light-headed. This was why he'd wanted to avoid this phone call - not because of her, but because of this forgetful reaction.
"This is - I work here, Mum. You can't call me." Maybe this was a professional matter and she needed a lawyer. If that was the case, he would point her in another, more neutral direction.
"You wouldn't pick up anywhere else," she said. It was a fair point. "I just want to talk to you."
George transferred the phone to his other ear. "Does Dad know you're phoning me?" he asked, tight and controlled.
"He'd understand."
"That's a 'no', then." Figured. George would never have expected anything more, not even after all these years had passed. He'd left for a reason, hadn't he? "I've got to go."
"George, please. We're sorry. We want to make it right."
Closing his eyes, George didn't answer. He needed time to focus on himself and on nothing more than the gentle lilt of his own breath. "I've got a busy day," he said, before he placed the phone down.
He didn't give her time to say goodbye.
His hand lingered on the handset for a moment after he had hung up, while his heart pounded with pointless adrenaline. The afternoon pulsed with a sense of unreality.
Meetings waited for him, paperwork was required, and Annie and Mitchell both needed him to be at home. There was no time to mope and moan: he had to keep moving, had to keep going - but, for this one second, he stopped. He thought. And he grieved.
*
When he came home, there was dinner on the table and tea in the pot. He placed his keys into the bowl near the door and wandered through the warm rooms of his home, so tired and glad that he had managed to leave that working day behind: it had absorbed more time than he had hoped it would.
Reaching towards his neck, he pulled his tie loose and unbuttoned a few poles on his shirt. As he walked into the living room, he shed his suit-jacket, slowly getting rid of the office professional. Annie was curled up on the sofa, wearing one of his old shirts with the sleeves rolled up over her elbows.
She sniffed at the sight of him, her eyes red and damp. "Mitchell's upstairs," she said, cutting him off with a raise of her hand as he tried to ask if she was okay. "He's pretty hung-over. Probably wants a cuddle."
It made her sniffle again, but she flapped her hand even more at him when he tried to take a step towards her. Leaving her alone, he walked up the stairs; his relief at being home from work was fading with every creaking steps. He wasn't supposed to feel this way upon going to see his partner, was he?
Entering their bedroom felt like stepping into a bear's lair, somewhere dark and musty. The thick curtains were tightly drawn and he expected to see skeletons of past meals on the floor like an animal's trophies. Lumps on the bed revealed Mitchell's body underneath the blanket in peaks and troughs. He carefully picked his way through the room, stepping around and over the junk on their floor. He tidied as frequently as he could, but Mitchell was a chaotic whirlwind.
"Mitchell?" he murmured, sitting down at the edge of the bed. The mountain of covers shifted, but no messy head of curls appeared yet. "Mitchell? How are you feeling?"
Like a hedgehog or a turtle that had been on a bender, Mitchell poked his head out from the mound. "I'm dying," he announced.
George rolled his eyes and tossed his fingers through Mitchell's hair. "You're not dying," he said, more affectionate than he should have been. Mitchell shuffled and nuzzled until his head rested on George's thigh, a weight that proved he was still there: George still had him, for however long that might last. "Drinking last night?"
The answer was probably 'yes and more', but Mitchell didn't say it. George was grateful for that, though he didn't know why; it allowed him to pretend this break-down wasn't happening, to live in denial for a little while longer. Cowardly, he knew. Mitchell snuggled further into George's lap, his face buried against the strong muscles of George's leg. "Annie brought me tea," he said. "Lots of it."
"She does that, yes."
"It was nice. We should keep her."
Smiling, George wrapped one of Mitchell's black curls around his forefinger. "Doesn't she get a say in the matter?"
Mitchell shook his head, before he sighed and rested heavily against George's thigh. "My head's bloody aching," he admitted.
George swallowed around a tightness in his throat and didn't say anything for a moment, allowing them to sit there, breathing. "My mum phoned me at work today. Wanted to chat." Resting against him, Mitchell froze: he knew as well as George did the history that would bring up, filth from the river bed. It was good to have someone who knew him that well. "I need you right now, Mitchell. I need you clean. Healthy. I'm sorry."
Mitchell's hand sought his and their fingers tangled. Mitchell's palm was damp with sweat. "I'm clean," he promised, and George grunted his disbelief. "I'm going to be clean. Nothing's as important as you, alright?"
