blood & gunk

it was too vibey

matty.

he's an arrogant, sadist, vulgar, cunning, hypocritical bastard - smokes intolerably, listens to lady gaga religiously, owns a black hole for a stomach, never keeps his promises and lies pathologically. the kind to take up all the space on a bus seat by parting his legs too much especially when there's an uncomfortable woman on the side. the kind who bullied your younger brother in school and nicked his food and money on a daily basis, even on weekends.

alyssa dashes into the office glowing with anger, rumbling like a raging storm, the apocalypse and hell on her hands. matty's got his feet up her desk, talking on the phone. you can assume it's a girl on the other line by the unmistakable signature-jerk smile on his face. but it doesn't matter anymore because matty will die now. just when alyssa knocks his blazing-hot too-impossibly-big coffee mug over the counter to the chair where he's sitting and the inhuman molten coffee beans clutch onto his jeans and melt into his skin to suction the soul of him out right through his hair follicles and skin pores. 

so matty takes it as cue to look up and see his murderer for the last time before he dies. screaming unintentionally, bruising the remains of his mysterious-edgy-cool facade, 'alyssa!' the phone hits the ground with a thud, probably also breaking, when he lets go of it. 'alyssa you're gonna die!' he's crying, and now everybody around the office has looked up from their cubicles to witness matty's painful descend into madness before he dies.

he's still screaming - groaning and moaning and going through a heart attack while hastily taking his jeans off in front of everybody and kicking off his expensive nike shoes in the process. he's barefoot on his run after alyssa, who actually walked away after her heinous crime. but it is no crime, in technical terms, as matty is a certified asshole.

'alyssa you fucking slut!' his feet skidding as he turns sideways towards the lift where she disappears right in front of him like witchcraft. he grunts angrily. he clutches onto the marble frame of the lift as it completely shuts closed in his face and supports alyssa's escape. his fingers keep pressing onto the buttons, but it's pointless because alyssa's long gone and the lift won't answer his call until it's reached ground floor and gone back to him, the 17th storey.

'matthew healy!' the call cuts through his burnt skin and shakes his bones.

he suddenly realises he's only in boxers and a talking heads t-shirt. then takes his time to turn around. he finds himself before his dad, dressed like a drag queen with too-bright lipstick, looking at him just as scandalised as an american scandal on a monday morning. then he drops. literally drops, falling after the grounds under him break and crumble abruptly. he's screaming.

he wakes up. it feels like he dropped into the bed. his limbs hurt. he looks around him. it's a hospital suite. he's in europe. he's got an upset stomach, probably needs surgery, probably needs weed. alyssa is on the side, stretching cat-like on the chair until her body fills the frame from coifed head to perfect toe. she lets her head fall backwards as she reaches for her airpods.

he's eyeing her when she realises he's woken up, smiling instantly and scrolling through her screen. she chuckles, 'I'm reading the tweets - mate, what the fuck? do you read that bollocks?'

he scoffs quietly, taking in the prickly sensation of the IV inserted in his left hand and reaching for the water flask on the side. 'what bollocks?' he takes a swig.

'about you by people who don't know you about things they've taken out of context,' she goes on casually. her straight bob's slightly messy, and matty can't fail to admire the pastel pink colour she went for only yesterday.

'I try going all ok boomer,' he says, bopping his head for no reason, 'then sometimes I guess you can't ok boomer stuff. you've gotta admit you're a wanker or a bit wanky.'

'and now you're bibling?' alyssa sits properly in her chair. 'are you also praying you get well soon?'

'what the fuck's bibling, alyssa?' he scoffs again, looking for his phone. 'have they left you all alone to look after me?'

'well, beside the cute nurse who's on duty,' she emphasises in a hushed whisper, 'george's getting coffee. i think jamie's here too. asking the doctors the big questions.' matty's face changes a few times as she talks. she notices the worry in his eyes.

'you're fine, you shouldn't worry,' she rests backwards in her seat. 'your liver tests are a bit too up, but you're okay. you can ok boomer your condition.'

he sighs, and he realises his sighs are a bit too tragic. he tilts his head to the side, running his hand through his unruly hair. 'I'm sorry I ruined your weekend. I know you went off work for this. I'm sorry. I owe you.'

'you owe me fuck all if I get married to that cute bird taking care of your organs,' she looks behind her, examining the glass doors for the nurse.

he sighs exasperatedly. he thinks he's had too many tummyaches to take in alyssa's hormonal bullshitting about foreign men she can shag five times a day then discard before their week fucking ends. he lies back in his bed, elevating the head of the bed so he can sit up properly.

'so what are the fuckers saying about me?'

alyssa grins manically, her eyes glued again to her screen. 'they're so bizarre... they, like, want you to die either from eating your shit or pneumonia or copd,' she shakes her head lightly, skimming through the tweets as matty's face horrifically changes. 'why is matty healy constantly bashing other musicians, is he ok... matty healy is a misogynist. that's someone replying to one of your fans, if being annoying made you famous matty healy would actually have a chance to be as famous as all the people he's so jealous of.' alyssa looks up at matty, breaking into breathless laughter.

'you're not serious,' matty rolls his eyes, gazing at the ceiling. 'they're not saying I'm hitting on successful women.'

'matty healy mansplaining how to be an artist to a woman more successful than he will ever be is honestly hilarious.' alyssa's eyes water. 'twitter's amazing. they even called you a fucking prick. and there's a matty healy is over party, but it's not trending, so I think you're fine.' she looks back at her phone. 'but hear this: this is why the 1975 sucks ass, they're just pretentious white boys thinking they're the reincarnation of the beatles or something.'

'I've had enough.'

'there's more. matty healy stop being such a pretentious woke softboy challenge, matty healy shut up challenge, matty healy act your age challenge!' she shakes her head. 'or this one, they're so fucking harsh on you: matty healy is a performative wee prick and the sooner you all stop praising him for doing the very minimum and ignoring it every time he exposes himself as being the worst, the better please.'

'alyssa!'

'I kind of always thought matty healy and truman black were the same person which makes no sense I'm realising but I don't know,' alyssa's laughter is louder than spaceships launching and that's mortifying and ugly in equally high measures.

matty's angrier than he should clinically be. 'shut the fuck up alyssa!' he throws his pillow at her.

'no!' alyssa shouts. 'there's something about you being karl marx.'

matty unabashedly smiles. 'fuck off!'

'I'll dig it up.. I think I sent it to hann...' alyssa chews her lower lip off. 'so someone called chlamydia said matty wasn't throwing shade at ellie or her music though, he was making social commentary on consumerist tendencies with music nowadays. so that's all lovely and cool until paul quote tweets chlamydia saying I don't know what's worse: matty healy himself or his fans that genuinely believe he is Marx 2.0.'

alyssa's howling with screechy, grunting, snorting laughter while matty shakes his head, not even smiling. 'I think I need my lawyer.'

alyssa's laughter dies, fatal silence falling over the room suddenly. her frown angrier than 9/11.

there's something in her face that matty can't read. someone probably died, and if it's ellie goulding or someone that matty ever talked about, there's no way he isn't getting interrogated. and with the weed he'll probably rot in jail. 'what?' matty's bones probably shook if they could.

'what the fuck?' she's still looking at the screen. 'I never realised you were aries.'