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His knee was fucking killing him. The laptop he’d promised to decode was ten feet away; Lucy was still in the hands of the burly Italian henchman, and Gabriel was digging the gun into McClane’s shoulder. Matt could hear it pushing and scraping and squishing; he could see the blood oozing out of the wound, and McClane was wheezing, and when he taunted Gabriel one last time and pulled the trigger, Gabriel didn’t go flying. Great black bat wings sprouted from his back, from where the bullet would have gone through, and he rose up as McClane hit the floor and Lucy screamed, and the Italian henchman wasn’t distracted, so Matt couldn’t shoot him, and Gabriel was advancing on him and telling him his numbers were wrong, and Matt looked at the laptop and couldn’t reach it, and what he could see he couldn’t remember, and someone was screaming, and his leg was on fire, and Gabriel was laughing, and McClane - McClane was dead.
++
Matt woke up in a sweat, panting and tangled in the scratchy hospital sheets. Grimacing, he freed his bandaged knee from the rumpled bedding and reached for a cup of water from the bedside table. The room was dark and quiet, just the sounds of beeping and pinging machines from the other rooms and the low hum of the computers from the the nurses’ station in the hall. Usually the hum of computers was a comfort; usually Matt fell asleep - or, really, passed out - with the buzz of electronics as a constant background soundtrack. Usually he couldn’t sleep without it. Nor did he dream - certainly not anything he remembered. Maybe it was the morphine they still had him on, or the pain that kept slipping through despite it. Matt Farrell didn’t have nightmares. Must be a side effect. They hadn’t warned him about that one; it must be a fucking conspiracy to keep him scared so he’d buy more drugs, or something like that.
McClane probably never had nightmares. He’d gotten released from the hospital days ago, waving an abrupt good-bye from the doorway to Matt’s room as a nurse was checking his blood pressure. Two bullet holes to the shoulder, not to mention all the other ridiculous beatings he’d taken, and he was out the door and out of Matt’s life faster than he’d come into it.
He would have liked to have asked McClane about the nightmares. Abstractly, of course. It wasn’t that Matt was ashamed to have nightmares, or to be a wimp; Lucy had spoken a total of two sentences to him before she’d realized that she had bigger balls than he did. It wasn’t like it would be a major discovery on anyone’s part to find out that Matt was still having stupid, fucked up flashbacks. He just wished McClane would have stuck around longer so Matt could have asked about it. McClane had told him once that being ‘that guy’ had just left him with no one he cared about wanting to talk to him. Well, Matt did. He cared. He wanted to talk. But McClane had left already.
*** ***
Lucy came to visit the next day, when Matt was trying to charm a cell phone off one of the orderlies. “Dude, come on, just to send an e-mail, I know that has internet! I’m not looking up kinky porn or anything!”
“The world shudders to think,” came a dry voice from the doorway, and Matt’s heart jumped at the tone before he registered the voice.
“Hey, Lucy,” Matt said wearily, throwing up a hand in defeat and disgust as the orderly slipped away. “You come to beat my ass at Sorry! again?” They’d been playing various board games every few days when Lucy came to visit; it had been more often at first, and she’d stayed longer. But as they got to know each other a bit more, and the thrill and terror of their adventure subsided, her visits had been shorter, further apart. They had little to talk about, and less since Lucy didn’t like going over the whole ‘kidnapping thing’ ad nauseam like Matt had a tendency to do. Despite that first spark of connection that came with being in life threatening situations together, Matt wasn’t surprised that Lucy lost interest. He hadn’t expected to see her at all once John had been released.
“You wish I’d beat your ass, pervert,” she said, smiling slightly and sitting down next to the bed. “No games today, Farrell, we’re springing you from this joint. You might want to put some pants on.” Lucy grinned then, and poked Matt in the forehead when he didn’t offer a response other than a glazed over stare.
“Wait, what? They said I couldn’t leave yet. Wait, really? Really I’m fucking getting out of this prison? Fuck yes!” Matt babbled, looking around to see what he needed to gather up to take with him, and flinging the sheets off.
“Whoa, Speedy, pants, really. And I don’t think you are, really, but my dad is going back to New York and he doesn’t want to come back down here to get you later. He’s doing some paperwork or intimidation with the administration now.” She waved her hand vaguely towards the hall.
