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healingmirthTitle: something to believe in
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
healingmirth
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Pairing/Characters: John McClane/Matt Farrell
Rating/Category: NC-17/Slash
Prompt: John meet's Matt's family
Spoilers: none
Summary: Matt goes home for his 10-year high school reunion. John goes with him.
Notes/Warnings: 6300 words, established relationship, standalone. Featuring 1800 words posted yesterday as part of the porn battle before I buckled down and decided to finished my last claimed![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
smallfandomfest prompt. Bears no resemblance to the Poison song of the same title, but I am quite fond of the Aqualung one. Fair warning, I nearly titled this tl;dr.
Seriously. Not my best work, though I am quite fond of parts of it.
reposted here below the cut for my own convenience
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When John went to take the garbage out Tuesday morning, there was some sort of fancy stationary envelope in the bag in the trash can, under the previous morning’s coffee grounds. Matt's name in a swirling calligraphy-type script was still legible despite the watery smear across it. John fished it out with two fingers, shaking it off before dangling it between Matt and the cereal box that he was staring at blearily. “Did you mean to throw this out?”
“Hrm?” Matt blinked a couple times before focusing first on the envelope and then briefly on John’s face before his eyes flicked back to glare at it. “Oh, yeah. Garbage.” He slumped forward, resting his on his elbows on the table, and continued to toy with the cereal in his bowl. Matt’s near-catatonia in the mornings usually turned any attempt at conversation into an interrogation, so John wasn’t surprised at Matt’s lack of response, but it’s not like he got engraved invitations every day – or at least John thought he didn’t – so his curiosity was piqued.
"Ex-girlfriend getting married?"
“Hmm? No. Worse,” Matt grumbled.
John waited for him to continue, before sitting down at the table and drawing Matt’s attention when it became clear that he thought that had been a complete answer. “So, Matt. What’s worse than being invited to an ex-girlfriend’s wedding?”
“High school reunion. Ten years.”
“And you don’t want to go? You’re practically a hero now, after all. You’d probably get cheerleaders throwing their panties at you.”
The hero thing is one of their well-worn arguments. Even though he thought it was a load of shit that he got recognized for just doing his job, John was perfectly willing to admit that other people thought he was a hero. Matt, on the other hand was uncomfortable to the point of pain in the spotlight, and had routinely snapped at reporters until they finally gave up.
A couple weeks after Matt had gotten out of the hospital, it’d gotten so bad that he’d said something about Gabriel having been right when he shut down the broadcasts, and that had dominated a whole news cycle. Of course, by that point, Matt had already had his picture taken with the President (and hadn’t that been an exercise in needing a muzzle) and the government wasn’t prepared for the new hero of the technology infrastructure to go down in flames. It had damn near taken a full-time press secretary and a gag order to keep Matt from spouting off about their manipulation of the “free” press.
Matt shuddered. “One: I’m not sure that’s an incentive, and two: no, I mean I can’t go.”
“You have some work thing to do?”
Matt sat up enough to look disgruntled instead of mopey. “No, but I could find something if it’d mean you’d shut up about this.”
John didn’t know much about Matt’s youth, but this didn’t seem like people’s normal anti-reunion griping. “High school was that bad that you never want to see any of them again?”
Matt sighed and dropped his spoon back into the bowl. “Nah, it was okay. I just can’t go because if I go back home, I have to see my parents. And if I see my parents they’re going to start in on me living in the city, and how I have my head so full of ‘that internet stuff’ that I’m going to walk into traffic or get mugged or murdered or all of the above, and then where will they be but sad and alone – never mind that they had no problem with me living in some shithole in fucking Camden, the most dangerous city in the goddamned country, and now I live in Walt freaking Disney’s New York City with a damn cop. It’s all they talk about when they call. I’d stop picking up the phone if I didn’t think they’d worry themselves to death.”
John hadn’t had any idea that Matt’s parents had been giving him such a hard time, and he understood that sometimes there were family problems that talking just didn’t help. “So just don’t tell them.”
“Can’t. Lisa’s on the planning committee, and she works at the bank. Mom sees her every week. There’s no way she wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Maybe this time it’ll be different, then. They see you, they remember you’re an adult, see you’re still in one piece and they lay off a bit.” John stood up to head back to his bedroom and finish getting ready for work, and cuffed Matt on the head on his way past. “Go visit your damn parents, Matt.”
***
Friday morning, John “escorted” Matt to Grand Central to catch his train out to the suburbs, feeling a little like a truant officer. It was the youngest Matt’d seemed since John had known him, and he suspected that given the chance, Matt might have snuck off and crashed at a friend’s apartment for a couple days instead.
On the way home from work that night, he picked up a six-pack and ordered a pizza, and settled in for a quieter-than-average evening. When the phone rang, John maybe shouldn’t have been surprised to hear from Matt, but he’d thought the kid would make it at least 24 hours.
“They want to meet you.”
“Your parents?”
“No, Snow White and the seven dwarves. Yes, my fucking parents want to meet you.” Matt’s voice sounded echoey over the phone, like he was in a small space - a bathroom, or maybe, appropriately, a closet. “Do you have to work?”
John had had a nice drama-free week so far, and this sounded like that wasn’t going to last the whole seven days. “Did you tell them?”
“No. It’s just… God, McClane, you don’t understand! They won’t let me leave! They won’t let me drive. They won’t let me go out with anyone else driving. I think they’d lock me in my room if they could make sure I wouldn’t call the police.” Matt sounded a little like something was choking him. “Please, John. I’m begging you here.”
John tallied the tentative commitments he’d made to follow up on some leads while Matt was gone with the hassle of the drive up, and still came up shy of balancing the need in Matt’s voice. “Okay,” he said. “You going to be okay until morning, or do I need to come tuck you in?”
Some of the tension was missing when he responded. “No, no, I’ll be… thank you. It’ll be better now.”
John opened his mouth to say good night, but before he said anything, Matt spoke up again. “D’you think you could maybe come with me, tomorrow night? I wouldn’t ask, but being home… this all sucks a lot more than I was expecting it to.” He paused, and John heard him draw in a breath. “We don’t have to stay, or you could just hang out at the bar or something. It’s just… easier. When you’re there.”
John closed his eyes, thinking, before he answered. There was a big difference between Matt introducing his roommate to his parents, and him showing up with some old guy at his reunion. Matt sounded torn up over something, though, so John agreed, at least until he could figure out what the real problem was.
***
Late Saturday morning, John unfolded himself from the front seat of his car, arching his back and otherwise trying to force the tension from the drive up out of tight muscles in his back and shoulders. Decrepit old man was not exactly the first impression he’d been planning on making.
While he stood there and stretched, he took a moment to look around the neighborhood. Big lawns, lots of trees. Pretty houses. It’s the suburbs, all right, he thought. The front door opened, and Matt trotted down the sidewalk, with a big, relieved, goofy smile on his face, but rather than stopping a foot or two away like John was prepared for, Matt walked right up to John’s space and enveloped him in a hug, saying, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
The surprise of finding himself with an armful of hacker was nothing compared to the whisper in his ear saying, “I’m sorry. Please, just go with me on this,” before a more-than-friendly kiss landed on his lips. A very wet kiss that had parts of John taking notice that had no business making themselves known in the middle of a lawn in the suburbs on a sunny Saturday afternoon, out in front of God and everybody. Then, just as suddenly, it ended as Matt spun around to face his parents standing on the front porch. Suddenly old and decrepit didn’t seem like such a bad first impression, compared to old and lecherous, and he suspected he’d walked into the plot of a tv movie where some brat teenager yelled “YOU CAN’T STOP OUR LOVE” at her parents before bursting into tears and running up to her room.