Tears prickled like needles at his eyes. "Alright," George said. His voice sounded like an echo.
*
Annie slipped home to pick up some clothes that evening, bringing George and Mitchell with her in case she ran into Owen. "I can't talk to him," she said. "Not yet."
Ever since they'd spotted the bruise on her face and put the story together for themselves, George was far from keen to make her talk to Owen at all. Mitchell had been ready to go and pick a fight, pale and sickly as he was.
Annie picked up her work clothes - pressed blouses and expensive black trousers - and was back in their office the next day, thrashing at the keyboard as she fought to catch up. Mitchell came along too, and George decided not to complain if he did a shaky job for a while. They were here, both of them. That counted for something.
Pinching the bridge of his nose, glad that this was a phone conference instead of a video one, George reminded himself that yelling at his fellow lawyers rarely helped him get his own way. "If you'll read that section again, I think you'll find that it's much more agreeable," he suggested, the words coming out on a sigh.
Three people started talking back at once, and George had to fight very hard not to hang up and walk out of the office. Tempting, but inappropriate. Any other day, he might have loved arguing with them over the slightest points, but this wasn't 'any other day'. It wasn't only Mitchell that was having difficulty focusing at work, but George's clients needed him to be on the ball at all times. Frowning, he tried to pull himself together.
When he managed to escape and leave his inner office behind, having accomplished very little despite spending hours on the phone, he found another argument going on outside: Lauren and Mitchell were sniping at each other over the top of Mitchell's desk, while Annie had buried herself fully in work as if that meant that she would become physically incapable of hearing them.
"You started this," Lauren hissed, unaware that George had slipped back through. "You dragged me in here with you - you don't get to back out now. It's not fair."
Standing in his open doorway, George stepped further inside the room to interrupt them. "'morning, Lauren," he said.
She looked up at him, the twee smirk-smile on her face saying everything that she wouldn't be able to express verbally. "George. Gilbert wants you to swing by his office sometime today. Something about Sykes being a twat again."
While George doubted if those were the exact words used, he nodded, able to sense that the pair of lawyers must have been having yet another bickering match that someone needed to mediate. "Thanks for letting me know," he said. "Next time, feel free to just call the office. No need to come trekking all the way up here to visit."
Her smile sharpened, small white teeth like the threat of a dog's bite. "Of course. Fancied stretching my legs. I thought Mitchell could do with seeing a friend anyway." Reaching across the table, she ruffled Mitchell's messy curls of hair and laughed, darting away, when he tried to hit her arm. "See you tonight!"
With a wink and a sweet, devious smile, she left the office behind with only silence in her wake.
"George," Mitchell said.
George held a hand in his direction, physically holding his words in the air. "Don't," he said, pleading. "Not today. Please. I've got- work. Work to do."
He tried to think of the clients that needed his attention and the situation between Gilbert and Sykes which would no doubt require his brightest brain power to resolve. Personal life was supposed to take a back-seat here at the firm: when imagining his high-flying future, he had never factoring caring for his drug-addled boyfriend into the equation. He had to do something, he realised, get help, but he didn't know where to turn.
"I won't be coming for lunch today. Go yourself." He retreated into his inner office, blinds closed and doors shut. Outside, he could hear the murmur of Annie and Mitchell talking to each other, but he couldn't make out the individual words. For the best, really. If it was about him, he didn't want to know, didn't want to hear it.
They went for lunch together and he heard the quiet open and close of the office door as they left. Behind his desk, George leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, in then out, and fought hard to assure himself that everything was alright- but he didn't know yet how he could stand to watch Mitchell tumble down this path again, watching him slip further and further away. Yet what choice did he have? Getting Mitchell clean would be wrestling the impossible until he wanted to do it, but George had to try; and simply turning his back and leaving Mitchell was too heart-breaking to consider. It couldn't happen.
At this point, every single option available to him was beginning to look equally disastrous. There was nothing left to do but muddle on through.
*
And muddle they did for the rest of the week, with George on edge and Mitchell jonseing and Annie angsting in their spare bedroom. Heartache was profitable for Burke and Edwards, as George brought work home to keep him occupied for the long hours in the evening when Mitchell disappeared into the night: he would go out to buy a paper and it would take him five hours before he made it back.
Sitting at the kitchen table with him as he worked in the early evening, Annie twitched and fidgeted, either impatient or bored.
