birthday wish - matty x reader
part 1 of matty's birthday weekend a/n: this is scheduled. by the time this goes up, i will (hopefully🤞🏼) be on a beach somewhere, day drunk 😌 cw: very vague and brief descriptions of a panic attack, alcohol and drinking, mayhem is still with matty here because that's how it should be. also...a smidge of angst, idiots friends to lovers wc: 3.1k
“matty you fucking dick!”
her screech echoes throughout the lower floor of his house and matty bursts out laughing. george stirs on the nearby sofa, huffs something unintelligible and goes back to sleep.
it’s 9 in the morning the day after they’ve had a late night out, no one should be awake at such an ungodly hour… least of all him. but matty has a mission to accomplish, the fucking childish prank he’s been planning for weeks to see through.
and this scream—her calling him a “fucking dick”—is the precise reaction he’s been hoping for.
seconds later she stomps out of his room and matty damn near pisses himself at the sight of her—dripping in water like a wet, angry cat, her t-shirt clinging to her body in all the damp spots and hair as green as an oompa-loompa's. even like this she’s a vision.
“what the fuck did you do?!” she yells again, absolutely fuming.
between peals of laughter, he somehow manages three words. “happy april fool’s.”
“oh don’t you fucking dare. watch your back healy, i swear to god…”
and then all the yelling wakes george up who takes one look at her and flinches back. he actually flinches back letting out a string of curses in the process until his butt hits the floor.
matty doubles over, clutching his sides, and wolf-whistles at her just to piss her off a little more.
“hair dye in a shampoo bottle, how clever,” she huffs, crossing her arms in front of her until the damp t-shirt sticks to her boobs and the wind gets knocked out of matty’s chest.
suddenly, nothing is funny—not the green-tinged puddle of water near her feet, not the way her nostrils flare in anger.
matty’s breath hitches in his throat, and perhaps for the first time he looks at her properly. the damp t-shirt ends halfway down her thighs, bunched up on one side so he can almost see the little group of freckles on the apex of her thigh. the anger makes her eyebrows furrow, makes a small crease appear right between them and matty wishes so desperately he could smooth it with his thumb. his hands tremble at his sides and he tightens them into a fist.
finally, after what feels like an eternity, george bursts out laughing.
matty startles—he’d honestly forgotten george was even there, still waking up from sleep and now that he is fully awake, george bursts into a fit of obnoxious cackles.
“what the fuck happened to you,” he teases to which she just lifts one finger and points it straight at matty.
matty, despite everything, blushes to the roots of his hair. now that he’s started thinking all these thoughts about her he can’t fucking stop—can’t stop when she bunches the towel in her hands and throws it at him so quick that it makes the t-shirt ride up a bit more. can’t stop when she places her hands on her hips so that the contours of her chest stand out under the damp t-shirt.
he has half a thought to tackle george so he won’t be able to look at her anymore but matty suppresses the urge. barely.
“i’ll get you back, healy,” she threatens and storms back to his room.
sure matty was the one who offered to let her have a shower in his bathroom—one, so she could stay over with the rest of their friends for the night, and two, so he could execute the prank. but now he can’t stop imagining it—her under the shower (does she sing?) using his shampoo, his body wash.
does she smell like him now? he’d die if he got close enough to find out.
“alright, mate?” george jerks him out of his thoughts. matty turns around to see his friend stretching sleepily, but george’s eyes are still very much trained on matty. his lips are very much pressed into a thin line.
“you both are insufferable, don’t get why you won’t just tell her,” he mumbles on the way to the kitchen pulling out a mug for himself.
“don’t know what you’re talking about,” matty shrugs, perhaps a bit too quick and gets another mug out. he puts the kettle on boil, gets the coffee and sugar out.
the whole time george stays quiet but matty can feel his burning stare on the back of his head.
only when the coffees are done and george takes the first sip does he speak.
“sure you don’t,” he mutters in a dry tone and takes his phone out (definitely to text charli and gossip about matty’s love life. or the lack thereof.)
in his head he guesses the texts that are being exchanged between them.
he’s chickened out again.
really? i fucking knew it, he’s never gonna get to it.
right? she might as well date someone else.
i should set her up with a friend…
and then shakes his head like that would get rid of the frankly ridiculous thoughts. his friends would never do that to him. they've already meddled and invested too much in his love life by now to give up so easily. besides, he’ll get to it. someday. eventually.
he’ll get to it when his insides don’t feel like jelly around her.
he’ll get to it when he feels a bit more brave.
matty’s birthday wish has stayed consistent for the last two years. he wishes he could make a move. he wishes she were single—well, one of those things is true now. he’s no longer pathetic enough to yearn for a girl who’s already with someone else.
he’ll never admit it to anyone but he did feel a bit of joy when she broke up with her boyfriend earlier that year—okay maybe a lot of joy when he saw how quickly she moved on.
