Does It Matter? Pt. 4
Masterlist
Here it is folks! Thank you for your patience!
Thank you to @heyidkyay for reading through this and then shouting at me for not posting fast enough. Nothing like the love you give me 🥰
Rating: 18+ MDNI
Pairing: Matty x Reader
Warnings: Sex, fingering, mentions of injuries, self loathing, angst
Word Count: 4.5k
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Pt. 1 Pt.3
It’s soft and cosy and you’re wrapped in his arms when you wake up. The usual anxiety that comes with the realisation of being in Matty’s old bed sheets hasn’t arrived. It's just you and him and the warmth that your bodies share. His hot skin against you and his arm is around your waist, lazily draped there like it fell and just found its home on your body.
It takes a moment before you realise it’s his soft lips pressing against the back of your neck that’s waking you up. Trailing gentle little pecks over the sensitive skin around to the side. You crane your head without saying anything to give him easier access to where your neck and shoulder meet, and they get deeper and longer, open mouthed rather than small kisses. Passionate and full of want, for you. As his strong arm pulls you further into him, he moves to pull the t-shirt he gave you last night down your shoulder, exposing the flesh there and causing goosebumps to break out across your body. Each nerve he’s sending into a frenzy, prompting your brain to shut down any and all rational thought about what you’re supposed to be doing now you’re awake.
“Don’t pretend you’re asleep. I know you’re awake,” he whispers it and smiles into your skin as he continues his assault on the back of your shoulder, sharply biting your soft skin in a mock attack.
“Matty…” you smile lazily at the feeling of him…“I’m tired,” he stops and moves back immediately, much to your surprise. You don’t open your eyes, just wiggling your hips further back into him. “Uhh, I didn’t say stop.” You pull his hand back to your body, moving it under the t-shirt to your breast before letting go and leaving it to rest there, holding you in a comforting way. “Is it okay if I just enjoy this?” his small kisses on your neck resume again. “I just want to enjoy you.”
“Give me a kiss first.” It’s awkward and fumbly as you twist to actually kiss him, with him half on top of you and you rolling onto your back. His silky curls dangle in your face as he leans down to press his chapped and bitten lips against yours, between yours, moving in unison with a gentle ferocity, like he’s holding himself back and being careful with you. His kisses make their way south from your mouth, under your chin, your neck, each one revealing a secret he’s kept for so long, too afraid of damaging you.
“You’re so beautiful.” He’s silently whispering sweet nothings against the crook of your neck between each new kiss. His hand moving from under your top to roll you over onto your side so he can spoon you again. “I love seeing you in my clothes,” another kiss, “but can I please take this off? It’s in my way.”
Undressing in front of Matty had always come with overwhelming insecurity. The way his eyes roamed your body and landed on each curve and imperfection, stretch mark or missed hair. He saw it all, and it didn’t feel fully comfortable. Until right now. Until he pulled his t-shirt from your skin, and with each new centimetre exposed he kissed away the feeling of ever having anything wrong with you, and the memories of last night come back. The way his tears fell after defending you, the way he clung to you before leaving, how much tenderness there was as he cared for your wounds… how soft that first kiss was. How soft he is right now, still careful with you, as though you might break. It made for a change from the rough and ready fucks you’d had previously, the way he devoured you whole everytime he wanted you. The way he’d do what he wanted to your body and take you for all you were worth, or thought you were worth. But now he’s making you feel like treasure. All shiny and golden and worth something. Valuable in his eyes and in his arms. Pretty and made to be kept that way. Caring for you and handling you in a way that made you feel like you were supposed to last forever and a day, even if you were made from something as soft and malleable as pure gold. And just like gold, you were melting into a silky shimmering liquid with each of his heated touches. The fires from his fingertips turning you molten.
