Fell In Love In Stages // a matty healy fanfic

Salvation In A Secular Age

Soon, we were far out of town, riding through a rugged countryside that stretched out in muted tones of brown and gray. The landscape was dotted with slabs of ancient, layered rock, and dry grass swayed in the faint breeze. The fields, long harvested, looked skeletal against the sky. I had no idea where we were heading, but that felt irrelevant.

The road narrowed, giving way to a dirt track bordered by lanky, weather-beaten trees, their branches almost like fingers pointing to nowhere in particular. Finally, we stopped in front of a wooden gate.

"What's this place?" I asked, climbing off the bike.

"You'll see," he said with a faint grin.

We hiked up a hill, and at the top, the view hit me like a gust of cold air. I gasped.

"Welcome to Werneth Low," he announced, spreading his arms in mock grandeur.

Below us, the city of Manchester sprawled out endlessly, its lights beginning to glimmer faintly in the distance as the sun lowered. The sight stretched far and endless, as though beyond lay mountains and nothing more of the world. It was quiet here too, but I noticed, this was different. The air was light and filled with late afternoon sunshine; it carried no heaviness nor remorse.

For a moment, I imagined myself as a cloud, hovering above it all. I could rain down whenever I wanted, offering life to the earth below, or I could drift in whatever direction the wind carried me. I was free—free to take on any form that befits me that day.

"The songs you sang the other day," I said, breaking the spell, "did you write them?"

"Yeah," he replied, stepping closer to the cliff's edge. "Well, George and I write most of them. We've been at it for years—since I was thirteen, actually. It's... symbiotic. The band's been together so long that their musicianship is kind of ingrained in how I think. I write for them, they add to it, and it becomes something bigger. I couldn't do this with anyone else." His voice softened toward the end, almost reverent.

"You can tell," I said. "The connection you have, it's obvious. The way you all feed off each other's energy on stage—it's insane."

He chuckled, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. "We know," he said, lighting one. "I smoke too much, though. You don't mind, do you?"

I shook my head and took a cigarette from the pack he offered, lighting it off his.

"I'd love to meet them someday," I said.

"You should. We've got another gig this weekend, or you could come to rehearsal tomorrow," he said, giving me a playful wink.

"What about school?" I asked instinctively, though I hardly cared about school myself.

"Fuck school," he scoffed. "It's just a waste of time, getting in the way of me becoming a proper musician. I'm just counting the days until I can leave for good."

There was something striking about the way he spoke—his voice full of conviction, his dreams brimming with urgency. It was inspiring, but it also made me feel small, like I was drifting while he was charging ahead.

"What about you, Trinity?" he asked, hopping onto a fence. "What do you want out of life?"

I hesitated, then shrugged. "The plan's always been business school and then taking over my dad's empire or whatever," I said, my tone as dull as the thought itself.

"It's fine," he said lightly. "You've got time to figure it out. You're only seventeen, for crying out loud."

I smiled faintly, then looked away. "Truthfully," I began, "when my mom passed last year, it threw me into this... existential crisis. It made me realize how fragile it all is—that ladder of success we're supposed to climb, that checklist of things we're told to chase. My dad's checked all those boxes—built this life for me, for my mom, for himself—but what about the things he can't control? Like time? Or mortality?" I paused, my voice faltering.

I thought about him sitting alone at our breakfast table, buried in his books, holding everything in because he didn't know how to let it out. "It's like he only just now realizes how important those things are, but it's too late."

I sighed, exhaling a curl of smoke. "So, I guess what I really want from life isn't success—it's salvation."