Matt sat up carefully and reached for his sweatpants - the only clean, intact pair of pants he had - and tried to figure out what was going on. “He’s still here?” Matt asked, going for casual. He could hear Lucy’s smirk behind him.
“Yeah, we’ve been hanging out while his shoulder healed. And he had to talk to a bunch of FBI types.”
Matt nodded at that; all sorts of people had been in grilling him for information; he grinned to himself to think of what their reports of his interviews looked like - he’d been high on morphine for most of them, and delirious with pain or exhaustion for the rest.
“And,” Lucy was still talking, “apparently your place blew up, so I guess you have nowhere to go, so my dad is gonna let you stay.”
“What?!”
“It’s the only way you’re getting out of here early, kid,” John McClane grumbled from the doorway. “I’m responsible for you.” He drawled the last sentence like he was rolling his eyes. Matt busied himself with finding shoes so the flush in his face wouldn’t show.
It was hero worship, probably. That’s what he’d told himself. They’d had this adventure; McClane had saved his life like eight million times, he’d have to be dead to not have a crush on the guy, right? Even Lucy had admitted that that’s how she’d felt towards Matt at first - he’d saved her life, too - not that she wasn’t holding her own, she was always sure to remind him - and so for a while after she’d told him she thought she liked him as more than a friend. That had faded. Matt hadn’t been surprised about that. He sort of feared that it would fade with him and McClane, too. Eventually. Maybe. But until then? When McClane showed up like an angel to rescue him from this sterile, mind control, nightmare-inducing hell, and he rumbled things like “I’m responsible for you,” well, it would take a better man than Matt to withstand that sort of sexy. Matt didn’t mind not being a better man.
“Hey, man, thanks, you know me, I’m no trouble.” Matt gave a wide grin, and this time McClane really did roll his eyes. “Have you got a computer? Or, hey, how about, let’s see, a CD player? Should I have packed for camping? What decade is your house living in?” Matt beamed at McClane, who was glaring at him, and gathered up his two get well cards (one from his mom, who’d been told he’d broken his leg in a fall; and one from Holly, thanking him for helping save Lucy), starting to lever himself out of bed.
“Hey, hey, kid, hang on,” McClane was saying, hurrying over to hold Matt up as Lucy grabbed the folded up wheelchair from the corner. Shot through the shoulder - twice - and McClane was still holding Matt up like he weighed nothing, like McClane could hold him, all of him, with no effort, and Matt wouldn’t have to worry about unimportant details, like standing. “Let’s go, Daisy,” McClane said in a low voice, and helped Matt into the wheelchair.
*** ***
This time, when McClane pulled the trigger, Gabriel did go flying, and Matt shot the guy, and the feds swooped in, but Matt couldn’t drop the gun; it was stuck to his hand, it was his hand, and when he turned to John and Lucy for help, he shot them instead, and the feds opened fire, and -
“Kid? Farrell? Hey, Matt, Matthew!” McClane was shaking Matt’s shoulder and shouting his name, trying to keep his eyes on the road and watch him at the same time. Matt had fallen asleep against the window and his head was cold and his legs were cramped. “You okay, kid?”
Matt shrugged up against the seat and rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?” he asked instead of replying.
“Near Newark. You passed out cold.” McClane had both hands back on the wheel now, glancing back over his shoulder to merge into the next lane. “Nightmare?”
Matt shrugged again.
*** ***
“Pizza alright?” McClane called from the kitchen as Matt was settling himself on a recliner, propping his leg up and reaching for the remote.
“Pizza’s good,” he called back absently, looking around the room. There was a picture of Lucy and another guy, probably Jack by the resemblance, framed on the bookshelf. It was the only decoration in the room. McClane came back in a few minutes later, holding out a juice box to Matt.
“Apple juice?” Matt said incredulously, not taking it from McClane. He eyed the beer McClane was drinking.
“You’re on painkillers and you’ve been sleeping like shit. No alcohol, no caffeine.”
Matt rolled his eyes and shifted to cover his discomfort. One nightmare on the road when he’d dozed off, and McClane knew he hadn’t been sleeping well? Since when was this guy so perceptive?