John supposed that Matt handled the introductions. Shit, he thought. I don’t even know their names. and John turned on the auto-pilot charm to make it through the rest of the conversation, mind whirling as he tried to figure out just what the hell was going on while Matt stood there, clutching John’s hand. Not for the first time, he thought,This shit just doesn’t happen to normal people, but regardless of the nature of the crisis, he really hadn’t seen this one coming.
Thankfully, before too long Matt made some excuse to his parents and pulled John past them, into the house, and up the stairs. Matt closed the door behind him and leaned against it, while John stood, shell-shocked, in the middle of his room.
When he finally spoke, Matt’s voice was unexpectedly teasing. “Dude, stop flirting with my mom.”
John’s brain ground back into gear, and he fought to keep his voice low as his eyes sharpened and he advanced on Matt. “Oh, you are so wrong if you think that’s what we’re going to fight about. Have you lost your goddamned mind, Farrell? Cause I’ve gotta tell you, if you’re looking to get your ass kicked, I can think of some ways to do it that don’t involve outing me to your goddamned parents and half of suburban Connecticut.”
The grin didn’t entirely fade off Matt’s face, but it weakened. “But you didn’t kick my ass.”
“Day’s not over yet,” John growled.
“So you’re pretty mad, huh?”
“No, Matt, I’m notmad at you. I’m goddamned furious. What the hell were you thinking? Were you even thinking? I don’t care how fucking smart you think you are…”
Matt took a tentative step towards John. “Hey. Hey. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I got it wrong. I thought you’d…”
“Oh, you thought? That’s news to me.”
“You don’t even have to – look, I got a hotel room for the reunion so I wouldn’t have to find my way home after the staggering amount of booze I’m going to need to get through the rest of this weekend. You can hang out there, order room service, watch tv. Just please help me get through this. I’ll do whatever you want.” Matt raised his hands to touch John, but he backed away, holding on to his anger until he could shake some more things into place. Matt pulled back and crossed his arms instead. “You don’t understand how bad it’s been. I come home, and it’s like 1990 again. I can’t get three sentences out before we’re fighting again, and I just can’t keep doing this.”
“So, instead, you kissed me.”
“So, instead, I kissed you. Please, John. I’m really sorry that I had to spring it on you like that, but I’m really counting on the confusion from the gay thing distracting them long enough for me to make an escape without a big scene.”
That was surprising. John knew that Matt had been with both men and women in the past, and he’d assumed that his parents had been at least aware of it. “I don’t know about you, kid, but most families I know? Coming out would be the cause of a scene, not an escape route.”
Matt shook his head. “Trust me. Steve and Emily Farrell would never be so gauche as to have a screaming fit over an ‘alternate lifestyle’”
“So you’ve never brought a guy home before?”
Matt’s body language warmed up again, and he moved closer to John, lowering his voice. “I’ve never brought anyone home before. Just friends. There weren’t many who got close to the meet-the-parents level, and all this bourgeoisie doesn’t exactly help my hacker cred. I’m sorry, I just-”
“No, there is no ‘just’ about this, Matt.” This just kept getting worse and worse. On top of whatever fun conversations his being Matt’s live-in lover were going to start, he was going to get to carry the baggage of first boyfriend, maybe even first date. God, he thought, I should have stayed home. John continued to keep his voice down, but there was definitely a hard edge to it as he replied. “Newsflash, kid, there is a world of difference between the reassuringly protective cop roommate, and the 50-year-old-man who is fucking your baby boy.” He turned away from Matt, clenching his hands into fists to avoid lashing out.
“You just have to ask, Matt. Warn a guy before you spring something like that, okay? You don’t have to lie to me to get me to help.” Probably. And then, maybe they could have dealt with this like normal people. Not that he had any what “normal” was for coming out or introducing your boyfriend to your parents. “I’m still fucking pissed off at you for pulling this crap, but we’ll get through it. I just need a few minutes. And I am damn well going to flirt with your mom if I think that’s what it’s going to take to get through this.”
John took a deep breath and tried to find some calm. This was going to be a lot trickier with no frame of reference for the Farrells’ behavior, and there was no way he was trusting Matt’s judgment about this.
***
Lunch with Matt’s parents consisted of sandwiches and iced tea, and a few minutes after they sat down, John stopped waiting for an explosion and relaxed a bit. Steve and Emily were oddly polite – much more so than Holly’s parents had been to him, or he’d been to any of Lucy’s dates, but John couldn’t decide whether to believe Matt’s claim that they were just going to ignore the elephant in the room. John let Matt’s parents direct the conversation, and they kept to mostly-neutral subjects, although John wasn’t sure what to make of the questions about how long he’d been a cop or lived in the city.
Matt, at least, seemed more relaxed than he’d been since he first decided to make the trip up here, and John’s anger was fading away in the face of his relief. By the time they were done, he could almost believe that this hadn’t been a horrible idea. Emily suggested that Matt show John around town, and as pleasant as the meal had been, John could take a hint. They detoured to Matt’s room on the way out the door so he could put on another layer, and it gave John the opportunity to poke around now that he wasn’t seething.
Matt’s room looked a lot like every other shrine to an outgrown childhood; from the tattered video game poster on the closet door to the scattered knick-knacks on the desk behind the tangle of computer cables, it bore all the signs of the bits of nostalgia not worth packing up. No trophies though, and didn’t every kid’s room have some sort of prize littering it? John felt compelled to ask.
Matt shrugged. “I wasn’t much of a joiner.”
“Not even spelling bee champ?” He winked. “Mathlete?”
“Nah, you had to be fucking cutthroat to get the awards at my school, even the nerd ones. Lotsa Ivy-league suckups.”
John backed up a few steps and dropped down onto the narrow bed, raising his eyebrows as the mattress springs squeaked and one corner of the headboard rattled against the wall. “Probably just as well you never brought anyone home.”
Matt blushed. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly Casanova, wouldn’t have mattered if I had.”
“You and your ‘friends’ never got into any trouble up here?” Matt shook his head, and John smirked. “Too bad you missed out. That’s pretty sexy.”
Matt’s shoulders tightened up, like he was uncomfortable with the change in subject, but he just said “Yeah?” as he continued to poke through the old clothes in his closet in search of something wearable.
John stood back up, chuckling again as the mattress creaked at even that slight movement. “Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do it every day, but once in a while…” He stepped up behind Matt, wrapping his arms around Matt’s waist and turning his head to speak close to Matt’s ear. “Trying to be so quiet, so your parents can’t hear you, but you have to get off fast, ‘cause you know it’s only a matter of time before your mom checks in anyway.” He let his hand drift down to brush over Matt’s groin. “But it feels so good, and you don’t want to stop, so you nearly bite through your lip, or stick your hand in your mouth trying to hold it in. You’d probably need a gag, as much as you talk, just to have a chance of coming before she got wise and came to check on you.” John added pressure to his strokes as Matt hardened beneath his hand. “Of course, you’d probably have to fuck on the floor, as loud as that mattress is.” Matt arched back, his breath stuttering as he tried to match John’s rhythm. “But, when you’re a kid, getting off quick, that’s no problem.” John loosened Matt’s belt, and then slid his hand inside Matt’s pants to stroke him in earnest. “Can you do it now, Matt? Can you come for me? C’mon, baby, let go,” he coaxed, and his hand sped up as he kept murmuring in Matt’s ear. Short minutes later, John bit down on Matt’s earlobe and tugged as his body tightened, and he was spilling over John’s hand and panting heavily against John’s shoulder as John gentled his touch and pulled his hand clear. “Of course, no matter what you do, the room still smells like sex after. You’re not fooling anyone.”
