Things were so messed up now.

He knew that they hadn't always been like this. That he hadn't always been like this.

A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who he was. Of who he used to be.

He wasn't the same—hadn't been for a long time—and he didn't know who was the one to blame anymore. Sometimes he thought it was himself, sometimes it was him, and sometimes they were both.

It didn't matter, anyway. The damage had already been done, and now he was the only one there to pick up the pieces and, like a puzzle—a really, really complex and messed up puzzle—try to figure out how to put them back together. And it wasn't the first time.

Oh, things were really messed up right now.

If he had to say when it had started, he honestly wouldn't know what to say. Because it had been there for a long time, growing inside them until it became a burden, and later, it'd be what tore them apart. Though what he could say was when he realized he had this feeling inside his gut, telling him something else was going on, and hey, brain, you useless thing, listen up. I'm the heart, nice to meet you, and I'm telling you: If you don't do something quick about him, I don't know if I'll be able to carry on.

The memory was still so vivid it seemed like it was only yesterday.

December 11th, 2011.

Coldest day of the last month of the year. And also, the one when it all started. The begging of an end, if you'd like to think about it that way.

It was so close to Christmas. Oh, he used to love Christmas so much. He always decorated the whole house, did the shopping early, drank eggnog and wore this kelly green sweater with reindeers all over it. It used to be his favourite sweater, too.

But that's another part of the story, and we're getting ahead.

Let's focus back on December 11th.

Let's focus on him, on his kelly green sweater, walking down the streets of London with a great amount of bags on both of his hands. And a particularly big one, red with sprinkles over it and a blue bow, was for him. He always got him the biggest of presents, and this Christmas wouldn't be any different.

Or so he though, because right then, he saw him on the other side of the street, and he was about to wave at him and run to his side, when he saw someone was already there.

This someone was a girl, with red, curly hair and a smile as bright as the sun. And she was holding his hand, and he didn't seem to mind. Actually, he seemed to enjoy it, he noticed, as his hand squeezed hers tighter and his smile expanded across his face.

His stomach fell, as so did his heart, and he had no idea why. As he kept walking, staring with brown eyes wide open and fixed on their hands, he didn't know why he felt like this. Like there was a knot in his throat and someone was tightening it with each passing second. And his hands were shaking that tiny bit, and his mouth was still open in shock, all of this he did unconsciously.

Jealousy? Impossible. Maybe it was the cold that made his throat feel like that, maybe the weight of the bags was making his hands tremble, but this wasn't jealousy.

He kept walking, and only looked behind him once.

They were out of his sight in a second, mixing with the crowd of people walking along them.

He got to their apartment a few hours later. One of his cheeks was tinted red, but it seemed more like a kiss mark that had been wiped off than the natural blush of his face.

Still, he tried to convince himself it was just blush.

The knot in his throat came back, as so did the strange—not funny, just annoying and uncomfortable and plain strange—feeling on his stomach.

"I met this awesome girl today, you have to meet her, she's just… flawless."

Not jealousy, not jealousy, not—

"Beautiful. In every sense of the word."

He was so not jealous.

"I've never met someone so amazing. She's dazzling, man. Perfect."

Knot. Stomach. Jealousy.

He was fucked.

In December 11th, 2011, the coldest day of the last month of the year, as he saw him with her and heard him talk about her all day, what he discovered was—you guessed it—love.

This was only the begging of a complicated, loving, messed up, life—destroying story.