"I'm going to go and see Owen," she announced.
Impatient or bored? More like mad.
George peeled off the reading glasses on his face and frowned at her. When she didn't immediately elaborate, he gave a high-pitched, "Hmm?" to prompt her.
"I know what you're thinking," Annie said. "But he's Owen. My Owen. And I should talk to him at least. Patch things up, maybe?"
"He hit you." They hadn't formally been told, but they were smart enough to work it out. "He doesn't deserve to patch things up with you."
Annie shook her head as he talked, and he could feel that she wasn't going to change her mind. Too stubborn. Too strong. "Seeing you and Mitchell, what you're willing to go through... It makes me think that we should give it a try."
The thought made George's stomach lurch. "Please, Annie. Don't do that: don't say that you're doing this because of me and Mitchell - that's an insult. We're not like that. We don't go around slapping each other with our..." He paused, flailed, hunted for words, "our filthy man-hands."
Annie pressed her lips very firmly together. She was trying not to laugh and George wanted to tear his hair out: "This isn't funny."
"I know. Yeah," Annie agreed. "Just you and your filthy man-hands. You're very cute."
"I don't want to be cute," George sighed. He placed his hands over the top of Annie's. His hands swamped hers like a wolf's paws. It wasn't like that with Mitchell. "You should be here. We want to look after you."
She didn't look up at him, bowing her head to stare at their hands. "You guys don't even know me. I'm your employee."
It's a cliché to lust after your secretary, George thought, but he batted it away as soon as it registered. He'd left home as a teenager after coming out as gay: he didn't think about Annie in that way. Wouldn't.
"I hope I'm your friend," George said, over-earnest in a way that managed to make him cringe.
Within his hands' embrace, Annie twisted until she captured his fingers in her grasp, squeezing. "Friends let friends do stupid things."
"Very stupid things."
"Or very smart things," Annie suggested, so George made sure to frown at her.
He wasn't going to get her to stay; he could see that now, as terrifying as it was. The most he could do was sit here and wait, blindly hoping that those he cared about would make it back to him in one safe piece.
*
The house was quiet when they were both gone, and he couldn't focus on his work: only the slow ticking of his watch, every second fading away and taking his sanity with it.
At two a.m., when he had fallen asleep open-mouthed on top of his papers, he sat up sharply when the front door opened. The kitchen light as still on, harsh on his sleepy eyes, but his ears were alert enough to be aware of shuffling footsteps and intoxicated giggles.
"Through here," he called, voice raised. Behind his glasses, he reached to wipe his sleep away with clumsy fingers.
The doorway darkened as Mitchell approached - and behind him George could hear the sound of someone going up the stairs. "Who's here, Mitchell?" he asked - and he sounded shrill, sounded like his mother from an entire decade ago. "You've brought someone back with you, haven't you?"
Mitchell's grin, wide, remained unaltered. Shaking his head with indulgent glee, he stepped into the kitchen, right in front of George, until he grasped George's face in his hands. His sticky palms pressed against George's cheeks. "I love you," he vowed, a whispered confession that George thought he already knew.
George's attempt to push his hands away from his face was ineffectual. "You've been using," he said.
Translated, that meant: don't touch me.
Mitchell didn't know or wouldn't listen. He leaned down, bending his knees into an uncomfortable squat, and pushed their mouths together. As uncomfortable as a first kiss, it was still almost enough to make George forget everything. He no longer knew why he was angry at Mitchell from the moment their lips touched.
It felt like the first time that Mitchell had kissed him, nerves burning with the knowledge that this was big, that everything might go wrong.
This time, George didn't give in.
This time, he pushed Mitchell away.
"There's someone in our house," he said, careful and strong in his pronunciation. Even so, he doubted how much Mitchell picked up on.
"We have to help her. Save her," Mitchell said. He kissed George's forehead sloppily. "You saved me."
If this was Mitchell 'saved', then George thought he had done a piss-poor job of it. "Who's upstairs?" he asked.
He didn't want to know. He had to ask.
"It doesn't matter," Mitchell said, making an aborted attempt to kiss him again. "Don't think about it."
George stood up, heading for the stairs despite Mitchell's warnings. Knowing who was up there without being told, he still had to see it for himself.