“Oh, God,” Matt groaned.
John stepped away once Matt came back to himself and pulled a couple tissues out of the box on the desk, offering them to Matt. “Oh, now you’re shy?”
“Christ, John, you can’t just do that. What happened to being all pissed about me telling my parents?”
John shrugged. “The way I’ve always figured it, if I’m going to carry the label, the very least I can do is get the benefits.”
Matt was still trying to pull himself together, and probably looking for clean underwear now as well as an extra shirt. “And did you?” Matt gestured at John’s crotch. “Benefit?” Matt asked.
“Nah.” John smirked. “I just did that for fun.”
***
Eventually, they did make it out of the house, and John got his promised tour of the town. There wasn’t much point in the sights themselves – the high school, a park, a shopping area populated by a typical mixture of boutiques, restaurants and chain stores – but Matt told stories as they drove that shed a little light on his history here, and some of the people he expected to see at the reunion that night. It didn’t sound like he’d had a rough time of it, but it was definitely well in his past, and John thought they were both happy for it to stay there once this weekend was over.
When the sun started to drop behind the trees, they returned to the Farrells’ house to clean up and get dressed, and Matt’s mother wandering in and out of the room, offering to iron things or God knows what else reminded John uncomfortably of getting ready to go to a prom. He really hoped she wasn’t going to make them pose for a picture.
As John stood in front of the bureau mirror, straightening his cuffs and doing one last check for lint on his suit, he could hear Matt’s increasingly frustrated mutters echoing out from the bathroom where he was presumably putting the finishing touches on his own clothes. When his grumbling moved on from the general evils of social norms and their stifling effect on acceptable male formalwear, to the specific manufacturers of his tie, who were clearly evil overlords exploiting foreign laborers who had cursed or otherwise sabotaged the production line to produce only untieable neckwear, John ran a final critical eye over his own appearance and went to go check on Matt.
John walked into the bathroom and squeezed in behind Matt where he stood at the sink, staring down at the rumpled tie hanging around his neck. John snuck his arms under Matt’s, and pushed his hands out of the way. “What are you, twelve? How do you not know how to tie a tie?”
Matt drove a sharp elbow back into John’s side. “I know how. It just… won’t. It’s a stupid antiquated notion, and I think I’m subconsciously rebelling, because no matter what I do, the knot looks wonky. Save me? ” He slumped back against John. “I don’t see why I have to wear it anyway. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”
John took advantage of his grip on Matt’s now neatly-knotted tie to pull it far too tight around his neck for a second before loosening it again.
Matt let out a long-suffering sigh and reached to pull his jacket off the hanger hooked on the towel-rack. “You’re a monster. A mean, horrible… wow, smokin’ hot monster.” Matt ran appreciative eyes over John from head to toe. “Damn, McClane, where have you been hiding all that? Are those honest-to-God cufflinks?”
John’s reply was gruff, even though he was pleased at the compliment. “If I’ve got to get dressed up, you can bet your ass that I’m not going to wear some uncomfortable piece of shit off the rack.” He rolled his eyes, but turned around obligingly when Matt made a spinny motion with his hand. “You can get a lot of mileage out of one good suit.”
“I know you said you didn’t really have to go, but damn, I’m glad you’re going to be there with me.” He mock-frowned and ran his hands through his hair. “Although I look like something the cat dragged in, next to you.”
John smoothed down some of Matt’s flyaway hair and said made a tsking sound. “I’m sure all the girls go crazy for that rumpled mad-genius look. Gotta get in on the ground floor so they can lay claim to your millions in the divorce.” John batted Matt’s hands away again when he reached up to fuss with his tie. “You’re done primping now, precious. Let’s get moving.” He shoved Matt toward the stairs before turning back to the room to collect their bags and his car keys, and if the “Geez, mom, no,” was any indication, she had tried to take pictures after all, but there was no camera out by the time John made it downstairs. Steve and Emily were precisely as polite saying goodbye as they’d been for the rest of the visit, and John resigned himself to having to interpret whatever Matt said about them in the future without any real evidence of his own. They clearly had their own problems, but it was a nice change from yelling in the parking lot, and it wasn’t his boat to rock, so he just smiled, and shook Steve’s hand, and herded Matt out the door to the car.
There was no big-deal check-in when they arrived at the restaurant, so with a quiet “Matt Farrell, and guest” to the lady at the door, they were in. Matt nodded to a few people on their way to a bar, miming a drink and promising to come back. He ordered a beer, and walked away, already in easy conversation with the man who’d been standing next to him. John settled in with a glass of bourbon and watched Matt. He circled back to the bar from time to time, but mostly, John manned his corner alone, and Matt circulated among his classmates.
As the night wore on, the crowd became less focused on reminiscing and more focused on partying, but where everyone else looked to be gearing up for more, Matt seemed to dim as time passed, at least to John’s eyes. John hadn’t seen him talk to anyone for more than a few minutes at a time, and he looked over at John often, meeting his eyes with a quiet smile. Maybe he was just tired, between the stress of the previous day and his current social butterfly act, but John did his best to keep an eye on Matt anyway, in case there was something wrong.
The later it got, the more crowded John found his corner of the room, and he was getting less patient with the crowd and with whatever was bothering Matt. After he ran off the fifth drunken young thing trying to hang on him, Matt appeared at his elbow, stole his drink to finish it, and tugged him toward the door. “Let’s go,” he said. “Your misanthropy is showing.”
As they waited to cross the street, Matt leaned into John and snuck an arm around his waist. “Missed you,” he said. “Glad it’s over,” he added, and rubbed his thumb against John’s hipbone where it edged above his belt. “Missed this.”
John smiled and rested his hand on Matt’s nape as the light changed. “Yeah?” he asked. “You must have a hell of a time making it through a whole day at work then.”
“That’s different. I like work. And you’re not staring at me from across the room all day at work either. Was driving me crazy, thinking about getting you back to our room.”
They stepped apart a bit while walking through the lobby, but Matt kept swaying to the side to brush against John’s sleeve, and reached out to toy with John’s fingers while they waited for the elevator. When they were alone in the elevator, Matt turned and pressed against John, mouthing at his jaw and threading their fingers together, and when the elevator arrived on their floor, they were so slow to notice that they broke apart just in time to catch the doors before they closed again.
They’d hardly made it through the door to the hotel room before Matt turned around again and grabbed hold of John’s tie, loosening the knot enough to get to the button at John’s collar. John grinned against Matt’s mouth as he found himself pinned into the space behind the door. Matt’s momentum into the room pushed them along the wall, and John reached out a hand to steady the vase as its base rattled on the table. John paused for breath and smiled at Matt, indulgently. “Whoa there, tiger. You’re not gonna want to explain those damages tomorrow.”
Matt just grunted and tugged on John’s tie again, bringing their mouths closer together but hovering just shy of a kiss as he worked the buttons on John’s shirt. “Don’t - Jesus, fuck - don’t care,” he panted. John slid his hands down to Matt’s hips, and separated their bodies in order to make a move towards the bed, but Matt just growled and hooked one of his legs behind John’s ankle. John’s plan to move them to a horizontal surface before one of them strained something was looking like it was going to end with the floor rather than the bed, but damned if he was going to pass up that king-sized mattress without a fight.
He leaned into the kiss, their tongues tangling as he pushed Matt towards the opposite wall of the entryway. Once Matt was braced against the wall and the danger of his landing them both on their asses had passed, John cradled Matt’s face in his hands, stroking and kissing until he could untangle their legs and toe off his shoes. With a final nip at Matt’s lower lip, John eased away from Matt and backed towards the bed.