His fingers are pulling at the hem of the t-shirt, up your body, skimming your stomach and the dip of your waist, awkwardly fumbling it over your head as you pull your arm through, attempting with very little grace to stay as close as possible to him. His hands are everywhere but where you want him. Your skin bristles with each touch and each kiss. His thumb brushes over your pebbling nipple, slightly pulling, in a way that makes your breath catch in your throat as you bite your lip to hold in the noises you so desperately want to make. You don’t stay quiet for long as his fingers slip between your legs, over the fabric of your underwear where he can no doubt feel how wet you are, and in turn, how much you need him. The soft moan you let out sends blood rushing straight to Mattys hardened cock. The evidence poking harder at your thigh with each little noise you make.
He doesn’t make a cocky domineering quip like he might have done at one point, instead he just breathes slowly over the wet kiss marks on your shoulder and continues to tease you innocently, as though he has no idea quite what he’s doing to you.
You let it go on for a while, doing as you said you wanted and just enjoying him, the feel of him and the way he wanted to touch you, until it becomes too much and you just need him. To feel him and hold him closer than you’ve ever wanted anyone.
You roll over so you can face him and it’s awkward and fast and you almost whack him in the face and ruin the entire moment until he moves your arms around his neck and pulls you closer. Your naked chest to his, your leg wraps itself around his waist to try and show him quite how badly you need him with a kiss.
The kiss though.
The kiss is deep and longing and you pour every unspoken emotion and thought you’ve had for this boy into it. You try to tell him how much you want him, how much he is everything to you, how much he has you and you won’t go anywhere. He has your heart in a locked box and you’re willing to throw away the key and promise yourself to him forever. And for the first time, you think it could be the same for him.
—
“You’re so beautiful”
“I need you”
“You’re worth so much more”
“You’re mine”
“I want you”
“I love the way you smile like that”
“Does this feel good?”
“Is this okay?”
“You’re doing so well for me”
Each new sentence slipping past his lips is another stitch in the broken-then-pieced-together tapestry you managed to create in your fantasy of you and him. He was sewing what you’d put together with each syllable. Finalising the design, with string like spider web, beautiful but delicate and fragile in human hands.
He pushes your underwear down your legs, followed by his own. When he settles next to you, you can feel how hard he is against your thigh. Dripping with precum but not pressing you for any more, not asking for any attention. He’s focused solely on you and what he can give you. His fingers resume their caresses on your inner thighs as you kiss, spreading your legs as an invitation for him to move his hand where you so desperately want him. Matty swallows your whimpers with another kiss as his fingers press inside whilst thumb gently brushes your clit, causing you to tense and relax all at once.
“Fuck Matty,” your forehead rests against his as his fingers continue their work, each breath slowly making you warmer and more clammy, not that either of you care, both too lost in the feeling and sounds of each other. You don’t stop moving, wrapping your arms around him and digging your nails into his back to earn a hiss from the boy's mouth. You move your hands to his hair to pull his curls at the nape of his neck, tilting his head back to kiss him fully. The sweet and loving initial strokes of his hand building into a more intense rhythm.
“I want you to cum for me baby, please. I need you.” He startles just for a second at his own words, almost getting away with not drawing attention to what he had said but he recovers in a split second with another sentence that makes your brain puddle as he works his fingers. “Need to see my… pretty… girl… fall apart… for me… please.” He was begging between kisses. Telling you the things he says in your dreamiest fantasies. The things you didn’t even want to consider happening.
It’s a little bit longer before the pressure building inside you finally releases, with a whisper of Matty’s name as you pull him closer, unable to feel alone anymore. Desperate to feel like you are more than just yourself. Needing him. Only Matty could make you feel the way you need to right now. So you reach down to his hard cock and wrap your legs around his waist, positioning yourself just right so that when Matty moves his hips he can be inside you where you fiercely need him.
