...aaaaaand the wisdom to know the difference
Howdy. Yes, clear your schedules, I’m about to do it again.
So, quite the weekend at the cottage for me. We watched Bottle Shock (which is absolutely adorable and I must now own it) and continued my filmic education with (I’m ashamed to admit it was my first time) Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Heh, check it out, vintage slash. I also got to go for a jog, which I haven’t done in months, so that was blissful.
Today however, I’m off sick with a throat infection (my doctor claims it IS possible to get tonsillitis after a tonsillectomy) which happens pretty much annually. This gave me a chance to re-watch Die Hard 4, this time with my slash-tinted goggles on!
See, this pairing caught me by surprise during small fandom fest and I started writing before I even knew it was (don’t hurt me, if you’re Canadian then you get this) McClane not MacLean. I’ve said before I don’t see the slash in canon, and I’ve been feeling like I don’t know the movie well enough to be fancying myself a writer in the fandom. I was right.
- I still don’t know the dialogue well enough to make effective use of cheesy quotes (omg. if you’re reading, Sev; out of bullets!! - I actually DIDN’T get your reference - which was hilarious in retrospect, btw) which is why nearly each of my fics has John quoting Harry Stamper (Harry and AJ? Now THERE’s on-screen slash…oh god, must not get sucked in to new, obscure pairing), and why he doesn’t say ‘jerkoff’ nearly enough. Yes, no worries, I’m working on THAT.
- I was fuzzy on details, like where Holly lives, Freddie’s/Freddy’s age, Matt being a white hat for only 4 years (!) and the fact that he has an intriguing little scar between his eyebrows. Hee. Oh, and;
- I wasn’t aware of where the key (or missing) moments are. Which brings me back to: not seeing the slash.
So, the much awaited slashy verdict?
Yeah yeah, every time they get in a car they have a tender, hero-worshippy conversation about divorce and kids and eating alone and ‘not being brave like you’ and apologizing for Lucy and it not being John’s fight and then blindly refusing to allow assignment of any blame. And ok, the ‘that guy’ thing makes you outright wonder if they didn’t pull over for a nookie-break, but still, STILL, calm down y’all, that is classic cop buddy talk. Every stakeout in every movie in the history of ever has to include that state-of-my-family-life conversation.
And yes, their whole “I wouldn’t bet on me, stay here and don’t die/I wouldn’t bet on you either so no way I’m letting you die” moment outside Warlock’s car is just plain unnecessary. Pre-goggle, my mainstreamy, testosterone-addled, Die-Hard-doesn’t-like-little-boys, narrow-track het-brain reconciled it as all just a way to explain why Matt stays in the storyline. But really, why would he stay with Warlock? He doesn’t live there. John needs his help, the fire sale isn’t over and he’s a hacker dammit. And lest we forget, technically still a suspect in John’s custody. They could’ve skipped right to the helicopter and nobody would be like “why are they still together?”
But still, I gotta say Matt makes ‘wanna touch’ eyes for Lucy much more than for John.
UNTIL. The infamous Matt/Lucy ambulance moment, both (appropriately) intensified and clouded by the lense of Matt’s morphine mainline, could, *could*, if one were so inclined, be interpreted completely differently. Lucy sends John over to talk to Matt. Why? She’s clearly not a shy girl. She can walk, she hasn’t been tossed out of a flying car or shot in the knee. Matt has. Saving her life. It practically behooves her to go over there, bend her cleavage over his wounds, punch her number into his phone and tell him if he doesn’t keep in touch to let her know he’s doing ok, her dad will track him down and do hurtful things to his junk.
And when John gets there! Is Matt just too sky high to keep his Lucy-lust in check in front of her *dad* for chrissakes, OR ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is he just dis-inhibited enough to screw with John’s mind like the crafty manipulative little shit he is, and go fishing for that tiny spark of jealousy that could give him confirmation a little somethin-somethin’ might be brewing between him and the dashing detective? Confirmation which, by the slashy way, he gets. In spades. I mean, ‘that guy’? Come on. That said, John gets back to Lucy and she nips the yenta-bud by asking if Matt talked about her.
Ambiguous it remains. But ain’t that how hetero-flexible guys act IRL anyway and YESOKFINE I get it now. It’s a reach and I had to go looking, but I get it. I’m sticking with my “straight dudes broadsided by confusing stirrings long after the adrenaline has ebbed” premises regardless.