“C’mon, lover-boy. We can fuck up against the wall any time we want.” John continued his steady progress across the carpet, holding Matt’s gaze. “Let me show you a good time.”
Matt had clearly had more to drink than John had accounted for, or something else had wound him up. Whichever it was, the unexpected fire in his eyes tonight was well worth the hassle and the awkwardness of the weekend.
Matt finally pushed away from the wall, and unknotted his tie as he crossed to the bed. “God, John, so fuckin’ hot. You have no idea. All night long, everyone was watching you, propped up by the bar.”
John chuckled. “Probably worried I was a narc.”
“Nah, too hot to be a narc.” John let that bit of illogic pass as Matt reached the side of the bed and wove his hands underneath John’s jacket at his shoulders. “They just wanted you. Classiest guy in the room.”
John had to smother a laugh at anyone thinking that Judy McClane’s loud-mouthed kid had grown up to be classy. “Anyone who asked, I told them I was all yours.” He smirked. “I don’t think they believed me though. That spiky-haired chick kept looking like she wanted to crawl into your lap.”
Matt’s expression suddenly twisted sour. “Matthew Farrell, big fuckin’ joke. No way the stories are true; no way that guy’s with him. He’s just the class clown pulling off one more prank; nothin’ going nowhere.”
Matt tugged John’s jacket down over his wrists and John heard one of his cufflinks bounce off the carpet and rattle to a stop on the bathroom floor.
“Watch the threads, kid. Gino does good work, and he’ll kick your ass himself if you tear one of the seams.” John took over removing his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt and pants before dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed. “C’mere, baby. Let me show you how serious we are.”
John slid his hands up Matt’s ribs and pushed his shirt off over his head to land in a crumpled heap on the floor, before moving on to the fly of Matt's pants. Matt’s chest was flushed, and John tugged him closer by his waistband so that he stood between John’s legs, and he could feel the damp heat rising from Matt’s skin in the cool room. He peppered kisses down Matt’s chest as he pulled down his zipper and pushed Matt’s pants over his hips to pool on the floor, and Matt’s eyes closed as his hips thrust forward, his dick nudging John’s chin through his boxers. Matt’s boxers followed his pants to the floor, and John tugged Matt’s hips again so that crawled forward onto the bed, straddling John’s lap with his pants still tangled around his shoes and binding his ankles together. Undeterred, Matt just spread his knees wider and inched forward until their bodies met from chest to thighs, grinding his hips to rub their cocks together.
John’s voice got trapped between a chuckle and a moan at the picture Matt presented, and ran soothing hands down Matt’s back before tackling the restricting clothes. “Shh, I’ve got you. Oh, Christ, just…” He finally pulled off one shoe with a frustrated yank that nearly unbalanced them both, but after a shaky couple of seconds, Matt pushed forward with enough force to land John flat on the bed anyway.
Matt shimmied down John’s body a few inches, his legs still spread wide as he rutted against John in frantic, needy bursts. John pushed at his own clothes and tried to slide towards the center of the bed, but had barely moved when the slick head of Matt’s cock slipped between John’s thighs, nudging at his balls, and Matt shuddered at the changing sensation. “God, John, I need… so bad. Please-“
As Matt’s words sank into John’s sex-fogged brain, he shifted his hands to Matt’s ass, kneading and trying to force a slower rhythm before it was all over. “Is that what you want? You want to fuck me open, make me yell so the neighbors can hear how real this is?” John took the shudder that ran down Matt’s spine as agreement, and held onto Matt’s legs as he sat up to grope for the bag they’d dropped by the side of the bed. He upended it over the bedspread as he claimed Matt’s mouth again, and felt through the scattered contents until he identified lube and condoms. He pressed them into Matt’s hands before pushing the rest of the mess to the far side of the bed and reclaiming the lube.
He wrapped one hand behind Matt’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss before gripping the back of Matt’s skull to ensure that their eyes met. “Stay with me babe, okay? Just hold on for one more minute and then you can take what you need.” Matt’s eyes were full dark in the dim light from the bedside lamp, but the fog cleared from them enough for Matt to nod yes, and tear the condom wrapper open. John shifted under Matt and wrestled his clothes the rest of the way off before rolling over. He pulled up his right leg and slicked his fingers, and as he started to work himself open, he could feel Matt’s thighs trembling above him. It was only seconds before Matt’s hands were back on John’s body and his fingers were displacing John’s and John gave himself over to the feeling of Matt everywhere, inside and out. Matt leaned heavily on one hand at John’s side, his sheathed cock tracing circles on John’s thigh as his hips mimicked the movement of Matt’s fingers, until John was nearly as frantic as Matt had been minutes before. “C’mon, Matt, all yours, I’m all yours, I’m ready, c’mon.” His words coaxed Matt, keeping him focused, until his fingers slipped away to grip John’s ass, and John felt the head of Matt’s dick pressing up against him and then sliding in with an ease that belied how much Matt needed this.
“Nngh, John, John, oh God, John, so good.” A meaningless stream of sound spilled out into the room as Matt sank home and then shifted over John so that he could lace the fingers of their right hands together, tightening his grip each time he pumped.
John could tell how close Matt was, how he’d been seemingly moments from coming ever since they’d stumbled through the door. He wrapped his free hand around his cock, just gripping as Matt’s thrusts provided enough motion for both of them, and took up his encouragement again. “Yeah, Matt, God, harder, I can take it, only you, c’mon, show me.” As John’s orgasm overtook him, he cried out one final “Oh, God, Matt!” and felt Matt’s thighs tighten as he slammed home one last time, groaning out his own release and sinking down to the bed at John’s side.
After a lazy, sweaty minute or two, Matt eased out, and John turned over, frowning as he realized that his dress shirt had been crumpled up beneath him. At least that, unlike his suit, could be laundered and bleached if necessary without having to explain to his tailor or dry cleaner. Matt made a move as if to get up and dispose of the condom, before chuckling and collapsing back to the bed. John met his eyes and raised an eyebrow, and Matt gestured down to the side of the bed, where he raised up his left foot, with its shoe still on and trouser leg wrapped around his ankle like a legwarmer.
John pulled him close for a wet but firm kiss, before sitting up to straighten out his clothes. “Yeah, we’re a classy pair, all right. I can’t take you anywhere.”
Matt’s blush deepened the athletic flush already on fading from his cheeks. “Sorry. I got a little…” he made a dismissive gesture and stood up to walk to the bathroom. After a moment, John hauled himself up off of the bed to follow Matt, and trapped him against the bathroom counter.
“Nothing to be sorry for. Everyone gets a little… you know. Sometimes. That’s why I’m here, for whatever you need.” He pulled back to grin. “And it’s my turn in the morning, and we’re going to use the whole damn bed.” He deposited a kiss on Matt’s temple, and then a longer one on his mouth before announcing, “Shower,” and pivoting to turn the tap on.
Matt was already fading as they stepped under the spray, and John held him long enough to rinse clean enough to sleep before herding him into a bath towel and back to the bed.
John rubbed the towel over Matt’s hair one last time before dropping it on the floor and crawling into bed behind Matt and turning off the light. Sated and warm, bundled in soft sheets and too many hotel pillows, John was the most content he could remember feeling as he tumbled into sleep with Matt held in his arms.
When they were checking out, late the next morning, John made sure to lean down and plant a kiss squarely on Matt’s lips when that gossipy chick from the bank walked by.