“we’d been growing distant for some time anyway,” she’d confessed when he checked up on her after the break up. “it was inevitable.”
and now that matty’s birthday gets closer and closer, he thinks of all ways to amend that wish.
please fucking please give me the courage to just kiss her.
he doesn’t know who he’s making the wish to. god?? he highly doubts it. the universe?? he scarcely believes in all that new age spirituality crap. the fucking candle company and the cake maker then.
oh great vanilla bean who sacrificed itself for my cake… give me the courage to finally kiss her.
he's got like a week still… if he wished every single day starting today, maybe it will come true. cake and candles or not. he's a grown fucking man, he can make a wish before blowing on a fag.
sometime around 5 pm he wakes up to an empty apartment, lingering taste of the sweet vanilla cake that she’d baked for him last year still so fresh on his tongue.
there’s something else too… there’s the Moment that he’s not quite sure counts as a Moment even though he remembers it vividly—her fingers brushing against his lips while she was wiping away a bit of the frosting, nails grazing against his lips. just a touch too long. all of it—the intense stare, the looking away right after, the refusal to look him in the eye for the rest of the night—all of it feels like a Moment. but the rational part of his brain steers him away from that thought.
she had a boyfriend at the time. she wouldn’t pine after someone else. least of all him.
a somewhat humiliating memory resurfaces too—his own lyrics coming to bite him back in the ass—the speaker blaring “she’s got a boyfriend anyway” over and over again while he tries not to punch the dj.
matty stretches and gets out of bed.
the utter silence feels nice for a change—nicer when half the house is bathed in golden light and he can just stroll through the house in search of some weed and crisps and pop. maybe call his brother and demand that mario kart rematch that’s so so long overdue.
maybe he should let mayhem out into the backyard first.
mayhem…
matty freezes in his tracks and slowly turns around, almost like he’s in a horror movie.
he has not heard the dog bark once! usually mayhem is up and running at him the moment he senses him within a ten feet radius. today however, there’s no patter of paws on the floor.
matty runs to check the little outdoor area where mayhem usually sits. even before he opens the door though, matty knows what he will find—an empty dog bed, possibly an empty food bowl.
he lets out a low whistle and twists the door open. there’s an uncharacteristic, loud clatter and a second later he stands at the threshold, doused in hot pink glitter, dog-less, in the middle of his house.
i’ll get you back, healy!
matty giggles to himself and takes his phone out of his pocket, trying not to get the glitter everywhere. (although by now it’s pretty much settled into his dna, he’s sure of it)
she picks up on the second ring, followed by a very fake clearing of her throat.
“did you steal my dog, darling?” matty launches straight into it, trying to hide the smile in his voice.
“no!” and then there’s a faint little yip in the background that sounds suspiciously like the one he hears daily.
“right…”
“right. that all?”
as gently as he can, matty dusts off the glitter in place and walks back inside in search of a mop or something. he needs to contain the carnage somehow, but on the phone she clears her throat again.
“did anything else happen?”
the little giggle in her voice is so obvious to him. matty imagines what she looks like on the other side—on her bed maybe, cuddled up with mayhem who secretly seems to prefer her so much more than matty. on her bed in just a t-shirt maybe… he reigns it in before the thoughts can progress any forward.
“mayhem seems to have ran away.”
“oh?” then there’s a little silence, which instantly fills with the sound of paws on hard wood. “maybe he’ll come back,” she hedges, “maybe…once the dye in my hair goes away, who knows.”
“is that so?”
“yeah, just a hunch.”
the silence stretches on, none of them willing to hang up first. matty wonders if she’s sat there biting her lip, trying to stifle a laugh. matty wonders what it would be like if he were to bite her lip instead.
“still green?” he tries to tease, voice slightly breathy.
“still sparkly?” she quips back. and well…yes, he is. he’s sure he’s going to be for the rest of time.
“the day’s not over yet, sweetheart.”
sweetheart. where the fuck did that come from? matty runs a shaky hand through his hair and grimaces when it come away hot pink and sparkly. it’s all over his hair too… great.
“is that a threat, darling?” matty almost chokes at the word, his face heats up. fuckin’ hell… if this is what he’s like after one word…
“we’ll see about that tonight.”
and then like a coward he hangs up before she can shake his composure any further. he closes his eyes and focuses on the birthday wish one more time—it might as well be today, he’s faux-celebrating his birthday later with a few people who can’t be there on the actual day. he just needs to get his shit together and…not fuck up.
he fucks up almost instantly.
when he walks into the dimly lit pub, he can spot the green-head right from the door. she’s in a flowery blouse and jeans and pulling the hair off so well that he wonders if he should have done this months ago. but matty shakes off his jitters and walks up to his friends.
several of them are already pretty tipsy, singing and dancing along to the tunes. he is fashionably late after all. they greet him, slapping him on the shoulder as he passes by, drunkenly yelling “happy birthday” even though it’s a week away. graciously, he thanks them all, laughing and joking with his friends before making his way to her.
turns out the list of tipsy people also includes her.
she beams when she sees him, hurrying to put her cocktail away so she can throw her arms around him. a second later her perfume invades all his senses. matty closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of it.
