I stepped into the shade of the house, fanning myself with the magazine I'd been reading, and reached for the glass of ice cold water sitting on the table. I took a deep swig of the water, refreshing myself, and ran a hand through my messy hair, cringing when I realised how sweaty my forehead was. Deciding to go for a quick shower, I jogged up the stairs. However, before I entered my own room, I noticed that Matthew's door was completely shut. He hadn't been downstairs with the rest of us, and there were no noises coming from his room. For some reason, I felt an eerie sense of foreboding, and took it upon myself to check up on my friend.

It only occurred to me as I was pushing open the door that Matt might have been asleep and that I'd had nothing to worry about, but by that point, my concern was proven true. He was sat on the bed, his arms wrapped around his legs, his shoulders hunched over and his chin resting on his knees. His hair, longer now, since he was too lazy to go to the barber's, flopped into his unusually lifeless eyes and his face seemed devoid of all emotion. I felt my breath catch with shock.

"Matt?" I asked softly. "You okay, mate?" As if he'd just noticed me for the first time, his head swivelled around to where I was standing in the corner of the plain room.

"Yeah, I guess," he mumbled, facing straight ahead again and staring into the distance.

"You want a drink or something? We were playing tennis, you could come and join us." He shook his head and I sighed. Always stubborn. "Well, fine. You can sit up here feeling sorry for yourself, all alone. I'm going now, goodbye, Matt." I turned away from him, reaching out for the door handle and desperately hoping he would call me back. I didn't want to leave him, but I couldn't go back on what I'd said.

"Wait," Matt croaked. "Dom, please. Come here." Letting my hand fall from the brass, I sat on the edge of the bed beside him, feeling the mattress dip under my weight. Getting a closer look at him, I could see that his eyes had bags under them and he seemed skinnier than he had been recently, almost as small as when we'd first met so many years ago. "Dom, I'm scared." His voice was small; I wouldn't have been able to pick it out if I didn't know him so well.

"Of what? What's the matter, Matt?" He shook his head again, blocking me out. "Come on, I'm your best mate. You can tell me."

"Look at us." His hand gestured between the two of us and then fell limp by his side. "Just come off tour. Our seventh tour. I'm exhausted, Dom. I don't know how you guys can be out there playing tennis when I feel like I could sleep for years."

"You're just worn out. You know that you do more than us. Interviews and court cases and God knows what else."

"No, it's not that. I was always able to cope with it before. It's only recently...I just...y'know what I mean?" I shook my head, although I had a faint idea where he was heading with this. "I'm growing old, Dominic. We're getting old."

"Matt," I sighed. "You're not even forty yet."

"But I will be next year! I'll be forty years old. There's a difference between being thirty-nine and forty. Forty is the age when people say you are considered old. I mean, look-" He reached up a ran a hand through his dark brown hair, showing me a few locks. "Grey hairs! I've got grey hairs, Dom! You can't be a rockstar when you've got grey hair!" I placed what I hoped was a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Brian May's still a rockstar."

"But he's Brian May," Matt muttered. "He can do anything. Us, we use massive stage shows and dancing in our concerts. What happens when I'm too old to move like that? What happens when I get arthritis and can't play music anymore?" His speech sped up, even faster than his usual pace, as his anxiety broke through.

"Matt, you're getting way too worked up over this. That'll be ages away! We've still got now to enjoy."

"I just think that, maybe...maybe people are getting tired of me, you know? They'll be looking at me and saying, 'What's that pretentious idiot doing prancing around in those flashy suits? Doesn't he realise how old he is?'" I laughed quietly but had nothing else to say, no way of comforting him. There often wasn't a way when he got into moods like this.

For a couple of minutes, silence settled upon the room, my hand still resting on Matt's shoulder as he mused over his troubles.

"Maybe," his voice broke through the silence, "we shouldn't do the band thing anymore." I felt my heart skip a beat.

"What?" I questioned, disbelief colouring my voice.

"Muse. Not do it. Or at least, I shouldn't do it. I look like an idiot. Muse needs somebody younger, someone with more energy. It always was about the energy. I don't think I have that anymore." He hung his head, his shoulders dropping impossibly further.

