Resisting Love, X-Factor Fic, RPS, Matt/Aiden
Title: Resisting Love
Word Count: 3,549
Rating: 12a (language and suggestion of other things)
Disclaimer: Not Mine - real people, in fact. And this almost certainly probably definately didn't happen.
Summary: The thing about Aiden, the thing that Matt longs to shout at people, is that he is actually a manipulative little shit. In which Matt is more virtuous and Aiden more manipulative than you might think. And unapologetically fluffly, despite appearances to the contrary.
Author's Note: There's a chance this ends a little abruptly but I like it (and there may be an Aiden POV along that takes it a bit further) The titles is incredibly a bit corney, but all I could come up with
Resisting Love
by northern_rain
The thing about Aiden, the thing that Matt longs to shout at people, is that he is actually a manipulative little shit. Sure he looks all innocent, with that smile and that hair and that *everything*, but there’s an evil git under it all. Like right now, he looks so innocent, pouting across the room at Matt, looking like he has no idea why Matt won’t sit next to him. They are all falling for the act too, the rest of the housemates looking at Matt like he’s killed a puppy. And Matt knows that if he folds, if he gives in, then Aiden will beam up at him and make the others melt at how cute they are with their repressed feelings, because they can’t see what Aiden’s hands are doing under the table, can’t see the way they are moving unseen, tormenting Matt until he has to leap away to preserve any sense of dignity.
And he just knows that when he leaves the room Aiden will sit there, sad and quiet, until the others feel they just have to cheer him up. One Direction will fawn over him and Mary will pet him and Rebecca will make him cups of tea and listen sympathetically when he says he doesn’t know what he’s done to make Matt pull away.
Then later Rebecca will find Matt and make lots of unsubtle comments about following your heart, and age not really mattering. Then the One Direction boys will come along and fall all over themselves saying how pretty Aiden is and how they don’t know what they would do if they got to share a room with him like Matt does. Finally, Mary will pat his cheek and remind him that when he’s her age, Aiden will be 42, and that doesn’t seem like such a gap, after all.
And all the time Matt will be biting his tongue, refraining from yelling at them for falling for Aiden’s innocent act. Frankly, he doesn’t want to risk opening the floodgates, and there’s every chance Rebecca and the boys will spontaneously combust if he actually spells out what they aren’t seeing.
It all started at boot camp. Between the first and the second days, high off surviving the first round of eliminations, there’s a fair few of them in the hotel bar, blowing off steam. Matt is keeping away from the more exuberant ones, preferring to nurse a pint at the bar and brood over all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Glass empty and contemplating doing the sensible thing and getting an early night, he is about to leave when he is joined by Aiden, carrying two beers.
“You were great,” Aiden holds out a beer and smiles up from under impossibly long eyelashes and Matt doesn’t really know what to say. “Just thought I’d get the fawning out of the way up front, so you know where I stand,” Aiden continued, flashing an awkward smile. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to like reciprocate or anything.”
So of course he finds himself telling Aiden that he really liked his performance too, because there wasn’t really anything else he could say, but he was rewarded with a blinding smile that made him think it was kind of worth it, and after rather an awkward beginning, they both relaxed and it turned out that Aiden was actually kind of fun to hang around with.
After letting Aiden buy him rather more alcohol that was strictly wise given what he had to do the next day, he finally called it a night, and his reactions were slowed enough that he didn’t see the kiss coming until Aiden had him pressed up against the door to his hotel room.
“Key?” Aiden asked, pulling back, and Matt mutely handed it over, letting the other man lead him into his own room and push him back onto his own bed.
Something way in the back of his brain was shouting at him that this wasn’t a good idea, and they shouldn’t be doing this, but every time the thought tries to make itself heard and the reasons tried to crystallise themselves, Aiden would do something that made all rational thought flee his brain.
The next morning Matt woke to find himself wrapped around Aiden, holding him like he was precious. As if sensing he was awake Aiden turned in his arms. “Morning gorgeous, ready to knock ‘em dead?” He grinned, like waking up with a near stranger was something he did all the time.
“Time?” Matt asked, surprised about how clear headed he felt, and how awkward this wasn’t.
“Time enough for this,” Aiden pulled Matt to him again and Matt reflected that he hadn’t had such a nice start to the day in a very long time.