“How did you know?”
“Trust me, kid. I’ve been there. I know,” McClane said, softly. “Drink your juice.”
“Geez, and I thought the hospital was strict,” Matt muttered, taking the box and slurping it as noisily as possible.
++
They made pleasant enough conversation over pizza, and Matt didn’t complain when John brought out more juice boxes for him when he sucked the first one dry and crumpled it on the coffee table. When the cheap horror movie they’d been sort-of watching finally rolled credits, John stretched and got up, gathering up their trash. It wasn’t anything different from what one would expect from an evening like the one they’d just had, but something about it struck Matt. As comfortable. Domestic. Familiar. And that, more than anything, made him nervous.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked suddenly, maneuvering his leg so he wasn’t reclining in the chair anymore.
“Because I don’t live like a slob?”
“No, shit, McClane, you know what I mean. Me. Why did you take me home?” Matt bit the inside of his cheek as soon as the words were out; he was flustered and tired and so fucking comfortable in McClane’s house that suggestive phrasing was the last thing he needed to add.
McClane stopped cleaning. “What, you had somewhere else to go?”
“No,” Matt responded unnecessarily, letting things click into place. No one else would help him, so McClane did. That’s all. Nothing personal. “Guess you’re just that guy,” he muttered, pushing himself out of the chair and beginning to limp towards the small guest bedroom. John stepped forward to grasp Matt’s arm above the shoulder, to guide him.
“Fuck off, I’m fine,” Matt growled, yanking his arm free and using the doorway to propel himself down the hall. McClane didn’t follow him.
*** ***
It was a montage, of sorts. Mai twisting his arm and pushing him down into the chair after McClane had fallen to the lower level. This time he didn’t come up in the van, because he was dead. Then: McClane on the ground in the tunnel, bloodied and burnt, because the helicopter had gotten him before he’d gotten it. Dead. An explosion behind them in the van, Lucy crying. The F16 hadn’t missed. Gabriel shooting McClane. Agent Bowman shooting McClane. Mrs. Kaludis shooting McClane. Limited edition action figures shooting McClane. And Matt, at a computer, running his algorithm to make them all pull the trigger.
++
There was a small earthquake when Matt woke up, and the tv was on. No, no it was someone shaking his arm, and talking. What was the night nurse doing on his bed? Matt flailed and yelled for a moment, sitting up straight and reaching for a cup of water that wasn’t there. “Shit, shit!” he panted, blinking his eyes furiously to focus on the dark room. His vision was blurry.
“Hey, kid, calm down. Matt, look at me.” McClane slid into his cop voice, and Matt focused on it, like a sharp point. John had one hand on Matt’s arm, and moved the other to his face. His thumb brushed over Matt’s cheek, and Matt could feel wetness.
“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Matt blurt out, trying to turn away from John, but the only way to go was into his hand. John grasped his face in both hands.
“You don’t have to be.”
“What?”
“You just got targeted by terrorists, chased, threatened, beat up, kidnapped, and shot. It’s okay to be not fine.”
Matt shrugged. “You are.”
John sighed and dropped his hands. One of them landed on Matt’s thigh. “You think I’m up at 3 a.m. for kicks? I wasn’t asleep.”
That didn’t make Matt feel particularly better. He shifted around in the bed, sitting up a little more comfortably. John sighed again.
“Look, kid. Nobody chooses to be that guy. Nobody would want to. You know - “
“Then why are you? Why am I here? Why - “
“What?” John grabbed Matt’s hands where they’d been starting to gesticulate in hysteria. “Matthew. What are you talking about?”
Matt closed his eyes. “You don’t have to feel obligated, alright? I’m not your responsibility, McClane.” Matt winced as he remembered how John’s assertion of that very thing, back at the hospital, had made him feel.
“You are.” John’s voice was soft, low. “And I don’t feel obligated.” A hand smoothed Matt’s hair over his ear. “Is that what’s got you so worked up? You think I’m doing this because I have to?”
“Because you feel you have to,” Matt corrected, eyes still closed.
“I feel I have to?” John was muttering. He sounded further away, as if he had sat back to consider the situation. Or leave. “You think I feel guilty about something?” He finished, a note of surprise in his tone.