Author:
healingmirthFandom: Live Free or Die Hard
Pairing/Characters: John McClane/Matt Farrell
Rating/Category: NC-17/Slash
Prompt: John meet's Matt's family
Spoilers: none
Summary: Matt goes home for his 10-year high school reunion. John goes with him.
Notes/Warnings: 6300 words, established relationship, standalone. Featuring 1800 words posted yesterday as part of the porn battle before I buckled down and decided to finished my last claimed
smallfandomfest prompt. Bears no resemblance to the Poison song of the same title, but I am quite fond of the Aqualung one. Fair warning, I nearly titled this tl;dr.Seriously. Not my best work, though I am quite fond of parts of it.
reposted here below the cut for my own convenience
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When John went to take the garbage out Tuesday morning, there was some sort of fancy stationary envelope in the bag in the trash can, under the previous morning’s coffee grounds. Matt's name in a swirling calligraphy-type script was still legible despite the watery smear across it. John fished it out with two fingers, shaking it off before dangling it between Matt and the cereal box that he was staring at blearily. “Did you mean to throw this out?”
“Hrm?” Matt blinked a couple times before focusing first on the envelope and then briefly on John’s face before his eyes flicked back to glare at it. “Oh, yeah. Garbage.” He slumped forward, resting his on his elbows on the table, and continued to toy with the cereal in his bowl. Matt’s near-catatonia in the mornings usually turned any attempt at conversation into an interrogation, so John wasn’t surprised at Matt’s lack of response, but it’s not like he got engraved invitations every day – or at least John thought he didn’t – so his curiosity was piqued.
"Ex-girlfriend getting married?"
“Hmm? No. Worse,” Matt grumbled.
John waited for him to continue, before sitting down at the table and drawing Matt’s attention when it became clear that he thought that had been a complete answer. “So, Matt. What’s worse than being invited to an ex-girlfriend’s wedding?”
“High school reunion. Ten years.”
“And you don’t want to go? You’re practically a hero now, after all. You’d probably get cheerleaders throwing their panties at you.”
The hero thing is one of their well-worn arguments. Even though he thought it was a load of shit that he got recognized for just doing his job, John was perfectly willing to admit that other people thought he was a hero. Matt, on the other hand was uncomfortable to the point of pain in the spotlight, and had routinely snapped at reporters until they finally gave up.
A couple weeks after Matt had gotten out of the hospital, it’d gotten so bad that he’d said something about Gabriel having been right when he shut down the broadcasts, and that had dominated a whole news cycle. Of course, by that point, Matt had already had his picture taken with the President (and hadn’t that been an exercise in needing a muzzle) and the government wasn’t prepared for the new hero of the technology infrastructure to go down in flames. It had damn near taken a full-time press secretary and a gag order to keep Matt from spouting off about their manipulation of the “free” press.
Matt shuddered. “One: I’m not sure that’s an incentive, and two: no, I mean I can’t go.”
“You have some work thing to do?”
Matt sat up enough to look disgruntled instead of mopey. “No, but I could find something if it’d mean you’d shut up about this.”
John didn’t know much about Matt’s youth, but this didn’t seem like people’s normal anti-reunion griping. “High school was that bad that you never want to see any of them again?”
Matt sighed and dropped his spoon back into the bowl. “Nah, it was okay. I just can’t go because if I go back home, I have to see my parents. And if I see my parents they’re going to start in on me living in the city, and how I have my head so full of ‘that internet stuff’ that I’m going to walk into traffic or get mugged or murdered or all of the above, and then where will they be but sad and alone – never mind that they had no problem with me living in some shithole in fucking Camden, the most dangerous city in the goddamned country, and now I live in Walt freaking Disney’s New York City with a damn cop. It’s all they talk about when they call. I’d stop picking up the phone if I didn’t think they’d worry themselves to death.”
John hadn’t had any idea that Matt’s parents had been giving him such a hard time, and he understood that sometimes there were family problems that talking just didn’t help. “So just don’t tell them.”
“Can’t. Lisa’s on the planning committee, and she works at the bank. Mom sees her every week. There’s no way she wouldn’t talk about it.”
“Maybe this time it’ll be different, then. They see you, they remember you’re an adult, see you’re still in one piece and they lay off a bit.” John stood up to head back to his bedroom and finish getting ready for work, and cuffed Matt on the head on his way past. “Go visit your damn parents, Matt.”
Friday morning, John “escorted” Matt to Grand Central to catch his train out to the suburbs, feeling a little like a truant officer. It was the youngest Matt’d seemed since John had known him, and he suspected that given the chance, Matt might have snuck off and crashed at a friend’s apartment for a couple days instead.
On the way home from work that night, he picked up a six-pack and ordered a pizza, and settled in for a quieter-than-average evening. When the phone rang, John maybe shouldn’t have been surprised to hear from Matt, but he’d thought the kid would make it at least 24 hours.
“They want to meet you.”
“Your parents?”
“No, Snow White and the seven dwarves. Yes, my fucking parents want to meet you.” Matt’s voice sounded echoey over the phone, like he was in a small space - a bathroom, or maybe, appropriately, a closet. “Do you have to work?”
John had had a nice drama-free week so far, and this sounded like that wasn’t going to last the whole seven days. “Did you tell them?”
“No. It’s just… God, McClane, you don’t understand! They won’t let me leave! They won’t let me drive. They won’t let me go out with anyone else driving. I think they’d lock me in my room if they could make sure I wouldn’t call the police.” Matt sounded a little like something was choking him. “Please, John. I’m begging you here.”
John tallied the tentative commitments he’d made to follow up on some leads while Matt was gone with the hassle of the drive up, and still came up shy of balancing the need in Matt’s voice. “Okay,” he said. “You going to be okay until morning, or do I need to come tuck you in?”
Some of the tension was missing when he responded. “No, no, I’ll be… thank you. It’ll be better now.”
John opened his mouth to say good night, but before he said anything, Matt spoke up again. “D’you think you could maybe come with me, tomorrow night? I wouldn’t ask, but being home… this all sucks a lot more than I was expecting it to.” He paused, and John heard him draw in a breath. “We don’t have to stay, or you could just hang out at the bar or something. It’s just… easier. When you’re there.”
John closed his eyes, thinking, before he answered. There was a big difference between Matt introducing his roommate to his parents, and him showing up with some old guy at his reunion. Matt sounded torn up over something, though, so John agreed, at least until he could figure out what the real problem was.
Late Saturday morning, John unfolded himself from the front seat of his car, arching his back and otherwise trying to force the tension from the drive up out of tight muscles in his back and shoulders. Decrepit old man was not exactly the first impression he’d been planning on making.
While he stood there and stretched, he took a moment to look around the neighborhood. Big lawns, lots of trees. Pretty houses. It’s the suburbs, all right, he thought. The front door opened, and Matt trotted down the sidewalk, with a big, relieved, goofy smile on his face, but rather than stopping a foot or two away like John was prepared for, Matt walked right up to John’s space and enveloped him in a hug, saying, “I’m so glad you’re here.”
The surprise of finding himself with an armful of hacker was nothing compared to the whisper in his ear saying, “I’m sorry. Please, just go with me on this,” before a more-than-friendly kiss landed on his lips. A very wet kiss that had parts of John taking notice that had no business making themselves known in the middle of a lawn in the suburbs on a sunny Saturday afternoon, out in front of God and everybody. Then, just as suddenly, it ended as Matt spun around to face his parents standing on the front porch. Suddenly old and decrepit didn’t seem like such a bad first impression, compared to old and lecherous, and he suspected he’d walked into the plot of a tv movie where some brat teenager yelled “YOU CAN’T STOP OUR LOVE” at her parents before bursting into tears and running up to her room.