He spent the day waiting for things to get awkward. Aiden’s performance blew him away, and he was happy enough with his own performance to smile without embarrassment when Aiden bounced up to him to tell him how great he was.
Great sex and an ego boost, how could he resist? Actually, he couldn’t, which is why he let Aiden drag him into an empty room to celebrate them both getting through to the judges houses.
Matt was still waiting for the awkwardness to descend as they exchanged phone numbers, because his life was never this easy.
It wasn’t until they were at the airport, waiting to fly to Australia that the other shoe finally dropped. They’d exchanged a few texts in the intervening weeks, just friendly ‘how you doings’, more appropriate for two people who hadn’t had quite a lot of sex over a two day period, and he was aware that, if nothing else, Aiden was someone who could become a great friend. That said, the little flip his stomach did when he saw Aiden at the airport didn’t feel like a particularly friendly sensation.
The eight of them were herded through the various security checks and check-ins before being left to their own devices in the waiting area when he happened to catch sight of Aiden’s passport photo. “Look at you there,” he laughed, “where’s the hair gone?” He grabbed the passport out of Aiden’s hands for a better look and it took him a moment to realised why Aiden had gone quiet.
“1991?” Matt hopes his voice isn’t as faint as it feels like it might be. “December 1991? You’re 18?”
“Nearly 19,” Aiden protests feebly and looks so sad that Matt wants to kiss him, hold him, make him smile again. Then he remembers.
“You’re 10 years younger than me.”
“9,” Aiden mutters, grabbing Matt’s passport and checking his birth date.
It’s not the point, however, and they both know it. Matt had known Aiden was younger, but he’d thought, hoped he was at least in his 20s, could maybe be 21, which was more or less acceptable, as far as the so called maths went.
But Aiden was a teenager. The man (boy, his conscience protested) that he was falling for was a teenage, and that felt dirty, and not at all in the good way.
The flight to Australia was, literally and emotionally, the longest of his life. Of course, Aiden had been placed next to him, and the initial cruelty of it faded as it gave them time to talk, albeit in harsh whispers. By the end of the flight Aiden had managed to wrangle some measure of forgiveness out of Matt, he still wasn’t sure how, and the boy’s beaming grin as Matt had conceded to starting again, as friends, made his stomach flip in a way that was no longer suggestive of future happiness.
The need to focus on the competition allowed Matt to forget what he couldn’t rationalise away, and the few days in Australia let them lean on each other and forge the foundations of a friendship that Matt would have run from in normal circumstances.
(And alright, so when Aiden found out they were both through to the live shows, he’d kissed Matt (long and hard) and Matt had let him (eager and happy) but it was only that once, and Matt really thought that they’d put the past behind them.
And maybe every so often Matt would find himself looking at Aiden and just wishing he could add a couple of years to his age.
And yeah, sometimes they would get a little too cosy on the sofa in the house, or a little too touchy-feely when messing about in rehearsal, and the others had started looking at the two of them with amused interest.
But mostly, they had the friend thing down. Or so Matt thought.)
Then the first live show came, and went. And Nicolo came, and went. And they were suddenly sharing a bedroom.
“Only the two of us left in here now,” Aiden’s face quite clearly showed where his mind had gone, and Matt wanted to run for safety, only Aiden was blocking the door.
“So,” Aiden came closer, stepping right into Matt’s personal space and somehow managing to look up at him despite being the taller of the two, “can I sleep in your bed tonight.”
The question was so direct that he nearly vocalised the agreement that every part of him but his brain was screaming. “No Aiden, we’ve talked about this.”
And they had, at length. They’d talk about it on the plane to Australia, when Matt was still reeling from the first shock and Aiden was just trying to keep Matt in his life, in whatever way he could. They’d talked about it on the plane back too, because Matt knew he’d lead Aiden on with that kiss, and Aiden was pushing his luck as the plane went dark and no one could see where his hand were heading.
Even so, he was almost insulted by Aiden’s instant acceptance of his dismissal, and went to bed wondering if he should be pleased or disappointed to have won at last. In retrospect, he was simply tragically naïve.