“i was waiting for you,” she declares, a few words coming out slurred. “i’ve decided i like the green.”
“yeah? it looks beautiful on you.”
quickly she wrinkles her nose, stepping away from him. “you’re making fun of me!”
“‘m not!” he vehemently defends himself but in the end it’s all in good fun. fondly, she rolls her eyes and grabs his hand, pulling him to the bar.
“i asked them to set aside this one bottle of wine for you. feel like you’d like it.”
a strange warmth spreads through him—it’s not the most special thing someone’s done for him, it’s just a bottle of wine. but then again nothing is just something when it comes to her.
she thought about him. she’d been thinking about him. however briefly.
matty almost leans across and kisses her then but thinks better of it. a crowded pub is no place to do it.
turns out his first mistake of the night is drinking the wine. well… drinking too much and too fast anyway.
what starts off as slow sips and savouring the red quickly turns into glasses of wine in a corner while they joke around and giggle uncontrollably. she’s flushed, twinkly-eyed and a bit more than tipsy now.
matty, on the other hand, might very well be drunk.
he feels the effects of it—the feeling of his blood being replaced by wine, the buzz in his head, the lack of filter in his words. oh, his head is going to kill him tomorrow.
he doesn’t mind though, anything to be sat here across from her, giggling over an overpriced (but delicious) bottle of wine. matty leans forward, chin on the palm of his hand and watches her laugh at his silly joke.
“you’re gorgeous, did i tell you that?” for a moment he doesn’t recognise the voice. it’s slurred and deeper than usual and that’s not something he’d ever admit to her so casually. but then she giggles and ruffles his hair, laughing harder when her fingers come back, coated in a bit of glitter.
“you’re so drunk. but i appreciate it, thank you.”
“no no, i’m not! i mean i am but— i mean it i—” he’s wide-eyed and failing to explain just how much he means it. matty just wants her to understand. this is not some frivolous confession of a wine-addled brain, this is serious. he is serious.
desperation overrides any sane instinct in his brain. which is his second mistake of the night.
the words come out faster than he can process them, faster than he can filter them and make them digestible.
“you– you don’t know how long i’ve waited to say this. every time i get enough courage there’s either a boyfriend or something else. there’s always— fuck, forget all that. that doesn’t matter—”
“matty—”
“no, no listen to me, listen to what i’m trying to tell you.”
the more he speaks (rambles) the more the smile slips from her face, replaced by something he can’t quite place. she’s not… disgusted by him, is she? he hopes not. that really would be the final nail in the coffin.
“i’ve been trying—” he chokes, deeply swallowing more wine, “—been trying to tell you, i love you! i love you, i love you, i love you. i have for so long!”
and that’s when she pulls back entirely, leaning back into her chair as if she can’t put enough distance between them. her face shutters into an unreadable mask and matty feels panic bubbling up deep inside his stomach.
shit shit shit.
what has he done.
oh god, he clearly wasn’t thinking straight. this wasn’t how it was meant to go. this wasn’t how any of it wasn’t meant to go. it was meant to be followed by a kiss and maybe more. it was meant to be followed by an “i love you too”.
not… indifference.
or worse… disgust.
which is when he makes his third (and perhaps the worst) mistake of the night.
matty laughs. it’s hysterical and sharp and verging on cruel. he laughs until he can feel the tears in his eyes and he can only hope they don’t spill down his cheeks. and then he says the words he can never take back.
“oh god, look at your face. i was joking!”
“what…”
“it’s still the first of april, did you forget?”
each word is like a nail being hammered into his heart. but matty hopes it would be enough. in two seconds she’d roll her eyes and laugh at herself for falling for it. in a minute they will go back to drinking and joking. matty can pretend. he’s become quite good at it.
instead, she gets up so fast that her chair almost clatters to the ground.
in the dim lightning of the pub, matty can’t see the tears gathered in her eyes. although that might be because his eyes are still blurry from his own tears.
“love—”
“you’re a cunt, matty.” she says the words with an eerie calmness, mechanically gathers her bag and phone and walks away. only then does he register the extent of what’s happening.
the wine bottle falls to the floor and shatters when he drunkenly bumps into the table. red spills everywhere, soaking his shoes, the leg of his jeans. he hurries after her, tripping and falling as the full force of the alcohol hits him once again, calling out her name again and again. the music drowns it out.
she’s out the door before matty’s even halfway across the pub.
fuck… how did it go so wrong so quick.
how did he mess it up so bad…
he almost retches right there on the floor, grabbing a passer-by to steady himself. he needs to do something, he needs to make this right. he needs to…
he doesn't know what. his heart pounds in his chest and his throat feels so dry and tight he can barely speak, barely even breathe. matty sinks to his knees right there in the middle of the pub, gasping for breath.
he doesn’t know what happens next, doesn’t remember much after that. all he remembers is the feeling of doom and the loud, odd rhythm of his heart.
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