John supposed that Matt handled the introductions. Shit, he thought. I don’t even know their names. and John turned on the auto-pilot charm to make it through the rest of the conversation, mind whirling as he tried to figure out just what the hell was going on while Matt stood there, clutching John’s hand. Not for the first time, he thought,This shit just doesn’t happen to normal people, but regardless of the nature of the crisis, he really hadn’t seen this one coming.
Thankfully, before too long Matt made some excuse to his parents and pulled John past them, into the house, and up the stairs. Matt closed the door behind him and leaned against it, while John stood, shell-shocked, in the middle of his room.
When he finally spoke, Matt’s voice was unexpectedly teasing. “Dude, stop flirting with my mom.”
John’s brain ground back into gear, and he fought to keep his voice low as his eyes sharpened and he advanced on Matt. “Oh, you are so wrong if you think that’s what we’re going to fight about. Have you lost your goddamned mind, Farrell? Cause I’ve gotta tell you, if you’re looking to get your ass kicked, I can think of some ways to do it that don’t involve outing me to your goddamned parents and half of suburban Connecticut.”
The grin didn’t entirely fade off Matt’s face, but it weakened. “But you didn’t kick my ass.”
“Day’s not over yet,” John growled.
“So you’re pretty mad, huh?”
“No, Matt, I’m notmad at you. I’m goddamned furious. What the hell were you thinking? Were you even thinking? I don’t care how fucking smart you think you are…”
Matt took a tentative step towards John. “Hey. Hey. I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. I got it wrong. I thought you’d…”
“Oh, you thought? That’s news to me.”
“You don’t even have to – look, I got a hotel room for the reunion so I wouldn’t have to find my way home after the staggering amount of booze I’m going to need to get through the rest of this weekend. You can hang out there, order room service, watch tv. Just please help me get through this. I’ll do whatever you want.” Matt raised his hands to touch John, but he backed away, holding on to his anger until he could shake some more things into place. Matt pulled back and crossed his arms instead. “You don’t understand how bad it’s been. I come home, and it’s like 1990 again. I can’t get three sentences out before we’re fighting again, and I just can’t keep doing this.”
“So, instead, you kissed me.”
“So, instead, I kissed you. Please, John. I’m really sorry that I had to spring it on you like that, but I’m really counting on the confusion from the gay thing distracting them long enough for me to make an escape without a big scene.”
That was surprising. John knew that Matt had been with both men and women in the past, and he’d assumed that his parents had been at least aware of it. “I don’t know about you, kid, but most families I know? Coming out would be the cause of a scene, not an escape route.”
Matt shook his head. “Trust me. Steve and Emily Farrell would never be so gauche as to have a screaming fit over an ‘alternate lifestyle’”
“So you’ve never brought a guy home before?”
Matt’s body language warmed up again, and he moved closer to John, lowering his voice. “I’ve never brought anyone home before. Just friends. There weren’t many who got close to the meet-the-parents level, and all this bourgeoisie doesn’t exactly help my hacker cred. I’m sorry, I just-”
“No, there is no ‘just’ about this, Matt.” This just kept getting worse and worse. On top of whatever fun conversations his being Matt’s live-in lover were going to start, he was going to get to carry the baggage of first boyfriend, maybe even first date. God, he thought, I should have stayed home. John continued to keep his voice down, but there was definitely a hard edge to it as he replied. “Newsflash, kid, there is a world of difference between the reassuringly protective cop roommate, and the 50-year-old-man who is fucking your baby boy.” He turned away from Matt, clenching his hands into fists to avoid lashing out.
“You just have to ask, Matt. Warn a guy before you spring something like that, okay? You don’t have to lie to me to get me to help.” Probably. And then, maybe they could have dealt with this like normal people. Not that he had any what “normal” was for coming out or introducing your boyfriend to your parents. “I’m still fucking pissed off at you for pulling this crap, but we’ll get through it. I just need a few minutes. And I am damn well going to flirt with your mom if I think that’s what it’s going to take to get through this.”
John took a deep breath and tried to find some calm. This was going to be a lot trickier with no frame of reference for the Farrells’ behavior, and there was no way he was trusting Matt’s judgment about this.
Lunch with Matt’s parents consisted of sandwiches and iced tea, and a few minutes after they sat down, John stopped waiting for an explosion and relaxed a bit. Steve and Emily were oddly polite – much more so than Holly’s parents had been to him, or he’d been to any of Lucy’s dates, but John couldn’t decide whether to believe Matt’s claim that they were just going to ignore the elephant in the room. John let Matt’s parents direct the conversation, and they kept to mostly-neutral subjects, although John wasn’t sure what to make of the questions about how long he’d been a cop or lived in the city.
Matt, at least, seemed more relaxed than he’d been since he first decided to make the trip up here, and John’s anger was fading away in the face of his relief. By the time they were done, he could almost believe that this hadn’t been a horrible idea. Emily suggested that Matt show John around town, and as pleasant as the meal had been, John could take a hint. They detoured to Matt’s room on the way out the door so he could put on another layer, and it gave John the opportunity to poke around now that he wasn’t seething.
Matt’s room looked a lot like every other shrine to an outgrown childhood; from the tattered video game poster on the closet door to the scattered knick-knacks on the desk behind the tangle of computer cables, it bore all the signs of the bits of nostalgia not worth packing up. No trophies though, and didn’t every kid’s room have some sort of prize littering it? John felt compelled to ask.
Matt shrugged. “I wasn’t much of a joiner.”
“Not even spelling bee champ?” He winked. “Mathlete?”
“Nah, you had to be fucking cutthroat to get the awards at my school, even the nerd ones. Lotsa Ivy-league suckups.”
John backed up a few steps and dropped down onto the narrow bed, raising his eyebrows as the mattress springs squeaked and one corner of the headboard rattled against the wall. “Probably just as well you never brought anyone home.”
Matt blushed. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t exactly Casanova, wouldn’t have mattered if I had.”
“You and your ‘friends’ never got into any trouble up here?” Matt shook his head, and John smirked. “Too bad you missed out. That’s pretty sexy.”
Matt’s shoulders tightened up, like he was uncomfortable with the change in subject, but he just said “Yeah?” as he continued to poke through the old clothes in his closet in search of something wearable.
John stood back up, chuckling again as the mattress creaked at even that slight movement. “Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t want to do it every day, but once in a while…” He stepped up behind Matt, wrapping his arms around Matt’s waist and turning his head to speak close to Matt’s ear. “Trying to be so quiet, so your parents can’t hear you, but you have to get off fast, ‘cause you know it’s only a matter of time before your mom checks in anyway.” He let his hand drift down to brush over Matt’s groin. “But it feels so good, and you don’t want to stop, so you nearly bite through your lip, or stick your hand in your mouth trying to hold it in. You’d probably need a gag, as much as you talk, just to have a chance of coming before she got wise and came to check on you.” John added pressure to his strokes as Matt hardened beneath his hand. “Of course, you’d probably have to fuck on the floor, as loud as that mattress is.” Matt arched back, his breath stuttering as he tried to match John’s rhythm. “But, when you’re a kid, getting off quick, that’s no problem.” John loosened Matt’s belt, and then slid his hand inside Matt’s pants to stroke him in earnest. “Can you do it now, Matt? Can you come for me? C’mon, baby, let go,” he coaxed, and his hand sped up as he kept murmuring in Matt’s ear. Short minutes later, John bit down on Matt’s earlobe and tugged as his body tightened, and he was spilling over John’s hand and panting heavily against John’s shoulder as John gentled his touch and pulled his hand clear. “Of course, no matter what you do, the room still smells like sex after. You’re not fooling anyone.”