He was tied to the bed when he woke up, Aiden straddling him. It was scarily close to way too many of his fantasies, and it was more stubbornness than reluctance that stopped him begging Aiden to do, well, anything he wanted with him.
“Get off me Aiden,” he growled, knowing it was the right thing to say despite not remotely meaning it.
“You’re mine,” Aiden pouted, “why won’t you accept that?”
“Do you really need the list again?”
“I’m too young, you’re too old, Simon won’t like it, it might hurt *my* career, what will our mothers say, blah blah blah,” Aiden whined, which frankly, wasn’t helping his case in the slightest, except Matt was so far gone he even found that sexy. “And nowhere in that list is the fact that you don’t find me sexy, don’t want me, don’t need me, don’t love me.”
“Irrelevant,” Matt bit back a groan, for Aiden had punctuated each point with a well placed wiggle, or squeeze, or touch.
“I was an only child for a long time Matty boy,” Aiden smiles down at him, “I’m petted, spoiled and damn pretty. I know how to get what I want.”
“Bring it on,” Matt had smirked, for one mad moment crazily confident of his ability to resist the thing he wanted most in the world.
Beaming, Aiden had quickly kissed him before slowly moving up to release him, making sure to touch every inch of Matt as he climbed off him. “Oh I will,” he almost purred, and Matt knew right then that he would lose, and he was the one in the right, damnit.
Since that morning Matt had gotten a very good idea of just how determined Aiden could be. It was a multi-pronged attack. Declarations of love for Matt and his manly beard had the press waxing lyrical about bromances, and suddenly photos of the two of them were everywhere. Inside the house, Aiden had started wrapping the others around his little finger with his wide eyes and shy manner, while seemingly One Direction were dazzled by his prettiness and his enthusiasm for anything and everything they suggested. Matt still isn’t sure how Aiden ended up with his mum’s phone number, but every time he phones home his mum takes time to ask after Aiden, who is apparently ‘such a nice boy’. Even that is quickly upgraded to ‘lovely man’, which makes him paranoid about what exactly Aiden has being saying to his mum. Inside the house, the others find excuses to leave them alone in rooms, or have them sitting next to each other in dinner (always shooting a look of encouragement Aiden’s way as they do it, like they think he’s just one brave moment away from claiming Matt) and invariably Aiden’s hands start wondering places they had both agreed Aiden’s hands didn’t belong.
The thing is, Matt thinks he could resist all of this if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s really gotten to know Aiden, even under all the games. He knows him and he loves him and he wants Aiden to win him over, to break down his reluctance and just tell him that they’re going to be together eventually so he should stop fighting it.
When Matt was given ‘Bleeding Love’ to perform, Aiden was at his unsubtle best, bouncing around the house and singing “I don’t care what they say, I’m in love with you” whenever it was just the two of them, and Matt knows a challenge when he hears one. The thing is, he does care what they say. He doesn’t want people thinking he’s taken advantage of Aiden, that what they feel is somehow wrong. And he doesn’t want people judging Aiden for the choices he makes. Cheryl is already flinging a million negative thoughts Aiden’s way every time she calls him ‘intense’, like she hasn’t seem him grinning madly at Matt, at One Direction, even at her, in a dazed sort of way that made Matt want to throw his principles and his discretion to the wind and make sure Aiden remembered who he was meant to be in love with.
A week later, when Matt is stressing over ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ Aiden is everything Matt ever wanted the person he settled down with to be. Aiden knows exactly what this means to Matt yet somehow manages to make it seem like singing this song on that stage is something he can totally do. He listens to Matt talk into the night about what the song means to him, despite having already heard it a million times. He provides a should to cry on without once using it as an excuse to grope Matt and he tucks Matt in when he falls asleep, still clutching the sheet music because he needs this to be perfect. And he never once doubts that Matt will absolutely rule the stage on Saturday night.
Then comes week 6 and it all comes crashing down.
Matt doesn’t see it coming, that’s the thing. He never in a million years thought that Aiden would actually be sent home, even as Dermot opens the envelope, he still believes it will be Katie who leaves. He can’t process what is happening as Aiden’s name is called and his highlights are played. All he can see is his beautiful, brave boy, standing there and smiling weakly as he is being torn away from Matt.
