Into Oblivion.

“Fine, be like that!” Aled yells down the phone.

“Be like what?” Alex screams in response, glaring across the room at nothing in particular.

“You know what! You know exactly what!”

“No I don’t!”

“Don’t be a prick about this, Alex.”

“I’m not!”

“Yes, you fucking well are!” Aled retorts, and Alex swears it sounds like he’s crying.

“For God’s sake, Aled, it’s hard enough fighting with you when we’re together, but we’re miles apart right now! Can we just let it drop?”

“Don’t tell me things I already know! And no, we can’t! We started, so we’ll finish.”

“I can’t deal with this today, Aled!” Alex replies desperately, tugging on his hair.

“Oh, so you can’t deal with me today? Oh, that’s just fine.”

“No! I never said that!”

“Whatever.”

Aled exits the call and immediately regrets it, throwing his cell phone across the room, where it crashes into the wall and remains sat on the floor with its battery popped out. He tugs on his barely curling hair and blinks back tears.

Shay pushes open the door to tell him that dinner’s ready, but freezes when he sees Aled’s tears.

“Shit, what happened?” Shay asks softly, sitting down beside Aled and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Aled says quietly, balling up his hands in his cardigan sleeves.

“Alright.” Shay says, pulling Aled tighter into a hug.

“Band practice is at eight, if you’re gonna come.” Shay says after a few moments of silence. Aled nods against his shoulder.

Alex, on the other hand, is currently curled up in a ball on the sofa, crying and just gently petting his dog’s head. When Jack comes back with a few pizza boxes and sees his best friend crying, he frowns and puts the boxes down, sitting down beside Alex and pulling him up into a hug.

“We had a fight. A proper fight. With yelling and everything.” Alex says sadly, his voice watery. Jack sighs, hugging Alex tight and letting the elder cry into his shoulder.

Aled shows up to band practice fifteen minutes late, wearing a beanie that he’s never really worn outside the house before. Phil cocks his head at the vocalist from behind his drums, and Iain’s about to ask him if it’s Alex’s, but Shay cuts him off with a glare before he gets chance. Joel, on the other hand, walks over to Aled and gives him a quick, awkward hug over his guitar.

“Do you want to do Matters At All, then?” Phil suggests, and Aled nods a little, taking up his place behind the microphone.

When Aled gets like this, it’s kind of difficult to watch, so Phil keeps his eyes downcast on his drums, and Iain and Joel are fully engrossed in their guitars, even though they don’t have to be. Shay’s just very deliberately not looking at the older vocalist.

It’s almost as if he’s forcing himself not to cry. Which, really, he kind of is.

It’s not long before he does start crying. They stop halfway through For Better Or Hearse because he’s crying that much. Joel and Shay try to calm him while Iain pulls out his phone and calls Jack.

“What happened?” He demands as soon as the younger picks up.

“Fight.” Jack replies with a quiet sigh, shifting slightly and moving out of the room so he doesn’t wake Alex.

“How bad?”

“According to Alex, there was ‘yelling and everything.’”

Jack can practically hear Iain wince, and then he sighs a little.

“That would explain why Aled’s crying.”

Jack bites his lip. He might not know Aled that well, but he knows him well enough to know that he’s not the type to cry over nothing.

“So you think it was really bad, then?”

“To be honest, yes. I’ve never seen Aled this upset.”

“I’ll get Alex to call him when he wakes up, then.” Jack decides, and Iain makes a noise of agreement.

“And if he doesn’t, I’ll call Aled for him and make him talk to him.” Jack finishes.

“Yeah, that should work. Give us fifteen minutes or so for Aled to calm down, though. I think they’d just fight more if he called sooner.” Iain replies, watching the rest of his band all hug Aled together.

“Okay. I’ll see you soon.” Jack finishes, starting to walk back into the sitting room where Alex was sleeping.

“Yeah. See you.” Iain replies, hanging up. Jack pinches the bridge of his nose and pushes open the door to the sitting room, where he finds Alex sitting bolt upright. The elder’s eyes follow him as he moves to stand in front of him.

“Call him.” Jack instructs, holding out his phone to him. Alex shakes his head.

“Alex. Call him.” Jack repeats, a little more sternly this time. Alex shakes his head again, his eyes trained on the floor.

“He won’t pick up, Jack. It’d be pointless. Who were you talking to, anyway?” Alex replies, trying desperately to change the subject.