"Don't you even say that! Matt, we can't have somebody else replace you! Muse wouldn't be Muse without you. Everything would change."

"Change is good. Haven't you listened to me all this time?" I shook my head violently.

"You're an idiot, you know that? After all this time, you want to end the band? Even when...even when my f-father died, we still didn't end the band then. What makes you think we're going to do it now just because you're feeling a little insecure. It's not all about you, you know!"

"I didn't say that at all!" he yelled, his icy blue eyes pinning me down. He always was able to make me squirm uncomfortably without saying a word, but the chills running down my back weren't just from the harsh look. "You're making this about something else, Dominic! I was saying that maybe I should leave the band because you guys deserve better. I was trying to be selfless. You don't want to be lugging me around anymore. It's for the best."

"No! It's not for the best." I took my hand away from his shoulder, standing up swiftly. "How could you even think that?" My voice dropped to a whisper. "How could you leave us like that, Matt? Surely you wouldn't do that. To us. To Chris. To me." Matt squeezed his eyes shut tight, and when he reopened them, they were brimming with tears.

"I'm sorry, Dom," he choked out, his voice breaking, salty water spilling over the edge and silently rolling down his cheek. "I'm sorry that I'm growing old. I'm sorry I'm not good enough for the band anymore. I tried, I really did. I just...I can't do it." He shook his head, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment as more tears dripped onto the duvet. I sat down next to him again and wrapped his small figure up in my arms, desperate to comfort him in the only way I knew possible. His long fingers wound into my shirt and he pressed his head against my chest. With one of my arms holding him close, the other hand naturally fell to stroke his soft hair.

"Matt, I don't believe you. How can you say you're not good enough? You saw the reception the album got. You saw how many people came to our gigs, how many fans we met telling us that we saved their lives. Did you forget all that?" He burrowed his face in the crook between my neck and my shoulder.

"Not all the reception was good," he answered, his reply a little muffled.

"Is that what this is about? The criticism?" I rubbed his back as his shoulders shook.

"No! No, I promise it isn't, Dom. I'm stronger than that. It's just...I can see it in people's eyes. It's the mix of pity and...d-disgust. I'm not a proper rockstar anymore."

"Not a pwoper wockstar?" I teased. "I think you're a pwoper rockstar."

"Shut up." Even as he said it, I felt him smile against my skin, his fingers tightening.

"Listen to me, Matt. Don't believe any of the bad stuff. You're not outdated, you're not boring or not good enough for the band. You're perfect, no matter what anybody else says. Who cares if they don't like the falsetto in that song? They're probably just jealous that they can't do it like you can. You've got to look on the positive side of things, believe the fans that love you, believe me."

Every word I said was true. Matt, no matter what image he tried to portray, was a fragile creature. I'd learned his ways early and I'd also learned to express my feelings to him without expecting the same in return. Sure, he would always comfort me when I needed him, but he was much more locked-up about his feelings than I was. I often found myself wishing I knew how he felt, wondering what he could possibly be thinking in that crazy mind of his.

"You always were the optimist," Matt chuckled softly. He pulled back, loosening his grip and training his sharp eyes on me. I could see the way his cheeks flushed, the tracks the tears had made shining on his pale skin, and I wiped at them gently. He grabbed my hand and locked our fingers together.

"I'm sorry, Dom," he apologised, the full meaning behind it hidden in his eyes. I shrugged.

"Don't worry about it," I told him truthfully. "I see where you're coming from, honestly, I do. But I just don't feel that you need to worry about that any time soon. There's still so much you have left to give." Matt smiled.

"I guess."

"And besides, you're way too immature to do any serious growing up in the near future!" He gaped and hit me around the head with the pillow lying beside him. I threw my head back and laughed heartily, Matt's high-pitched giggles echoing around the room. "C'mon, I'm thirsty again. We should go get a drink." He nodded, letting himself be pulled up by me.

"Thanks, Dom," he told me softly. "For being here for me and stuff."

"That's what friends are for, right?" Matt nodded and Dom winked at him playfully, the pair heading back downstairs with their hands still linked.