He thinks he must be showing something of what he feels, because the others crowd around him as he watches Aiden on stage. The One Direction boys are quiet and serious as they close in around him, and Mary hugs him hard and says nothing. Rebecca and Paige squeeze his hands, while Cher and Wagner look on awkwardly.
As Aiden leaves the stage the others step aside so he can get to Matt, who doesn’t want to let go when Aiden buries his face in Matt’s neck as Matt holds him. When they come to take Aiden to the Xtra-Factor studio the others take charge of Matt, bundling him into the cars that are heading back to the house, not letting him be alone.
Matt is numb, because how can it all have come down to this?
Back at the house, he goes straight to their room and the others don’t try to stop him. He only emerges when he hears the door slam. Aiden is back, and Matt half runs to the stop of the stairs, coming to a skidding halt at the sight of Aiden hugging Katie.
“Cheryl killed me with all those digs about being intense, Simon killed me by choosing you, the public killed me by not voting for me,” Aiden is speaking quietly but Matt can hear him because he can always hear Aiden. “You just went out there and did what you had to do and it worked. Don’t undermine us both by apologising and feeling guilty.”
Aiden is being kind when he doesn’t need to be, when he probably doesn’t want to be, and he is showing a greater consideration for Katie than Matt had managed, when it wasn’t even him she had hurt. It’s a maturity that Matt couldn’t have achieved himself, and in a burst of clarity he finally sees what Aiden (and everyone else) had been saying all along. 18, 28, they’re just numbers. Aiden is legal, and perfectly able to make his own decisions, and the rest of the world can go fuck themselves if they have a problem with it.
Aiden smiles as he looks up to see Matt listening to them, and bids Katie goodnight, heading upstairs to join Matt.
Neither of them say anything until they are safely behind closed doors, and even then words have to wait while Matt makes his change of heart incredibly clear to Aiden.
“I didn’t want you to win that way,” Matt says later, naked and cuddled up with Aiden in Aiden’s bed.
“I didn’t want to win like that,” Aiden smiles, kissing Matt softly, before looking down at their intertwined hands. “Did you,” he bites his lip, “did you really want me to win then?”
“God yeah,” Matt smiles but then it hits him. “You did know that, right? You did know that I loved you despite myself, loved you from pretty much the first time I saw you, I think.”
“Sometimes I did, I think,” Aiden is glowing as Matt tightens his hold on him. “I knew you wanted me and I hoped it could develop into something more. I think,” he is biting his lip again, but Matt resists the urge to kiss him because he thinks this is a conversation they should have had a long time ago. “I think I mostly thought that if I could only get you into bed again then maybe I could keep you for a bit and maybe even distract you into falling for me.”
Matt feels like all kinds of shit for hurting Aiden, and feels worse when Aiden just kisses him again, saying “it was what it was. I know now, and I think it would have been harder to understand why you stayed away if I’d been certain that you loved me. Resisting lust I could just about understand, but resisting love is just so dumb.”
Matt couldn’t argue, because now that he had Aiden he had no idea how he could ever have kept them apart for so many months. But Aiden would be leaving tomorrow, and his face must have fallen at the reminder, because Aiden was quick off the mark again.
“What happens tomorrow happens, don’t let it spoil this moment.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Nothing you can do about it. But it feels nice to know that you want me around. Finally.”
“I don’t want to hide this,” Matt blurts out, because he may as well abandon every decision he’d ever made on the issue of the two of them at the same time.
“Good to see we’re on the same page.” Aiden smiled, kissing their interlocked hands. “So go out there and win this thing and then we can shout it from the rooftops.”
“We can shout it from the rooftops now,” Matt pouted, and the irony of the reversal was completed when Aiden insisted that he wasn’t letting Matt torpedo his chances this late in the game.
In the end, the argument was postponed in favour of far more fun things, but Matt knew that Aiden would win again. After all, he played dirty and Matt knew he would never learn to deny Aiden anything he wanted for any real length of time.
When Aiden left the house the next morning Matt tried to put on a brave face, but the walk to rehearsals was lonely and any lingering hope that he was successfully hiding his feelings was destroyed when Dannii took one look at him and just hugged him, “just one more month and you can go back to him,” she whispered, and the thought was enough, because what was one month when he planned to spend the rest of his life with Aiden?