Anyhoo, I have yet to see whether this will help or hinder my writing, but I fully intend to continue. Series is sitting pretty(?) at 8 projected stories total by the end of the year, 4 of which are up. Yikes, halfway through. Lan-sakes, what shall I do when it’s all over?
Go back to TFATF I guess.
Speaking of which, here is the next drabble/ficlet I scrounged off my various fic-stashing spots. Could one day be a story I guess, but I’m stuck on it because I just never know how far is too far to take a cliché.
Slashy, but only PG-13 for nudity and reference to sex. Enjoy.
Toodle-oo,
‘Snick ..er-doodle. …doo.
If Brian didn't move, maybe Dom wouldn't notice him.
Maybe he'd be too fogged with sleep to remember and too preoccupied with hangover to spare a glance around the room on his way to the bathroom. Brian held his breath, it seemed to be working.
Dom rolled up on a shoulder and swung his bare feet to the floor in one fluid sweep, swiftly sitting up with his back to Brian. God. Even hungover, Dom moved with a smooth grace and energy that drew Brian's gaze like a magnet. Brian watched as Dom rubbed a hand over his face and scalp before heaving himself up slowly off the mattress. He tried not to stare as Dom stood, naked and motionless, in the middle of the room for several long moments.
If Dom struck an impressive figure in a form-hugging wife beater, baggy pants and boots, then naked, he was nothing short of magnificent. There was no other word to describe the play of light and shadow across the planes and hollows of muscle, skin smooth and glowing in the dim light like burnished bronze.
But this living statue was flexing his hands repeatedly open and closed, and Brian couldn't be sure whether Dom was just stretching his awakening thews, or resisting the urge to curl his blunt fingers into fists. Brian thought he was good and caught, he imagined memory of the things they'd done seeping slowly back into the corners of Dom's consciousness, like oil through a bad cam cover gasket.
Dom jerked the curtains open, seemingly with a complete disregard for the neighbors' sensibilities. If Brian hadn't already been holding his breath, he would have gasped aloud. The sun had already climbed high enough in the sky to flash blindingly into the room and Brian's eyes slammed reflexively shut. He stayed that way for a bit, appreciating the fiery image of Dom branded behind his eyelids and vaguely thinking that if Dom were to notice him now, at least he'd look like he was asleep and not gawking obsessively at the goods.
When he dared to look again, Dom was semi-decent in a pair of warm-up pants. Ratty and old, but they were clean. It seemed Dom still hadn't looked his way, and Brian relaxed a little as Dom started to move toward the door.
Brian was just starting to breathe again when Dom paused in the doorway, one hand resting on the jamb.
"Breakfast's in 20." Dom rapped two knuckles on the door frame, and without so much as a glance backward, he was gone.
Fuck.
*
Brian would have expected that sitting across from Dom at breakfast, eating eggs and sausage like they were Ozzy and Harriet, was the most surreal feeling he could experience. But he was wrong. The most surreal feeling came when Mia turned up in the kitchen, seeming to know everything that had happened last night. And not to care in the least.
"Dom." She said, quietly, but it worked to get Dom's attention just fine. "Are you a gentleman, or what? At least get your guest a fresh t-shirt." She moved between Dom and the stove, taking the spatula from his hand. "Brian's big enough, he'll fit into one of yours."
Brian tried not to quail visibly as Dom grunted some non-verbal reply and shambled out of the kitchen, leaving him alone with Mia. He was suddenly very aware that he was only half dressed.
"Can I...do something?" Lame. Weak, he thought. But he could have been referring to helping in the kitchen, or doing something to make amends for... well. Just doing something, anyway.
"You're setting the table."
Brian looked around the kitchen helplessly for a minute, but before he could ask where to find plates and stuff, she'd spoken again.
"Brian." There was weight in her tone that made him freeze and look at her. She turned from the stove to look him in the eye. "Remember when I said I didn't date my brother's friends?" Brian didn't know if he was supposed to answer that or not, so he just nodded. "This is why."
"So, are we...?" Cool? Still together? Friends?
"I don't know what we are, Brian," she cut across him, but - god only knew how - she didn't sound angry. "I'll let you know when I've figured it out."
Mia turned back to the stove, but she went on. "But...you're a part of this now. If you're going to be on the Team, there's things you need to know." She pointed at a cupboard over his head. "Plates are in there."
Brian moved around the kitchen in a sort of daze, as Mia continued to give him directions while she talked and scrambled what looked like dozens of eggs.