Matt’s eyes flew open. “No, no, not you - ” He was so desperate to reassure McClane that he didn’t blame him that Matt didn’t hear the words he was saying.
“You feel guilty?” John pressed, leaning forward and holding on to Matt’s hands, as if he knew Matt would immediately try to get away. He shut his eyes again, instead.
“Hey, hey, talk to me, kid, what’s going on in that brain of yours?” There was a gentle tug on Matt’s hand, and he had to bite his cheek again not to whimper.
“I keep dreaming that I kill you,” he whispered, and then held his breath, so as not to say anything more.
There was a moment of quiet, then a soft sigh, and John’s hands moved again, cupping Matt’s cheek and pulling him forward by the shoulder. “Matt, look at me. Come on. I’m right here. You didn’t kill me. Trust me, I know enough about feeling guilty for things you’ve done - don’t burn yourself out over shit you haven’t. And, for the record,” John hastened to add, “you did good, kid. You saved a lot of people, my daughter included. And me. You got nothing to feel guilty for. You got that?” John shook Matt’s arm a little, rubbed his thumb over Matt’s cheek.
“Yeah, I got it. It was dumb, huh?” Matt dropped his head a little and then grinned sheepishly, wrinkling his nose when John patted his cheek.
“Yeah, genius, I know you’re just giving the old man a chance to feel smart.” John ruffled Matt’s hair, tugging on a strand. “You good to sleep, or do you want to see if there’s some crap movie we can both make fun of?”
Matt grinned and pushed at John so he could swing his legs over the bed and get up. “Fucking movie, definitely.”
*** ***
When Matt woke up, the sun was high already, streaming in through the windows. He squinted at the clock; it was nearly ten. He stretched a little and moved to get up, but the edge of the couch where he’d fallen asleep was a lot closer than he’d realized, and Matt yelped as he started to roll off. Immediately John’s arms came around him, pulling Matt back to John’s chest and securing him on the couch.
“Whoa. Uh... thanks.” Matt felt himself relaxing in John’s hold, despite his surprise at finding them in this position. He didn’t remember falling asleep next to John on the couch, but that’s how they were. And McClane, awake, didn’t seem to be complaining.
“I got you, Matt,” he rumbled, his morning voice deep and scratchy. Matt shivered. The arms around him tightened.
“You do,” Matt said under his breath, and he felt John holding him, turning him, so they were face to face on the couch, pressed together.
“I’m not going away,” John said, looking at Matt. Matt frowned, confused.
“I know.”
“You won’t accidentally push me away.” John paused, considering. “No one does it accidentally, to me.”
“I wouldn’t do it on purpose!” Matt rushed to his own defense even before he figured out what they were talking about.
“You slept the whole rest of the night.”
“So did you.”
“I want to be responsible for you,” John spit out, like it was what he’d been trying to say the whole time. Matt thought a minute. Maybe it was what he’d been trying to say.
“Why?”
John smirked. “Why do you want me to?”
“Wait, what? How did...” Matt flailed and tried to sit up, suddenly unsure if he was awake or if this was a particular lucid dream.
“Calm down, kid,” John growled, trying to hold on to Matt as he squirmed around, nearly falling off the couch again. Matt froze, tried to breathe. He was lying on the couch, pressed up against John McClane, and John was holding him, telling him he knew that Matt wanted him to take care of him. Which was true, Matt realized. And in all this, John wasn’t freaking out.
Matt kissed him.
It was a terrible kiss. He didn’t quite get John’s mouth, and they both had stubble and morning breath, and Matt’s elbow was in John’s stomach, and his knee was twisted from his nearly falling earlier. When Matt pulled back and tried to wriggle around to a better position, John starting laughing, and Matt froze. But John pulled him down to kiss properly once, slow, before sitting them both up so Matt wouldn’t risk falling again.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” John asked, his voice still low and rumbly from sleep.
“Are you kidding? You’re asking me?”
“You’re the one on heavy medication.”
“Fuck you.”
John’s eyebrows lifted, and Matt immediately felt himself blush. “I mean... uh, I didn’t...”
“Relax, kid,” John said, smiling. “We’ll get there. I’m not going anywhere.” John ruffled his hair and pulled Matt close.
*** *** ***
fin