Word Count: 3,549
Rating: 12a (language and suggestion of other things)
Disclaimer: Not Mine - real people, in fact. And this almost certainly probably definately didn't happen.
Summary: The thing about Aiden, the thing that Matt longs to shout at people, is that he is actually a manipulative little shit. In which Matt is more virtuous and Aiden more manipulative than you might think. And unapologetically fluffly, despite appearances to the contrary.
Author's Note: There's a chance this ends a little abruptly but I like it (and there may be an Aiden POV along that takes it a bit further) The titles is incredibly a bit corney, but all I could come up with
Resisting Love
by northern_rain
The thing about Aiden, the thing that Matt longs to shout at people, is that he is actually a manipulative little shit. Sure he looks all innocent, with that smile and that hair and that *everything*, but there’s an evil git under it all. Like right now, he looks so innocent, pouting across the room at Matt, looking like he has no idea why Matt won’t sit next to him. They are all falling for the act too, the rest of the housemates looking at Matt like he’s killed a puppy. And Matt knows that if he folds, if he gives in, then Aiden will beam up at him and make the others melt at how cute they are with their repressed feelings, because they can’t see what Aiden’s hands are doing under the table, can’t see the way they are moving unseen, tormenting Matt until he has to leap away to preserve any sense of dignity.
And he just knows that when he leaves the room Aiden will sit there, sad and quiet, until the others feel they just have to cheer him up. One Direction will fawn over him and Mary will pet him and Rebecca will make him cups of tea and listen sympathetically when he says he doesn’t know what he’s done to make Matt pull away.
Then later Rebecca will find Matt and make lots of unsubtle comments about following your heart, and age not really mattering. Then the One Direction boys will come along and fall all over themselves saying how pretty Aiden is and how they don’t know what they would do if they got to share a room with him like Matt does. Finally, Mary will pat his cheek and remind him that when he’s her age, Aiden will be 42, and that doesn’t seem like such a gap, after all.
And all the time Matt will be biting his tongue, refraining from yelling at them for falling for Aiden’s innocent act. Frankly, he doesn’t want to risk opening the floodgates, and there’s every chance Rebecca and the boys will spontaneously combust if he actually spells out what they aren’t seeing.
It all started at boot camp. Between the first and the second days, high off surviving the first round of eliminations, there’s a fair few of them in the hotel bar, blowing off steam. Matt is keeping away from the more exuberant ones, preferring to nurse a pint at the bar and brood over all the ways this could go horribly wrong. Glass empty and contemplating doing the sensible thing and getting an early night, he is about to leave when he is joined by Aiden, carrying two beers.
“You were great,” Aiden holds out a beer and smiles up from under impossibly long eyelashes and Matt doesn’t really know what to say. “Just thought I’d get the fawning out of the way up front, so you know where I stand,” Aiden continued, flashing an awkward smile. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to like reciprocate or anything.”
So of course he finds himself telling Aiden that he really liked his performance too, because there wasn’t really anything else he could say, but he was rewarded with a blinding smile that made him think it was kind of worth it, and after rather an awkward beginning, they both relaxed and it turned out that Aiden was actually kind of fun to hang around with.
After letting Aiden buy him rather more alcohol that was strictly wise given what he had to do the next day, he finally called it a night, and his reactions were slowed enough that he didn’t see the kiss coming until Aiden had him pressed up against the door to his hotel room.
“Key?” Aiden asked, pulling back, and Matt mutely handed it over, letting the other man lead him into his own room and push him back onto his own bed.
Something way in the back of his brain was shouting at him that this wasn’t a good idea, and they shouldn’t be doing this, but every time the thought tries to make itself heard and the reasons tried to crystallise themselves, Aiden would do something that made all rational thought flee his brain.
The next morning Matt woke to find himself wrapped around Aiden, holding him like he was precious. As if sensing he was awake Aiden turned in his arms. “Morning gorgeous, ready to knock ‘em dead?” He grinned, like waking up with a near stranger was something he did all the time.
“Time?” Matt asked, surprised about how clear headed he felt, and how awkward this wasn’t.
“Time enough for this,” Aiden pulled Matt to him again and Matt reflected that he hadn’t had such a nice start to the day in a very long time.
