Die Hard fic for sexy_right Fic Tac Toe: You Don't Have to Say a Word
This fic completes my row for sexy_rightFic Tac Toe!
Title: You Don’t Have to Say a Word
Author: persnickett
Word Count: 1115
Rating: PG for a couple of swears
Prompt: Writer's Choice
Notes: Yup.
When I first came into this fandom, severina2001had posted a fic called Moving Day that had the following line in it:
"--and he brought you to Jack's birthday dinner, and how you missed the looks getting passed between mom and dad over that I'll never know. And finally," [Lucy] says, "he cannot stop staring at your ass. What does this add up to to you, Farrell?"
Most of you probably won’t know this, but I’m kind of like the dancing pet monkey in most of my social circles. They routinely command me to quote things, sing things, and generally perform various silly tricks and I willingly oblige like a trained dolphin or some such and am rewarded with sardines. Everybody wins.
So when Sev and I started chatting online due to our mutual John/Matt love, during one of our many meta discussions I brought up the fic, and, as I tend to do, immediately enacted my mental version of this event for her: a conversation between “HB” (Holly’s brain) and “JE” (John’s eyes) - which I assure you was probably much more entertaining than the below is but...well, she insisted, as with most things I say, that I write it into a fic, and it only took me a year or so but...while I’m sure she’s likely forgotten by now, I guess the little bunny finally made it onto the page. I hope it’s happy here.
(Dance, monkey, dance!)
'Snick
__________________________
You Don't Have to Say a Word
__________________________
It might have been a mistake, bringing Matt to Jack’s birthday dinner, and not for the reasons John would have thought.
The kid didn’t make him crazy on the trip over, talking a mile a minute from his seat next to him about crap John either couldn’t give a shit about or just plain couldn’t understand. In fact, he spent about half of the time sleeping, and tapping out little messages on that complicated-looking phone of his. And, while there was no way in hell John would ever admit that the kid’s constant noise just might actually be one of the perks of having Matt staying with him, John found himself thinking a couple of times how it was way too damn quiet while he did it.
When they got there Matt didn’t do anything like trip over his own feet that way he had since getting off the crutches - the one that seemed to keep one of John’s hands perpetually at the ready these days, waiting to swipe out for his scruff or his elbow to keep him upright, and then always left Matt gripping him back tightly and blinking surprise-widened eyes gratefully up at him through his displaced bangs, no matter how many times it kept happening - and take a header straight into Jack’s birthday cake, or maybe the mashed potatoes.
It turned out Matt got along with Jack just fine, too. Even better than the way he’d been getting along with Lucy - and that was saying something. The two of them were almost just a little too palsy for John’s liking sometimes. Every now and then he got the distinct impression that they’d been talking about him. ...A lot.
But Jack and Matt discovered, within about 13 seconds of Matt’s arrival, that the both of them had the same crazy phone - which apparently meant they could play video games together - and promptly spent the rest of the afternoon leading up to dinner shooting each other with virtual machine guns and yelling things that sounded like they’d been watching too much of that pirate movie Matt liked, with that sorta girly-looking guy in it. Captain Blue-bird or something…right, right Sparrow.
No, the reason John shouldn’t have brought Matt to family dinner was nothing to do with Matt at all. It was Holly.
Or really, it was Holly’s eyes. They’d always been able to see right through him. He wasn’t sure if everybody who had kids together had the sort of silent conversations over the tops of little heads that he and Holly had always done, but he did recognize the way those eyes were looking at him right now.
Like they could look right into his brain.
“Looks like your date is a real hit with the family.”
“Date? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his brain answered, stubbornly.
“Everybody here knows what I’m talking about, John.” Holly’s eyes told him, turning back his way after taking in the scene of Matt singing the praises of her mother’s meatloaf - one of Jack’s favourites - and then getting probably way more details than he bargained for on the intricacies of making the perfect onion gravy, in response to the compliment. “…With the possible exception of your boyfriend, that is.”
John had to admit he was impressed. It had taken him five of these dinners to crack the ice with the old dame back in the day. And the meatloaf hadn’t improved that much. Still.
“He is NOT my boyfriend, “ John’s brain insisted.
“I’m sorry, live-in computer genius then.” Holly’s eyes sent back, before they wandered down the table and over the length of Matt’s outstretched arm, which was currently passing a rather large plate of broccoli up the table. They traveled all the way up to his face, which was partially obscured by its little dark shiny curtain of hair, before he tossed his head, throwing it back into place so he could send Lucy a polite smile in return for her thanks for the veggies. “...Cute live-in genius though.”