“Oh, God,” Matt groaned.
John stepped away once Matt came back to himself and pulled a couple tissues out of the box on the desk, offering them to Matt. “Oh, now you’re shy?”
“Christ, John, you can’t just do that. What happened to being all pissed about me telling my parents?”
John shrugged. “The way I’ve always figured it, if I’m going to carry the label, the very least I can do is get the benefits.”
Matt was still trying to pull himself together, and probably looking for clean underwear now as well as an extra shirt. “And did you?” Matt gestured at John’s crotch. “Benefit?” Matt asked.
“Nah.” John smirked. “I just did that for fun.”
Eventually, they did make it out of the house, and John got his promised tour of the town. There wasn’t much point in the sights themselves – the high school, a park, a shopping area populated by a typical mixture of boutiques, restaurants and chain stores – but Matt told stories as they drove that shed a little light on his history here, and some of the people he expected to see at the reunion that night. It didn’t sound like he’d had a rough time of it, but it was definitely well in his past, and John thought they were both happy for it to stay there once this weekend was over.
When the sun started to drop behind the trees, they returned to the Farrells’ house to clean up and get dressed, and Matt’s mother wandering in and out of the room, offering to iron things or God knows what else reminded John uncomfortably of getting ready to go to a prom. He really hoped she wasn’t going to make them pose for a picture.
As John stood in front of the bureau mirror, straightening his cuffs and doing one last check for lint on his suit, he could hear Matt’s increasingly frustrated mutters echoing out from the bathroom where he was presumably putting the finishing touches on his own clothes. When his grumbling moved on from the general evils of social norms and their stifling effect on acceptable male formalwear, to the specific manufacturers of his tie, who were clearly evil overlords exploiting foreign laborers who had cursed or otherwise sabotaged the production line to produce only untieable neckwear, John ran a final critical eye over his own appearance and went to go check on Matt.
John walked into the bathroom and squeezed in behind Matt where he stood at the sink, staring down at the rumpled tie hanging around his neck. John snuck his arms under Matt’s, and pushed his hands out of the way. “What are you, twelve? How do you not know how to tie a tie?”
Matt drove a sharp elbow back into John’s side. “I know how. It just… won’t. It’s a stupid antiquated notion, and I think I’m subconsciously rebelling, because no matter what I do, the knot looks wonky. Save me? ” He slumped back against John. “I don’t see why I have to wear it anyway. It’s not like I’m trying to impress anyone.”
John took advantage of his grip on Matt’s now neatly-knotted tie to pull it far too tight around his neck for a second before loosening it again.
Matt let out a long-suffering sigh and reached to pull his jacket off the hanger hooked on the towel-rack. “You’re a monster. A mean, horrible… wow, smokin’ hot monster.” Matt ran appreciative eyes over John from head to toe. “Damn, McClane, where have you been hiding all that? Are those honest-to-God cufflinks?”
John’s reply was gruff, even though he was pleased at the compliment. “If I’ve got to get dressed up, you can bet your ass that I’m not going to wear some uncomfortable piece of shit off the rack.” He rolled his eyes, but turned around obligingly when Matt made a spinny motion with his hand. “You can get a lot of mileage out of one good suit.”
“I know you said you didn’t really have to go, but damn, I’m glad you’re going to be there with me.” He mock-frowned and ran his hands through his hair. “Although I look like something the cat dragged in, next to you.”
John smoothed down some of Matt’s flyaway hair and said made a tsking sound. “I’m sure all the girls go crazy for that rumpled mad-genius look. Gotta get in on the ground floor so they can lay claim to your millions in the divorce.” John batted Matt’s hands away again when he reached up to fuss with his tie. “You’re done primping now, precious. Let’s get moving.” He shoved Matt toward the stairs before turning back to the room to collect their bags and his car keys, and if the “Geez, mom, no,” was any indication, she had tried to take pictures after all, but there was no camera out by the time John made it downstairs. Steve and Emily were precisely as polite saying goodbye as they’d been for the rest of the visit, and John resigned himself to having to interpret whatever Matt said about them in the future without any real evidence of his own. They clearly had their own problems, but it was a nice change from yelling in the parking lot, and it wasn’t his boat to rock, so he just smiled, and shook Steve’s hand, and herded Matt out the door to the car.
There was no big-deal check-in when they arrived at the restaurant, so with a quiet “Matt Farrell, and guest” to the lady at the door, they were in. Matt nodded to a few people on their way to a bar, miming a drink and promising to come back. He ordered a beer, and walked away, already in easy conversation with the man who’d been standing next to him. John settled in with a glass of bourbon and watched Matt. He circled back to the bar from time to time, but mostly, John manned his corner alone, and Matt circulated among his classmates.
As the night wore on, the crowd became less focused on reminiscing and more focused on partying, but where everyone else looked to be gearing up for more, Matt seemed to dim as time passed, at least to John’s eyes. John hadn’t seen him talk to anyone for more than a few minutes at a time, and he looked over at John often, meeting his eyes with a quiet smile. Maybe he was just tired, between the stress of the previous day and his current social butterfly act, but John did his best to keep an eye on Matt anyway, in case there was something wrong.
The later it got, the more crowded John found his corner of the room, and he was getting less patient with the crowd and with whatever was bothering Matt. After he ran off the fifth drunken young thing trying to hang on him, Matt appeared at his elbow, stole his drink to finish it, and tugged him toward the door. “Let’s go,” he said. “Your misanthropy is showing.”
As they waited to cross the street, Matt leaned into John and snuck an arm around his waist. “Missed you,” he said. “Glad it’s over,” he added, and rubbed his thumb against John’s hipbone where it edged above his belt. “Missed this.”
John smiled and rested his hand on Matt’s nape as the light changed. “Yeah?” he asked. “You must have a hell of a time making it through a whole day at work then.”
“That’s different. I like work. And you’re not staring at me from across the room all day at work either. Was driving me crazy, thinking about getting you back to our room.”
They stepped apart a bit while walking through the lobby, but Matt kept swaying to the side to brush against John’s sleeve, and reached out to toy with John’s fingers while they waited for the elevator. When they were alone in the elevator, Matt turned and pressed against John, mouthing at his jaw and threading their fingers together, and when the elevator arrived on their floor, they were so slow to notice that they broke apart just in time to catch the doors before they closed again.
They’d hardly made it through the door to the hotel room before Matt turned around again and grabbed hold of John’s tie, loosening the knot enough to get to the button at John’s collar. John grinned against Matt’s mouth as he found himself pinned into the space behind the door. Matt’s momentum into the room pushed them along the wall, and John reached out a hand to steady the vase as its base rattled on the table. John paused for breath and smiled at Matt, indulgently. “Whoa there, tiger. You’re not gonna want to explain those damages tomorrow.”
Matt just grunted and tugged on John’s tie again, bringing their mouths closer together but hovering just shy of a kiss as he worked the buttons on John’s shirt. “Don’t - Jesus, fuck - don’t care,” he panted. John slid his hands down to Matt’s hips, and separated their bodies in order to make a move towards the bed, but Matt just growled and hooked one of his legs behind John’s ankle. John’s plan to move them to a horizontal surface before one of them strained something was looking like it was going to end with the floor rather than the bed, but damned if he was going to pass up that king-sized mattress without a fight.
He leaned into the kiss, their tongues tangling as he pushed Matt towards the opposite wall of the entryway. Once Matt was braced against the wall and the danger of his landing them both on their asses had passed, John cradled Matt’s face in his hands, stroking and kissing until he could untangle their legs and toe off his shoes. With a final nip at Matt’s lower lip, John eased away from Matt and backed towards the bed.