He spent the day waiting for things to get awkward. Aiden’s performance blew him away, and he was happy enough with his own performance to smile without embarrassment when Aiden bounced up to him to tell him how great he was.
Great sex and an ego boost, how could he resist? Actually, he couldn’t, which is why he let Aiden drag him into an empty room to celebrate them both getting through to the judges houses.
Matt was still waiting for the awkwardness to descend as they exchanged phone numbers, because his life was never this easy.
It wasn’t until they were at the airport, waiting to fly to Australia that the other shoe finally dropped. They’d exchanged a few texts in the intervening weeks, just friendly ‘how you doings’, more appropriate for two people who hadn’t had quite a lot of sex over a two day period, and he was aware that, if nothing else, Aiden was someone who could become a great friend. That said, the little flip his stomach did when he saw Aiden at the airport didn’t feel like a particularly friendly sensation.
The eight of them were herded through the various security checks and check-ins before being left to their own devices in the waiting area when he happened to catch sight of Aiden’s passport photo. “Look at you there,” he laughed, “where’s the hair gone?” He grabbed the passport out of Aiden’s hands for a better look and it took him a moment to realised why Aiden had gone quiet.
“1991?” Matt hopes his voice isn’t as faint as it feels like it might be. “December 1991? You’re 18?”
“Nearly 19,” Aiden protests feebly and looks so sad that Matt wants to kiss him, hold him, make him smile again. Then he remembers.
“You’re 10 years younger than me.”
“9,” Aiden mutters, grabbing Matt’s passport and checking his birth date.
It’s not the point, however, and they both know it. Matt had known Aiden was younger, but he’d thought, hoped he was at least in his 20s, could maybe be 21, which was more or less acceptable, as far as the so called maths went.
But Aiden was a teenager. The man (boy, his conscience protested) that he was falling for was a teenage, and that felt dirty, and not at all in the good way.
The flight to Australia was, literally and emotionally, the longest of his life. Of course, Aiden had been placed next to him, and the initial cruelty of it faded as it gave them time to talk, albeit in harsh whispers. By the end of the flight Aiden had managed to wrangle some measure of forgiveness out of Matt, he still wasn’t sure how, and the boy’s beaming grin as Matt had conceded to starting again, as friends, made his stomach flip in a way that was no longer suggestive of future happiness.
The need to focus on the competition allowed Matt to forget what he couldn’t rationalise away, and the few days in Australia let them lean on each other and forge the foundations of a friendship that Matt would have run from in normal circumstances.
(And alright, so when Aiden found out they were both through to the live shows, he’d kissed Matt (long and hard) and Matt had let him (eager and happy) but it was only that once, and Matt really thought that they’d put the past behind them.
And maybe every so often Matt would find himself looking at Aiden and just wishing he could add a couple of years to his age.
And yeah, sometimes they would get a little too cosy on the sofa in the house, or a little too touchy-feely when messing about in rehearsal, and the others had started looking at the two of them with amused interest.
But mostly, they had the friend thing down. Or so Matt thought.)
Then the first live show came, and went. And Nicolo came, and went. And they were suddenly sharing a bedroom.
“Only the two of us left in here now,” Aiden’s face quite clearly showed where his mind had gone, and Matt wanted to run for safety, only Aiden was blocking the door.
“So,” Aiden came closer, stepping right into Matt’s personal space and somehow managing to look up at him despite being the taller of the two, “can I sleep in your bed tonight.”
The question was so direct that he nearly vocalised the agreement that every part of him but his brain was screaming. “No Aiden, we’ve talked about this.”
And they had, at length. They’d talk about it on the plane to Australia, when Matt was still reeling from the first shock and Aiden was just trying to keep Matt in his life, in whatever way he could. They’d talked about it on the plane back too, because Matt knew he’d lead Aiden on with that kiss, and Aiden was pushing his luck as the plane went dark and no one could see where his hand were heading.
Even so, he was almost insulted by Aiden’s instant acceptance of his dismissal, and went to bed wondering if he should be pleased or disappointed to have won at last. In retrospect, he was simply tragically naïve.