“Iain. He called to ask me if I knew what was wrong with Aled, because he just started crying at band practice.”

“Oh.”

Jack holds out the phone to the elder, but Alex still refuses to take it from him.

“Either call him, or I’m not joking, I will.” Jack threatens, and Alex rolls his eyes.

“Wow, an empty threat. I’m scared, Barakat.”

His look of boredom quickly turns to one of panic as Jack starts pressing buttons, and before long, the sound of a phone ringing starts to play out of the phone’s speaker.

“You have no idea how much I hate you right now.”

It takes a few more rings before someone picks up.

“Uh, hey?” They say, and it’s not Aled’s voice that replies.

“Hey, it’s Phil. I’ve been told to tell you that Aled doesn’t want to talk to you right now.” Phil says quietly.

“Tell him I know that’s bullshit, and that it’s Jack that wants to talk to him.” Jack says, and waits as Phil relays his message. There’s a shuffling noise, a few sniffles and then Aled’s voice.

“What?”

“He says he’s sorry.” Jack says, glancing over at Alex, who is chewing on his lower lip and keeping his eyes downcast.

“Tell him I don’t believe him.”

Alex blinks back a few tears.

“He really is, you know.”

“Then why isn’t he saying anything? I know you’re there, Alex.”

That’s what sets Alex off crying. Alex. Aled never calls him that; usually some sort of affectionate nickname. He sighs, and Aled probably hears him, but he doesn’t care. He makes a few gestures to Jack, who hugs him with one arm in an attempt to comfort him.

“Because he doesn’t want to say anything that could hurt you any more than he already has.”

“Right, whatever.” Aled replies, sniffles again. Alex blinks, and a few tears that clung to his eyelashes tumble to his cheeks.

“Just say something.” Jack mumbles, elbowing Alex gently. Alex swallows, and keeps his eyes on the floor.

“Sorry isn’t going to be enough, is it?” He says, his voice watery as he plays with his fingers and shifts his gaze to the ceiling.

“No, I don’t think it is.” Aled replies, and hangs up. Alex starts to sob and Jack just sighs, picking up Alex’s laptop from the floor and immediately pulling up the Internet.

Alex isn’t paying attention as his best friend taps keys quickly, flicking through his pockets for a credit card before scrawling something down and shoving them both back in his pocket. He leaves Alex on the sofa and runs around the house, picking up a few things before returning.

“Get in the car. Now.” Jack says, and Alex looks up at him.

“Why?”

“Don’t question me right now, just do it.”

Alex stumbles his way out front to Jack’s precious car, watching from inside as Jack locks the door and comes hurrying down the path to the car.

They arrive at Jack’s house about ten minutes later, and Jack clambers out and disappears inside before returning with a jacket and his passport.

“Where are we going?” Alex asks with a sigh as he rests his head against the cool glass of the window. Jack glances over at him, shakes his head and looks back to the road.

“Wait and see.”

When they pull up at the airport, Jack checks the time before pulling the older boy inside.

“Jack, we can’t.” Alex says, trying to break free from the younger’s grip when he finally realizes what Jack’s doing.

“We can and we are. So just stay with me.” Jack instructs, walking straight over to customer services and giving them the flight number and his details in exchange for two tickets for a plane that flies to Cardiff.

It’s not long before they’re checked in and are waiting around in the departures lounge.

“This is a bad idea.” Alex says, burying his face in his hands. Jack rolls his eyes and goes back to the magazine he’s reading. They stay like that until the boarding gate opens twenty minutes later.

“Jack, if he doesn’t want to talk to me on the phone he’s not going to want to talk to me in person.” Alex says as Jack flips open his passport.

Jack chooses to ignore him and his whining for the entirety of the flight, but Alex falls asleep anyway about three hours in, so Jack spends the rest of the flight watching old episodes of Friends dubbed in French.

It’s several hours before they land in Cardiff, and it’s bright when they step down the plane stairs. Alex almost stumbles, but Jack sticks his arm out and catches him.

It’s when they’re standing outside Cardiff Airport looking more than a little bit lost, Jack realizes there’s one rather huge flaw in his genius plan. They don’t know where Aled lives.

Jack pulls his phone from his pocket and sends Iain a quick text to ask about Aled’s address, and Alex stands there awkwardly, pulling his jacket tighter around him. It’s cold.