Well that much was true. It wasn’t like John hadn’t noticed that. Not with the way Matt was always forgetting to take something with him to the shower, like shampoo or his razor, and streaking down the hall in nothing but a towel clutched sloppily around his waist, or leaving notes around the kitchen with a little smiley-face at the bottom about where to find his dinner when John got in late and Matt was passed out early, sleeping off the all-nighter he’d worked the night before.
They were old, not dead, for chrissakes. But Matt wasn’t. And John wasn't about to say anything to the kid about it, it wouldn't be… appropriate or something.
“And he’s obviously very impressed with you,” Holly’s eyes raised one brow high, and then they moved over John’s aging, but still sturdy, physique in the same appraising once-over she’d just given Matt.
“Holly,” John’s brain replied, as he risked a look over at Matt, who was deep in conversation with Jack again, probably about the latest high tech gizmo he planned to spend the birthday cash he’d just gotten on. “Stop.”
“Alright, alright,” Holly’s eyes softened around the edges, and gave off a quiet, teasing sparkle. “But if you don’t want anybody saying things like that...you might want to stop staring at his ass.”
“Not on your life,” John’s brain shot back without a second’s hesitation, and sent a message to his mouth that it was allowed a little smirk at the corner. “Pass me those mashed pototatoes, would ya Hol?”
So Matt was “impressed” with him, huh?
Holly laughed and picked up the bowl of potatoes. “Here you go,” she said.
“God,” Lucy scoffed beside John, rolling her eyes and reaching out to neatly skewer another piece of broccoli off the serving dish.
John wasn’t sure what that was about. He looked quizzically at his daughter and offered her the bowl he was holding. “More potato, honey?”
“You know Dad, it’s funny,” Lucy said, dropping her fork dramatically, “but I think I just lost my appetite.”
Lucy’s birthday was coming up in another couple of months. And it looked like maybe then John would have to start having these dinner chats with Holly somewhere even more private than the inside of his head. It figured.
Matt and Jack looked up from their heated technology debate at the clatter of Lucy’s cutlery.
“Am I missing something?” Matt asked, from the end of the table.
Lucy merely gave an indelicate snort and flashed a look at her mother.
“Only for about 3 months now,” it said, as clear as day. Like mother, like daughter.
To Matt, she sighed and said, “I’ll tell you later.”
John almost kinda hoped she did.
Title: You Don’t Have to Say a Word
Author: persnickett
Word Count: 1115
Rating: PG for a couple of swears
Prompt: Writer's Choice
Notes: Yup.
When I first came into this fandom, severina2001had posted a fic called Moving Day that had the following line in it:
"--and he brought you to Jack's birthday dinner, and how you missed the looks getting passed between mom and dad over that I'll never know. And finally," [Lucy] says, "he cannot stop staring at your ass. What does this add up to to you, Farrell?"
Most of you probably won’t know this, but I’m kind of like the dancing pet monkey in most of my social circles. They routinely command me to quote things, sing things, and generally perform various silly tricks and I willingly oblige like a trained dolphin or some such and am rewarded with sardines. Everybody wins.
So when Sev and I started chatting online due to our mutual John/Matt love, during one of our many meta discussions I brought up the fic, and, as I tend to do, immediately enacted my mental version of this event for her: a conversation between “HB” (Holly’s brain) and “JE” (John’s eyes) - which I assure you was probably much more entertaining than the below is but...well, she insisted, as with most things I say, that I write it into a fic, and it only took me a year or so but...while I’m sure she’s likely forgotten by now, I guess the little bunny finally made it onto the page. I hope it’s happy here.
(Dance, monkey, dance!)
'Snick
__________________________
You Don't Have to Say a Word
__________________________
It might have been a mistake, bringing Matt to Jack’s birthday dinner, and not for the reasons John would have thought.
The kid didn’t make him crazy on the trip over, talking a mile a minute from his seat next to him about crap John either couldn’t give a shit about or just plain couldn’t understand. In fact, he spent about half of the time sleeping, and tapping out little messages on that complicated-looking phone of his. And, while there was no way in hell John would ever admit that the kid’s constant noise just might actually be one of the perks of having Matt staying with him, John found himself thinking a couple of times how it was way too damn quiet while he did it.
When they got there Matt didn’t do anything like trip over his own feet that way he had since getting off the crutches - the one that seemed to keep one of John’s hands perpetually at the ready these days, waiting to swipe out for his scruff or his elbow to keep him upright, and then always left Matt gripping him back tightly and blinking surprise-widened eyes gratefully up at him through his displaced bangs, no matter how many times it kept happening - and take a header straight into Jack’s birthday cake, or maybe the mashed potatoes.