As he pushes inside of you, you bury your face into his neck. Inhaling his smell like a woman starved of oxygen. He’s exactly where you need him and he’s still, waiting for the go ahead to move, that it’s okay with you. Everything suddenly feels so very Matty. His sheets, his smell, his body. His mouth leaving sloppy lazy kisses down your jaw, biding his time until he can move. When you nod at him his hips slowly move, in and out, with more restraint than you were aware the boy was capable of. He’s taking you slow and deep and you’ve never felt so full, it’s almost painful. But above everything it's the pair of you, and as your hips move with him, you can feel his rhythm start to stutter and lose pace. You try to match his movements, work together to help him reach climax, but it’s awkward and fumbly and you’re not too sure it made a difference but it doesn’t matter because he’s about to cum.
He pulls out when he does, and strings of white land across your stomach and the bed sheets. It's a little disappointing and you’re surprised at yourself for feeling like that, for wanting him to cum inside you, fill you up, connect you forever with a mini version of yourselves. How cute and small that child would be with his curls and your eyes. A little piece of yourselves tied up into one person, a reflection of you both. You would give Matty that if he asked, you would give him absolutely anything right now, in the haze of the post orgasm glow, with his words ringing in your ears.
“My pretty girl”
My…
His….
You’re all his.
—
You fell back asleep after having sex, in his arms. Not even bothering to clean up. Both of you still exhausted and mildly hungover and too blissed out to think about anything but dreaming together again. When you wake up, the bed is warm but empty. No Matty, but the telltale warmth lets you know he was here recently. Maybe he’s just gone to the bathroom. Your whole body aches as you climb out of the bed, your injured knee reduced to a dull throbbing. Not as bad as it had been, but definitely not good.
The discarded t-shirt is on the floor, along with your underwear, the clothes from the night before in a dishevelled pile in the corner. Walking home in that outfit, in broad daylight, is a recipe for unwanted attention. Maybe Matty would lend you some of his? A pair of joggers and a t-shirt would do. But then you would have to explain to your mother why you are wearing boy’s clothes. At least she wouldn’t be able to see the injury to your knee. Even more, you are going to have to fake walking with no pain. Maybe Matty has some paracetamol lying around.
You felt bad rifling through his things, but it was just for some paracetamol. You weren’t trying to be nosy, and there wasn’t really anything to find. His passport with a smaller Matty in the greyed out picture, a nest of tangled wires and earbuds at the back, a grinder and loose papers and other paraphernalia, and a plastic bag full of guitar picks. But then you found it, a dog-eared, little notebook covered in biro doodles, and plastered across the front, in black biro lines so deep they left grooves in the cover
DO NOT OPEN. PRIVATE.
Opening it would be a breach of his privacy. You’re not that sort of girl are you? When it clearly states not to. That he doesn’t want it to be opened.
But here was Matty’s innermost thoughts, literally in your hands.
Your thumb runs over the corner and you take a deep breath and look up.
There's a new poster on his wall since the last time you were in here. Another glimpse into Matty’s head. It's for a band you don’t know. It looks old, vintage maybe? Maybe one of his Dad’s favourites that he’s got into? Maybe that’s just what the band is going for. Faking their age as a way to gain credibility. Putting on a front to look more appealing to their target audience, to Matty.
How fake.
How relatable.
The book is heavy on your lap. The weight of the ink and secrets inside whispering their price for you to open it. But only if you get caught.
The sudden noise of a shower running brings you out of the trance the cover of the book has on you, and you settle with putting it back into the drawer, carefully arranging the cover of drawer junk back over the top.
After pulling the t-shirt and your underwear on you crack open the bedroom door to check for signs of life, namely anyone who isn’t Matty. You head for the bathroom where you can hear the shower and you can hear Matty’s voice too, in hushed tones.
“No mate, it's not like that. Nahhhh. You’ve got it wrong. She’s alright. I was just helping her, she was out of her mind.”
Silence
“Ross, like fuck I would sleep with her! I don’t go for girls like her. I dont know man she’s just… she’s a bit fucking weird isn’t she? She’s clingy as fuck too.”
He laughs at something the other boy says down the phone.