“C’mon, lover-boy. We can fuck up against the wall any time we want.” John continued his steady progress across the carpet, holding Matt’s gaze. “Let me show you a good time.”
Matt had clearly had more to drink than John had accounted for, or something else had wound him up. Whichever it was, the unexpected fire in his eyes tonight was well worth the hassle and the awkwardness of the weekend.
Matt finally pushed away from the wall, and unknotted his tie as he crossed to the bed. “God, John, so fuckin’ hot. You have no idea. All night long, everyone was watching you, propped up by the bar.”
John chuckled. “Probably worried I was a narc.”
“Nah, too hot to be a narc.” John let that bit of illogic pass as Matt reached the side of the bed and wove his hands underneath John’s jacket at his shoulders. “They just wanted you. Classiest guy in the room.”
John had to smother a laugh at anyone thinking that Judy McClane’s loud-mouthed kid had grown up to be classy. “Anyone who asked, I told them I was all yours.” He smirked. “I don’t think they believed me though. That spiky-haired chick kept looking like she wanted to crawl into your lap.”
Matt’s expression suddenly twisted sour. “Matthew Farrell, big fuckin’ joke. No way the stories are true; no way that guy’s with him. He’s just the class clown pulling off one more prank; nothin’ going nowhere.”
Matt tugged John’s jacket down over his wrists and John heard one of his cufflinks bounce off the carpet and rattle to a stop on the bathroom floor.
“Watch the threads, kid. Gino does good work, and he’ll kick your ass himself if you tear one of the seams.” John took over removing his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt and pants before dropping down to sit on the edge of the bed. “C’mere, baby. Let me show you how serious we are.”
John slid his hands up Matt’s ribs and pushed his shirt off over his head to land in a crumpled heap on the floor, before moving on to the fly of Matt's pants. Matt’s chest was flushed, and John tugged him closer by his waistband so that he stood between John’s legs, and he could feel the damp heat rising from Matt’s skin in the cool room. He peppered kisses down Matt’s chest as he pulled down his zipper and pushed Matt’s pants over his hips to pool on the floor, and Matt’s eyes closed as his hips thrust forward, his dick nudging John’s chin through his boxers. Matt’s boxers followed his pants to the floor, and John tugged Matt’s hips again so that crawled forward onto the bed, straddling John’s lap with his pants still tangled around his shoes and binding his ankles together. Undeterred, Matt just spread his knees wider and inched forward until their bodies met from chest to thighs, grinding his hips to rub their cocks together.
John’s voice got trapped between a chuckle and a moan at the picture Matt presented, and ran soothing hands down Matt’s back before tackling the restricting clothes. “Shh, I’ve got you. Oh, Christ, just…” He finally pulled off one shoe with a frustrated yank that nearly unbalanced them both, but after a shaky couple of seconds, Matt pushed forward with enough force to land John flat on the bed anyway.
Matt shimmied down John’s body a few inches, his legs still spread wide as he rutted against John in frantic, needy bursts. John pushed at his own clothes and tried to slide towards the center of the bed, but had barely moved when the slick head of Matt’s cock slipped between John’s thighs, nudging at his balls, and Matt shuddered at the changing sensation. “God, John, I need… so bad. Please-“
As Matt’s words sank into John’s sex-fogged brain, he shifted his hands to Matt’s ass, kneading and trying to force a slower rhythm before it was all over. “Is that what you want? You want to fuck me open, make me yell so the neighbors can hear how real this is?” John took the shudder that ran down Matt’s spine as agreement, and held onto Matt’s legs as he sat up to grope for the bag they’d dropped by the side of the bed. He upended it over the bedspread as he claimed Matt’s mouth again, and felt through the scattered contents until he identified lube and condoms. He pressed them into Matt’s hands before pushing the rest of the mess to the far side of the bed and reclaiming the lube.
He wrapped one hand behind Matt’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss before gripping the back of Matt’s skull to ensure that their eyes met. “Stay with me babe, okay? Just hold on for one more minute and then you can take what you need.” Matt’s eyes were full dark in the dim light from the bedside lamp, but the fog cleared from them enough for Matt to nod yes, and tear the condom wrapper open. John shifted under Matt and wrestled his clothes the rest of the way off before rolling over. He pulled up his right leg and slicked his fingers, and as he started to work himself open, he could feel Matt’s thighs trembling above him. It was only seconds before Matt’s hands were back on John’s body and his fingers were displacing John’s and John gave himself over to the feeling of Matt everywhere, inside and out. Matt leaned heavily on one hand at John’s side, his sheathed cock tracing circles on John’s thigh as his hips mimicked the movement of Matt’s fingers, until John was nearly as frantic as Matt had been minutes before. “C’mon, Matt, all yours, I’m all yours, I’m ready, c’mon.” His words coaxed Matt, keeping him focused, until his fingers slipped away to grip John’s ass, and John felt the head of Matt’s dick pressing up against him and then sliding in with an ease that belied how much Matt needed this.
“Nngh, John, John, oh God, John, so good.” A meaningless stream of sound spilled out into the room as Matt sank home and then shifted over John so that he could lace the fingers of their right hands together, tightening his grip each time he pumped.
John could tell how close Matt was, how he’d been seemingly moments from coming ever since they’d stumbled through the door. He wrapped his free hand around his cock, just gripping as Matt’s thrusts provided enough motion for both of them, and took up his encouragement again. “Yeah, Matt, God, harder, I can take it, only you, c’mon, show me.” As John’s orgasm overtook him, he cried out one final “Oh, God, Matt!” and felt Matt’s thighs tighten as he slammed home one last time, groaning out his own release and sinking down to the bed at John’s side.
After a lazy, sweaty minute or two, Matt eased out, and John turned over, frowning as he realized that his dress shirt had been crumpled up beneath him. At least that, unlike his suit, could be laundered and bleached if necessary without having to explain to his tailor or dry cleaner. Matt made a move as if to get up and dispose of the condom, before chuckling and collapsing back to the bed. John met his eyes and raised an eyebrow, and Matt gestured down to the side of the bed, where he raised up his left foot, with its shoe still on and trouser leg wrapped around his ankle like a legwarmer.
John pulled him close for a wet but firm kiss, before sitting up to straighten out his clothes. “Yeah, we’re a classy pair, all right. I can’t take you anywhere.”
Matt’s blush deepened the athletic flush already on fading from his cheeks. “Sorry. I got a little…” he made a dismissive gesture and stood up to walk to the bathroom. After a moment, John hauled himself up off of the bed to follow Matt, and trapped him against the bathroom counter.
“Nothing to be sorry for. Everyone gets a little… you know. Sometimes. That’s why I’m here, for whatever you need.” He pulled back to grin. “And it’s my turn in the morning, and we’re going to use the whole damn bed.” He deposited a kiss on Matt’s temple, and then a longer one on his mouth before announcing, “Shower,” and pivoting to turn the tap on.
Matt was already fading as they stepped under the spray, and John held him long enough to rinse clean enough to sleep before herding him into a bath towel and back to the bed.
John rubbed the towel over Matt’s hair one last time before dropping it on the floor and crawling into bed behind Matt and turning off the light. Sated and warm, bundled in soft sheets and too many hotel pillows, John was the most content he could remember feeling as he tumbled into sleep with Matt held in his arms.
When they were checking out, late the next morning, John made sure to lean down and plant a kiss squarely on Matt’s lips when that gossipy chick from the bank walked by.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 05:34 am (UTC)