It turned out Matt got along with Jack just fine, too. Even better than the way he’d been getting along with Lucy - and that was saying something. The two of them were almost just a little too palsy for John’s liking sometimes. Every now and then he got the distinct impression that they’d been talking about him. ...A lot.
But Jack and Matt discovered, within about 13 seconds of Matt’s arrival, that the both of them had the same crazy phone - which apparently meant they could play video games together - and promptly spent the rest of the afternoon leading up to dinner shooting each other with virtual machine guns and yelling things that sounded like they’d been watching too much of that pirate movie Matt liked, with that sorta girly-looking guy in it. Captain Blue-bird or something…right, right Sparrow.
No, the reason John shouldn’t have brought Matt to family dinner was nothing to do with Matt at all. It was Holly.
Or really, it was Holly’s eyes. They’d always been able to see right through him. He wasn’t sure if everybody who had kids together had the sort of silent conversations over the tops of little heads that he and Holly had always done, but he did recognize the way those eyes were looking at him right now.
Like they could look right into his brain.
“Looks like your date is a real hit with the family.”
“Date? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” his brain answered, stubbornly.
“Everybody here knows what I’m talking about, John.” Holly’s eyes told him, turning back his way after taking in the scene of Matt singing the praises of her mother’s meatloaf - one of Jack’s favourites - and then getting probably way more details than he bargained for on the intricacies of making the perfect onion gravy, in response to the compliment. “…With the possible exception of your boyfriend, that is.”
John had to admit he was impressed. It had taken him five of these dinners to crack the ice with the old dame back in the day. And the meatloaf hadn’t improved that much. Still.
“He is NOT my boyfriend, “ John’s brain insisted.
“I’m sorry, live-in computer genius then.” Holly’s eyes sent back, before they wandered down the table and over the length of Matt’s outstretched arm, which was currently passing a rather large plate of broccoli up the table. They traveled all the way up to his face, which was partially obscured by its little dark shiny curtain of hair, before he tossed his head, throwing it back into place so he could send Lucy a polite smile in return for her thanks for the veggies. “...Cute live-in genius though.”
Well that much was true. It wasn’t like John hadn’t noticed that. Not with the way Matt was always forgetting to take something with him to the shower, like shampoo or his razor, and streaking down the hall in nothing but a towel clutched sloppily around his waist, or leaving notes around the kitchen with a little smiley-face at the bottom about where to find his dinner when John got in late and Matt was passed out early, sleeping off the all-nighter he’d worked the night before.
They were old, not dead, for chrissakes. But Matt wasn’t. And John wasn't about to say anything to the kid about it, it wouldn't be… appropriate or something.
“And he’s obviously very impressed with you,” Holly’s eyes raised one brow high, and then they moved over John’s aging, but still sturdy, physique in the same appraising once-over she’d just given Matt.
“Holly,” John’s brain replied, as he risked a look over at Matt, who was deep in conversation with Jack again, probably about the latest high tech gizmo he planned to spend the birthday cash he’d just gotten on. “Stop.”
“Alright, alright,” Holly’s eyes softened around the edges, and gave off a quiet, teasing sparkle. “But if you don’t want anybody saying things like that...you might want to stop staring at his ass.”
“Not on your life,” John’s brain shot back without a second’s hesitation, and sent a message to his mouth that it was allowed a little smirk at the corner. “Pass me those mashed pototatoes, would ya Hol?”
So Matt was “impressed” with him, huh?
Holly laughed and picked up the bowl of potatoes. “Here you go,” she said.
“God,” Lucy scoffed beside John, rolling her eyes and reaching out to neatly skewer another piece of broccoli off the serving dish.
John wasn’t sure what that was about. He looked quizzically at his daughter and offered her the bowl he was holding. “More potato, honey?”
“You know Dad, it’s funny,” Lucy said, dropping her fork dramatically, “but I think I just lost my appetite.”
Lucy’s birthday was coming up in another couple of months. And it looked like maybe then John would have to start having these dinner chats with Holly somewhere even more private than the inside of his head. It figured.
Matt and Jack looked up from their heated technology debate at the clatter of Lucy’s cutlery.
“Am I missing something?” Matt asked, from the end of the table.
Lucy merely gave an indelicate snort and flashed a look at her mother.
“Only for about 3 months now,” it said, as clear as day. Like mother, like daughter.
To Matt, she sighed and said, “I’ll tell you later.”
John almost kinda hoped she did.