“I thought we could be mates or something… yeah friends. She needs them to be honest. Can’t stand up for herself, and mate I’m not being funny she can’t see threats from a mile off. Yeah and not just fucking Jackson. Just being nice. Taking pity y’know. Doing my community service.”
—
Leaving Matty’s was easy when you had no reason to stay.
You stole the t-shirt. You stole a pair of his joggers. You found a carrier bag to stash the rest of last night's outfit and you left. Without saying goodbye. Without saying anything.
Denise had seen you leave, tears in your eyes, apologies in hers. She didn’t stop you.
There was no need to make a scene.
No need to overthink.
It was done.
It was warm on the walk home. Silver grey clouds hung low in the air, threatening rain, but not promising, just looming ahead. The humidity in the air creates dewy droplets of sweat on your skin. You don’t even have a hair bobble to pull the nest that had formed on your head, from the way Matty had his hands in your hair, away from your face.
Don’t think about Matty.
The tears start then, but you hold the sobs in till you’re in your own space.
Why would he say that?
Don’t think about Matty.
How could he say that after everything?
Don’t think about Matty.
You pick at the loose thread of the pocket of the joggers, your own nail biting into your thumb with each pluck, focusing on the movement and the feeling instead of anything else, instead of Matty.
Do not think about Matty.
The rolling Cheshire fields of green lined the walk home. Praying that your mum won’t be home to chastise you for being out all night, and returning home in a boy's clothes no less. You’ll have to hide as you come in, sneak around once again. You’re so tired of sneaking around.
Your lungs are burning from holding your breath by the time you make it home. You were counting your steps before you allowed yourself a breath. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ,9, 10 and then breathe and repeat. Focus on the number and you’re not focusing on Matty. Make it home. Make it home without thinking about Matty. Shower it off. Him off. Get rid of it all. Burn it all. Cry it all away. But not out in the open. Not
Opening the door to your house slowly, praying the sound of the door handle was the only sound you would have to worry about. But no one is in the hallway, no one is in the house. She’s gone again.
It’s empty.
It’s cold.
The sobs came in the shower. Body wracking sobs. So you sat cross legged and let the water flow over you as the tears came. Alone you could be as loud as you wanted. So you did, until you stopped crying and the water ran cold and your bones and muscles ached and your head pounded and being awake was too much.
You didn’t charge your phone. You didn’t get dressed. You didn’t think. You just functioned. Finished your shower, dried yourself, left your hair wet, and crawled under the heavy duvet that would definitely be uncomfortably warm through the night.
And you realised you were right
It was too good to be true
It was too nice
It was too perfect
It did come crashing down
You did care.
It does matter.
—
The next day you crawled out of bed. Too hot, hungry, exhausted and achey. The carpeted floor was rough on your bare feet as you traipsed your way to the bathroom to remove the evidence of Matty’s clothes. You sit on the toilet staring at the uneven lines of paint between the wall and the ceiling, the dust covering the vent, the messy towels on the railing, chipped tile flooring. Slowly falling apart.
The next job would be looking for food and praying your mother left some before she disappeared again, or at least some money to go get some.
The fridge was bare; off milk, cheese, two eggs, and a pepper. The cupboards proved slightly more fruitful with some chocolate biscuits and a bag of crisps you were certain she must have forgotten about. It would do for now. You nibble on the dry goods, stomach still rolling from hunger.
The crisps filled the gap a little, but there was an aching and gnawing sensation in your torso that wouldn’t leave. A hole in your chest that was new and raw. Where you’d ripped your heart out and locked it in a box for Matty. Thrown away the key for Matty.
Would it fester? This new lingering wound. Would it make you rot from the inside out? Eat away at everything you thought you were and could have been? Turn you into some unrecognisable and bitter monster, intent on turning everything you touch into a reflection of your own acrid self.
Or would it turn cold and empty, and in turn would you? Drifting through life with little thought or care for yourself or body. Translucent, loveless and lost in a sea of happy, laughing people.