"I told you that first day in the garage; being on D's team means he owns you. I meant it, Brian. Everybody here, in this little family he's built, belongs to my brother. You're free to leave when you want, but as long as you stay - it means you're his. Dom's never alone. Cups up there." Brian followed the gesture Mia made with the spatula. She sighed before she continued.
"He and Letty fight more than you'd think. Or maybe not." They both chuckled a little at this, but then Mia started again. "And when she takes off on a night like last night...well, like I said, he's never alone. Forks." She said, tapping the drawer next to her with her fingernails.
Brian was digging around in the cutlery when he felt a big, warm hand on the back of his neck. He tried not to flinch as Dom draped a white v-neck tee over his shoulder. Brian mumbled his thanks , just trying not to shiver as he felt Dom rub his calloused thumb over his nape a couple times before he turned toward Mia and kissed her.
"Got this, bella?" It wasn't clear if Dom was referring to the several pans Mia was multitasking on the stove, or her delivery of the little briefing session that didn't seem completely fuck-basket insane to anyone but Brian. Maybe both.
"Yeah, yeah," Mia said, but she looked like she was trying not to smile. "Go clear up, there's bottles everywhere. And wake up the boys. Jess and Leon are still on the couch, and Vince is upstairs. …He might have a girl in there."
Brian waited until Dom had shuffled out of the kitchen again, rubbing a hand absently over his head, before he shook out the t-shirt Dom had given him, and wriggled self-consciously into the clingy fabric.
"Ten minutes!" Mia called after her brother, then she turned her back on the stove for a moment and looked Brian over. Maybe was imagining it but she seemed a little more comfortable looking at him now that he was fully clothed. But to Brian the eye contact just felt wrong. It made this whole insane thing just feel too real.
"So, what?" Brian asked, "I'm part of some kind of harem now? Dom just picks whichever one of us he wants to take to bed any given night?!"
"It's not like that, Brian."
Except for how it totally was exactly like that.
"I told you. Letty and Dom - they fight. Pretty bad, Bri. I don't think we see the worst of it, and sometimes Dom gets...well there's alcohol and a lot of guests, a lot of girls, at parties like last night and - it can be bad." Brian wasn't getting how this added up, but in his experience Mia always had a point, so he waited. She sighed. It seemed like she was having difficulty with this explanation. Finally.
"Usually it's Jesse who goes in there to calm him down. Sometimes Leon follows him in, but it's kind of rare. Or if it's bad enough, sometimes they both have to carry him. And now, you're crashing in there too. But regardless of who goes in with him, they just never come back out. Until the morning."
Mia was talking about 'calming Dom down', taking care of him, 'crashing'; but the way she was looking - or not looking - at him, told Brian she knew what was going on behind that closed bedroom door.
"And Vince?” Brian wasn’t sure what made him ask. “He just hangs out with all of us faggots while Dom fucks us all in turn? He must love that. Now maybe I'll finally fit in with him, huh?"
"Vince..." Mia looked away. She couldn't seem to keep eye contact but she answered him in a low, flat tone. "Used to be the only one allowed in Dom's room."
"And now?"
"He's still allowed. He just...he never spends the night."
Brian wasn't really sure why he was angry. He took a breath to calm himself before he asked, "Because?"
Mia sighed again like the words weren't coming the way she wanted them to.
"I told you why. Because I don't date my brother's friends."
And there it was. It explained everything, and yet Brian could never have guessed. Vince. Dom's best friend, his closest companion. He'd given up on whatever the physical side of their relationship had been for Mia. But Mia hadn't been swayed by it.
Vince. Scowling, sullen, anger issues and all, had sacrificed part of the most important relationship in his life for her. In his way, he'd stayed true to Mia, and out of Dom’s bed, even in the face of her rejection, and still she hadn't chosen him. She'd chosen Brian.
And in the end, Brian hadn't been the better choice. He couldn't be the man Vince was. Everything was suddenly so startlingly clear, and yet, it was like nothing he’d learned about any of them so far seemed to make sense any more.
"Look, Mia. Last night..."
"Was what, Brian, a 'mistake'? The alcohol talking? Will never happen again?"
Brian wanted to say those things. He wanted them to be true. He wanted to be able to tell Mia that if he could only take back what had happened last night...
But the truth of it was there was no regret beyond the fact that he'd never once wanted to hurt her.
"Brian, what you don't seem to be getting is…” Mia was looking at him again, something burning behind her dark eyes that was too cold to be anger.
“I've had this conversation before."