He was tied to the bed when he woke up, Aiden straddling him. It was scarily close to way too many of his fantasies, and it was more stubbornness than reluctance that stopped him begging Aiden to do, well, anything he wanted with him.
“Get off me Aiden,” he growled, knowing it was the right thing to say despite not remotely meaning it.
“You’re mine,” Aiden pouted, “why won’t you accept that?”
“Do you really need the list again?”
“I’m too young, you’re too old, Simon won’t like it, it might hurt *my* career, what will our mothers say, blah blah blah,” Aiden whined, which frankly, wasn’t helping his case in the slightest, except Matt was so far gone he even found that sexy. “And nowhere in that list is the fact that you don’t find me sexy, don’t want me, don’t need me, don’t love me.”
“Irrelevant,” Matt bit back a groan, for Aiden had punctuated each point with a well placed wiggle, or squeeze, or touch.
“I was an only child for a long time Matty boy,” Aiden smiles down at him, “I’m petted, spoiled and damn pretty. I know how to get what I want.”
“Bring it on,” Matt had smirked, for one mad moment crazily confident of his ability to resist the thing he wanted most in the world.
Beaming, Aiden had quickly kissed him before slowly moving up to release him, making sure to touch every inch of Matt as he climbed off him. “Oh I will,” he almost purred, and Matt knew right then that he would lose, and he was the one in the right, damnit.
Since that morning Matt had gotten a very good idea of just how determined Aiden could be. It was a multi-pronged attack. Declarations of love for Matt and his manly beard had the press waxing lyrical about bromances, and suddenly photos of the two of them were everywhere. Inside the house, Aiden had started wrapping the others around his little finger with his wide eyes and shy manner, while seemingly One Direction were dazzled by his prettiness and his enthusiasm for anything and everything they suggested. Matt still isn’t sure how Aiden ended up with his mum’s phone number, but every time he phones home his mum takes time to ask after Aiden, who is apparently ‘such a nice boy’. Even that is quickly upgraded to ‘lovely man’, which makes him paranoid about what exactly Aiden has being saying to his mum. Inside the house, the others find excuses to leave them alone in rooms, or have them sitting next to each other in dinner (always shooting a look of encouragement Aiden’s way as they do it, like they think he’s just one brave moment away from claiming Matt) and invariably Aiden’s hands start wondering places they had both agreed Aiden’s hands didn’t belong.
The thing is, Matt thinks he could resist all of this if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s really gotten to know Aiden, even under all the games. He knows him and he loves him and he wants Aiden to win him over, to break down his reluctance and just tell him that they’re going to be together eventually so he should stop fighting it.
When Matt was given ‘Bleeding Love’ to perform, Aiden was at his unsubtle best, bouncing around the house and singing “I don’t care what they say, I’m in love with you” whenever it was just the two of them, and Matt knows a challenge when he hears one. The thing is, he does care what they say. He doesn’t want people thinking he’s taken advantage of Aiden, that what they feel is somehow wrong. And he doesn’t want people judging Aiden for the choices he makes. Cheryl is already flinging a million negative thoughts Aiden’s way every time she calls him ‘intense’, like she hasn’t seem him grinning madly at Matt, at One Direction, even at her, in a dazed sort of way that made Matt want to throw his principles and his discretion to the wind and make sure Aiden remembered who he was meant to be in love with.
A week later, when Matt is stressing over ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ Aiden is everything Matt ever wanted the person he settled down with to be. Aiden knows exactly what this means to Matt yet somehow manages to make it seem like singing this song on that stage is something he can totally do. He listens to Matt talk into the night about what the song means to him, despite having already heard it a million times. He provides a should to cry on without once using it as an excuse to grope Matt and he tucks Matt in when he falls asleep, still clutching the sheet music because he needs this to be perfect. And he never once doubts that Matt will absolutely rule the stage on Saturday night.
Then comes week 6 and it all comes crashing down.
Matt doesn’t see it coming, that’s the thing. He never in a million years thought that Aiden would actually be sent home, even as Dermot opens the envelope, he still believes it will be Katie who leaves. He can’t process what is happening as Aiden’s name is called and his highlights are played. All he can see is his beautiful, brave boy, standing there and smiling weakly as he is being torn away from Matt.