Half-way up the stairs, Mitchell caught him, bracketing him against the wall with a hand placed at each side of his head, strong and firm against the wall as if he was forming his own prison. When George was bigger and stronger and stockier, it didn't work as a threat: Mitchell nuzzled against his lips and George thought that, maybe, it wasn't supposed to be one.
"I love you," Mitchell whispered. "Please, George."
George wondered if he knew what he was pleading for. His pupils were blown and black - his skin was a pale clammy mess. He wasn't in his right mind; George had to wonder if he ever was. "It's her, isn't it?" he said.
"She needs our help," Mitchell whispered. "I got her into this. It's my fault she's hooked."
"No." George shook his head. She got herself into this. They had no obligation towards her; he had nothing to do with her. He dipped underneath the blockade of Mitchell's arm and darted up the stairs, into their bedroom.
She had taken her t-shirt off and sat curled on their bed in her black bra and skirt, her small breasts encased with cheap lace. Her short hair curled around her face, and as she caught sight of George she laughed, trying to hide it with her hand.
"Lauren," George said, clinging onto the door handle. It hurt his palm, but he didn't let go. His voice was firm, despite the slight tremble of emotion. "Get out. Now, please."
He didn't want to shout, wasn't sure if he could stand it without shattering into broken pieces of mirror, but he needed her gone.
"George," Mitchell said, standing behind him. He placed his hand on George's shoulder, burning like a brand; George could remember, not so long ago, being convinced that all of this was behind them. "I need to help her. I can't do it alone."
George was barely aware of shaking his head. "If you want to 'help' her, you've got to go too," he said as he watched Lauren scramble to find her clothes.
"George..."
"I mean it. I won't have this in my house."
He wanted Mitchell to stay; he wanted to believe that he was more important than this lifestyle and this poor, broken girl was to Mitchell, but as he felt Mitchell's kiss against his cheek he knew the truth. He flinched away.
"You deserve so much better than this," Mitchell said. Hidden behind a mountain of substance abuse, he still managed to sound clear and intelligent. "I'm sorry. For everything; I'm sorry."
George's throat ached in a tight, solid knot. He wanted to take back everything, but he wouldn't part his lips.
Mitchell's thumb brushed back and forth over his cheek, and only the wet way that it moved allowed George to know that he was crying. It didn't feel like this was goodbye for just one night. Knowing that George wouldn't allow him to kiss him, Mitchell must have opted to hug him instead, because George found himself pressed against Mitchell's chest. He rested his head against Mitchell's shoulder and breathed in through his nose, trying to remain steady and calm.
"Mitchell," Lauren said, standing with a hand on her hip, swaying slightly. "Can we go? I'm bored."
Mitchell's warmth remained pressed against him for a few moments longer - but then he was gone.
He was really gone.
*
Annie was at work the next day, shaky but happy; she was staying with Owen, moving out of George's house after being there for less than a week. Now it rumbled without her, without them, and George wasn't sure what he was supposed to.
Mitchell was gone - Lauren too. Nobody had work had heard from either of them, and it made George's head ache to hear the whispers chasing him through the halls: how they'd left together, walked out on him, cheating on him behind his back this whole time, the poor dear.
"George," Annie said as he entered the office post-lunch. Handling Mitchell's work as well as her own, she looked flustered. "There's someone in your office. She didn't have an appointment, but-"
"It's fine," George assured her with a rushed smile. He brushed crumbs from his shirt and didn't break stride.
Inside his private office, he caught sight of who was waiting for him and slowly closed the door behind himself. She was so much older than she had been when he first turned his back on her. Ten years older, in fact.
"Mum," he said. He walked behind his desk and tried to feel like a lawyer again, a grown-up professional instead of an angry teenage boy. It didn't work.
"George," she said. He had to close his eyes to the sight of her. "I wanted to see you again."
His jaw locked; speaking was too difficult.
"We miss you."
He wished it was Mitchell here to say this to him. Blood was supposed to be stronger than water. It was not that way in their family.
"What do you want me to say?" he asked, though he had to clear his throat first.
"Come back home with us, sweetheart," his mother said, never missing a beat. In her hands, she twisted a dry tissue - expecting tears. "Bristol is such a long way from us."
That was the point. 'Home' was a long way from here.
Yet, with Mitchell gone and their pink house empty, George was beginning to wonder if it might, finally, be time to return.
***
Part Three