You would rather be either a monster or a ghost than someone's community service. Even if the someone was Matty. Even if he was supposed to be the one person who didn’t hurt you. He had. He had whispered sweet nothings and cried over your pain and kissed your injuries and made you feel whole. He hadn’t needed to steal your heart, you had willingly offered it up, cut it out yourself and locked it away by choice. There was no elaborate distraction or heist, just soft whispers and gentle caresses and you had done the hardest part for him.
Even when you thought there was another girl, even when you thought he was using you, you stayed. Pathetically you had stayed. Warning signs aplenty- you had stayed.
And when he cried… you had hoped.
—
Matty texted you 4 times and rang twice before he stopped trying. The 5th text was a week later asking if you were going to tell anyone. You text back a simple “no” and blocked his number.
Really, you were worried you would forgive him. It took 2 days to realise you would, if he said the right words. You would go back to him and forgive him and hate yourself for it. Nothing could excuse what he had said, but you would manage to if he was given the chance.
You had successfully avoided most people from school, including him. No one was there to force you to go to college for two days, you faked being sick for another three and had successfully avoided Matty for over a week. The following week you turned up for classes and hid in stairwells, left as soon as you weren’t needed. Walked the other way when he showed up. You made it your mission to never speak or acknowledge him. You didn’t need to.
He never tried to stop you, talk to you. If anything you stopped seeing him more, like he was avoiding you too. You wanted to believe it was because he was respecting your clear wishes but it was more than likely he was doing it for his own selfish reasons. Because he couldn’t face that he might be the one in the wrong.
It was much easier to make sure you didn’t cave and go back and talk to him if you made him more of a villain. A narcissist, and selfish and cruel. If you could lie to yourself well enough, maybe you’ll start to believe it.
—
It's another month of ignoring him when Denise turns up to see your mum for a coffee. You can hear them talking downstairs. Conversations ranging from celebrities to the price of milk and how strawberries taste different this year. You sit and eavesdrop from the stairs, picking at the carpet with your head pressed against the bannisters. Maybe Denise will mention Matty. Maybe you will hear something about how he is. What is going on with him.
You’re about to give up when you hear your own name called by Denise. She’s putting her coat on at the dining table and she has a large boxed cake next to her on the table, no indication of why she’s called you down. She wouldn’t tell your mum. Right? After everything that she had said. You did walk away from Matty with no contact, she might hate you for it. She probably does. Even if she knew.
Matty was her son. Her whole world.
As he had been yours.
She smiles at you when she sees you.
“Help me with the cake to the car love?”
“Uh, sure.”
The two older women make their goodbyes as you carry the cake out.
—
Once the cake was in the passenger seat Denise wrapped you in a hug, away from your mothers eyes.
“I’m sorry about him love.” There are tears in her eyes as she apologises to you.
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not. He’s my son. I know he has a kind heart…somewhere in there. I thought I’d raised him better than that.”
“It’s okay.”
Denise holds you by the shoulders, looking you up and down with those piercing blue eyes and her knowing gaze before moving behind you and grabbing a blue carrier bag from the backseat of her car.
“I told Matty I would do this. Not that he deserves it. But he asked me to give you this.”
You take the bag from her and stare at its contents.
It’s the battered and scribbled book from his bedside table and a small envelope.
“Uh… thank you.”
“Make sure you’re looking after yourself,” it wasn’t a question but a command. And with that she left.
You stood on the driveway for a while, holding the book and the envelope.
Matty had finally found a way to talk to you, gotten past the defences you had put in his way. In your own way.
The book looked exactly the same, scratched and marked and well loved. Abused and taken for all its worth as Matty was wont to do with things he felt he owned.
The little envelope had your name on the front, and the pen was smudged making it harder to read. There was an inky thumbprint in the top right corner. The back was sealed, not tucked in. He didn’t want anyone but you opening this. This was private.
These words were yours alone.
What could he possibly want to say to you after a month?
Do you care?
Does it matter?
Pt. 5