They stand for a few moments until Jack’s cell buzzes furiously in his palm. Jack flags down a taxi and shows the driver the address, before pulling Alex inside.

Alex is nervous, to say the least. Worried would probably be more accurate. Freaking the fuck out, even more so.

When the taxi pulls up in front of a towering block of apartments, Alex freaks out for a moment when he realizes his wallet’s full of dollars, before Jack rummages around in his pockets and produces just enough to pay. Alex doesn’t bother to ask why he still has British money lying around, deciding he’d have some bizarre convoluted reason, and just climbs out of the car.

“So... this is it.” Jack says, staring up at the building. “Now, before we even go anywhere, Gaskarth, you need to think of what you’re going to say to him.”

“I was going to go for the classic ‘I’m sorry, I love you.’” Alex says with a shrug. Jack raises an eyebrow in mock disgust.

“You really think that’ll work?”

“Well, no, but it’s a start, right?” Alex asks, suddenly doubting himself. Jack shrugs.

“If he punches you in the face, I won’t be cleaning you up, and that’s a promise, bro.”

Alex laughs a little, but he’s still nervous.

When Shay opens the door and sees the two of them, the look of sheer confusion on his face is just priceless. Jack just gives him a weak smile and a look that says ‘I’ll explain everything, just let us in.’

“He’s upstairs, room on the left. He’s probably asleep, just so you know.” Shay warns, just as Alex opens his mouth to speak.

Alex climbs the stairs very, very carefully, because if Aled is asleep and he wakes him, his death will come ever so slightly sooner than he’d like. He makes it up the stairs with limited noise and makes a mental note to congratulate himself on that properly later.

He pushes open the door and immediately sees Aled asleep on top of the quilt. He pauses for a moment before smiling fondly when he sees that Aled’s fallen asleep in one of his hats (he’d been wondering where that’d gone) and a cardigan he’d bought him for his last birthday. Which tells Alex that he’s not as mad with him as he thought he was.

So Alex toes his shoes off and lays down beside Aled cautiously, trying his hardest not to wake him. Aled shuffles against him, but doesn’t wake, and Alex wraps a gentle arm around Aled’s waist.

There’s a moment of sheer terror when Aled rolls over and buries his face in Alex’s chest, apparently aware that someone’s next to him.

“Shay, what are you doing here?” Aled mumbles, twisting his fingers in Alex’s jacket. Alex sighs, pulls Aled in a little bit closer before saying, “It’s not Shay.”

Aled would know that accent and that voice anywhere, so he opens his eyes and sees Alex very firmly not looking at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” He asks, almost glaring at the younger boy, but keeping hold of him by his jacket.

“Jack’s idea.” Alex says, still not looking at Aled. “He thought it’d be a good idea.”

Aled doesn’t say anything, just keeps his eyes trained on Alex as the younger finally looks at him.

“But, why? If you’d have just talked on the phone you needn’t have bothered.” He says after a long pause, shuffling a little to get more comfortable. “All you needed to do was, y’know, apologise profusely.”

Alex laughs a little, and Aled smiles weakly.

“Jack seems to think that’s easier to do in person.” Alex says, and Aled looks at him expectantly.

“I am really, really sorry, you know.” Alex says, and he looks away when he’s finished talking because he’s kind of expecting Aled to flip out or something.

“I know. I’m sorry too.” Aled replies, burying his face in Alex’s chest. “I was a complete prick about it.”

“We probably shouldn’t fight over little things any more.” Alex comments, and Aled nods.

“Yeah, we already have enough to deal with without fighting over stupid things.” Aled says, looking up at Alex.

“At least we agree on something.” Alex laughs, and Aled playfully hits him in the chest and laughs too.

Alex smiles, pressing a light kiss to Aled’s forehead.

“You look cute in that hat, by the way.” Alex comments, and Aled blushes, almost giggling a little as Alex pulls him in closer.

“It’s one of yours, that’s why.” Aled smiles, and Alex flashes this lopsided grin that Aled loves.

“I love you, okay?” Aled says suddenly, and Alex nods.

“I know, and I love you too.” Alex replies, ducking his head slightly just to press his lips to Aled’s. The elder smiles and kisses him back, twisting his fingers into his jacket.

And, just like that, Aled forgets why he was angry in the first place.