He thinks he must be showing something of what he feels, because the others crowd around him as he watches Aiden on stage. The One Direction boys are quiet and serious as they close in around him, and Mary hugs him hard and says nothing. Rebecca and Paige squeeze his hands, while Cher and Wagner look on awkwardly.
As Aiden leaves the stage the others step aside so he can get to Matt, who doesn’t want to let go when Aiden buries his face in Matt’s neck as Matt holds him. When they come to take Aiden to the Xtra-Factor studio the others take charge of Matt, bundling him into the cars that are heading back to the house, not letting him be alone.
Matt is numb, because how can it all have come down to this?
Back at the house, he goes straight to their room and the others don’t try to stop him. He only emerges when he hears the door slam. Aiden is back, and Matt half runs to the stop of the stairs, coming to a skidding halt at the sight of Aiden hugging Katie.
“Cheryl killed me with all those digs about being intense, Simon killed me by choosing you, the public killed me by not voting for me,” Aiden is speaking quietly but Matt can hear him because he can always hear Aiden. “You just went out there and did what you had to do and it worked. Don’t undermine us both by apologising and feeling guilty.”
Aiden is being kind when he doesn’t need to be, when he probably doesn’t want to be, and he is showing a greater consideration for Katie than Matt had managed, when it wasn’t even him she had hurt. It’s a maturity that Matt couldn’t have achieved himself, and in a burst of clarity he finally sees what Aiden (and everyone else) had been saying all along. 18, 28, they’re just numbers. Aiden is legal, and perfectly able to make his own decisions, and the rest of the world can go fuck themselves if they have a problem with it.
Aiden smiles as he looks up to see Matt listening to them, and bids Katie goodnight, heading upstairs to join Matt.
Neither of them say anything until they are safely behind closed doors, and even then words have to wait while Matt makes his change of heart incredibly clear to Aiden.
“I didn’t want you to win that way,” Matt says later, naked and cuddled up with Aiden in Aiden’s bed.
“I didn’t want to win like that,” Aiden smiles, kissing Matt softly, before looking down at their intertwined hands. “Did you,” he bites his lip, “did you really want me to win then?”
“God yeah,” Matt smiles but then it hits him. “You did know that, right? You did know that I loved you despite myself, loved you from pretty much the first time I saw you, I think.”
“Sometimes I did, I think,” Aiden is glowing as Matt tightens his hold on him. “I knew you wanted me and I hoped it could develop into something more. I think,” he is biting his lip again, but Matt resists the urge to kiss him because he thinks this is a conversation they should have had a long time ago. “I think I mostly thought that if I could only get you into bed again then maybe I could keep you for a bit and maybe even distract you into falling for me.”
Matt feels like all kinds of shit for hurting Aiden, and feels worse when Aiden just kisses him again, saying “it was what it was. I know now, and I think it would have been harder to understand why you stayed away if I’d been certain that you loved me. Resisting lust I could just about understand, but resisting love is just so dumb.”
Matt couldn’t argue, because now that he had Aiden he had no idea how he could ever have kept them apart for so many months. But Aiden would be leaving tomorrow, and his face must have fallen at the reminder, because Aiden was quick off the mark again.
“What happens tomorrow happens, don’t let it spoil this moment.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Nothing you can do about it. But it feels nice to know that you want me around. Finally.”
“I don’t want to hide this,” Matt blurts out, because he may as well abandon every decision he’d ever made on the issue of the two of them at the same time.
“Good to see we’re on the same page.” Aiden smiled, kissing their interlocked hands. “So go out there and win this thing and then we can shout it from the rooftops.”
“We can shout it from the rooftops now,” Matt pouted, and the irony of the reversal was completed when Aiden insisted that he wasn’t letting Matt torpedo his chances this late in the game.
In the end, the argument was postponed in favour of far more fun things, but Matt knew that Aiden would win again. After all, he played dirty and Matt knew he would never learn to deny Aiden anything he wanted for any real length of time.
When Aiden left the house the next morning Matt tried to put on a brave face, but the walk to rehearsals was lonely and any lingering hope that he was successfully hiding his feelings was destroyed when Dannii took one look at him and just hugged him, “just one more month and you can go back to him,” she whispered, and the thought was enough, because what was one month when he planned to spend the rest of his life with Aiden?