Holiday Die Hard fic for smallfandomfest: Touch of the Bubbly
Title: Touch of the Bubbly
Author: persnickett
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard movies
Pairing/Characters: John/Matt
Rating/Category: PG/Slash
Prompt: Champagne
Spoilers: nope
Summary: Champagne was so good. But also some percentage of bad.
Notes/Warnings: Nope! Holiday fluff! Enjoy and hug your loved ones this season. <3
written for smallfandomfest. Which now lives here
Touch of the Bubbly
by Persnickett
Champagne was good. So so good.
Matt sipped his glass delicately and reflected that he finally got why people like Formula 1 drivers and Gwyneth Paltrow were so obsessed with it.
Matt even felt good. Despite whatever the Internet, in its acknowledged infinite wisdom, had to say about cops - some of it admittedly penned by none other than Matt himself, in various chat rooms, blog posts, pod-casts and even a few youtube comments - they sure knew how to throw a party.
Matt sipped his drink again and looked around the room. The lobby of the Plaza couldn’t have been cheap to book, and the decorations were on point. Every cornice and balustrade was festooned with showy boughs of what looked like real spruce, dripping with glittering gold balls and glass ornaments that shone like gilded icicles.
Granted, when McClane had dropped the shindig into their recent conversation, casually mentioning that Matt might as well consider himself welcome, he had pointed out this was also Scalvino’s retirement. So it would be sort of a two-fer budget-wise, and a bit of a to-do.
Lucy would be sorry she missed this one. Matt made a mental note to snap some pics and rub it in later over Instagram. Not that he was generally one to brag, but who wouldn’t appreciate a scene like this, with tuxedoed waiters carrying trays of passed hors d’oeuvres and champagne…but mostly the champagne. Matt drained his glass and snagged a fresh one as another tray made its way past.
From what Matt knew, Lucy usually accompanied her dad to these things but she had flown out to her mom’s place for the holidays early this year. Probably why Matt had ended up scoring the last-minute invite, but if he was honest, he kind of wished she was here. He didn’t know anyone, other than McClane, and McClane seemed to know everyone.
And not just cops. The place was full of society dames and fawning charity reps too, and McClane made the rounds to so many of them Matt had lost track of him three times so far, and he hadn’t even made contact yet. He scanned the room one more time and spotted him, leaned up against a marble column and chatting up a muscle-bound woman in a cocktail dress Matt assumed was a co-worker.
McClane looked over and gave him a brief nod. Matt smiled back, and then down into the bubbles winking sassily in his glass. When he looked up again, McClane had returned his focus to the conversation, and Matt was free to - well okay, to outright leer.
McClane looked good. Matt had never seen him in a suit. He looked…like a bit of Christmas himself, really. All sort of shiny, and lit up with all that golden Christmas-tree light, and in that smart grey suit and… leaning.
Matt’s life had improved in a lot of ways since he had met McClane. Not the least of which was the way that his life was still an actual thing. Since McClane saved it like a whole dumptruck-load of times. And then there were the benefits of things like tonight. Tonight was a great night.
And with McClane around, keeping the country safe from terrorists and cyber-psychos and making Matt go places like this, and the gym, and heck, outside - it was going to be a great year too. A really great year.
McClane’s conversation seemed to be winding down and Matt figured he should probably go over and tell him so. Right now. Before another society hag horned in on his attention.
Matt put on his fanciest snooty-party face and started to make his way across the room - but he was sure to pass by another be-tuxedoed tray on his way.
Champagne was soooo good.
***
Matt opened his eyes. And then shut them immediately, because opening them apparently turned wherever it was he had fallen asleep into a giant - and for some reason kind of mean - roulette wheel. Even with them shut he could still feel it spinning.
Ugh. Champagne was bad.
Matt kept his eyes shut and reached out a hand blindly, flailing ineffectually for the handle that would make the room stop turning. Or maybe just for something, anything, to cling to until he could suss out which direction was up.
“Hey, kid?” A voice came out of the still-vindictively-swooping darkness. A voice that sounded distinctly like McClane’s, and oh champagne was so, so bad, because now Matt was obviously hallucinating.
Something nudged the back of his hand. It was cold. Which was both somehow unwelcome and yet strangely soothing at the same time. Matt left his hand there, soaking in the irksomely comforting cool, smooth touch of what felt like it might be glass.
“Here.” The cold thing nudged him again.
Ugh. Matt cracked open one eye a single, experimental sliver.
Apparently it was morning wherever he was, because blazing bright light lanced in under the chink in his eyelid, flooding his vision in a flare of white everywhere except where it was blacked out by the very distinctive, very broad, and very bald silhouette that went with that voice Matt had been imagining seconds before.
It was a very well-muscled silhouette, Matt thought to himself briefly. ‘Hunky’, one might even call it, to use the 80’s parlance of McClane’s own generation. Not that he could imagine McClane using the term to describe anybody. Like, ever. He had never heard McClane call anybody anything that wasn’t overtly insulting before, come to think of it.
“What would he say if he thought somebody was hot?” Matt mused, thickly.
The imaginary voice that sounded a lot like McClane’s grunted in a discomfited sounding way.
“Kid,” it said again.
Matt cracked open both eyes this time, and blinding-wash-of-painfully-white-sunlight aside, there was no imagining it this time. The very well-muscled, very bald, maybe-even-hunky shape of one very real John McClane was definitely there. Next to him. Sitting on the bed.
Matt groaned. Either from embarrassment, or from the seasick swell of nausea the act of trying to move his head brought on. Well okay, a little of Column A, a little of Column B.
“McClane?” It sounded like Matt’s voice, but that didn’t seem right, because his mouth felt like it was more or less pasted shut. “What are you doing in my room?”
“It’s my room,” McClane answered.
“Huh.” Matt dropped his head gingerly back onto the pillow. “Well that explains…nothing at all. Actually.” He finished his sentence with his eyes firmly shut again.
Against the slight pounding now starting in his temples, or from sheer terror at the thought of what last night’s events might have been in order to land him here. Yeah, that Column thing again.
Oh champagne, bad bad bad bad bad.
McClane was pushing the cold glass of whatever-it-was into his hand now. Matt gave in and took it.
He levered himself carefully into position and gave it a tentative sniff. “Ugh, what’s in this?”
“Orange juice.”
“Never heard of it,” Matt argued. “Highly suspect. S’not even orange.”
“You never heard of a mimosa? C’mon drink up. Hangovers are why these things were invented.”
“Hah. I knew this was suspicious. Mimosas are known to contain champagne, and champagne by the way,” Matt said, thrusting the drink back into McClane’s hand, “is never happening to me again. So.”
“Come on,” McClane said cajolingly, “it wasn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Matt was suddenly sitting up straighter than he had thought he was currently capable of. “What wasn’t bad, McClane? ‘Not that bad’ means that there is something that is at least some percentage of bad.”
His head wasn’t spinning anymore. That sensation had been unceremoniously replaced by a sour-mouthed, empty sort of feeling that was part panic, and probably some part impending potential for puking.
McClane looked nonplussed. “You don’t remember…”
“Don’t remember,” Matt said, hearing the panic-and-potential-puke in his voice and slowing down to take an intentional breath. “Don’t remember what?”
“Well,” McClane said, in a hesitant-sounding tone Matt didn’t think he had ever heard him use before, “there was mistletoe at the party…”
“Oh God,” Matt blurted, giving up on keeping the pukey-feeling-panic out of his voice and letting the verbal-vomit he was prone to any time he got nervous fly free. “Oh God who did I sloppily molest? It was you, wasn’t it, oh dear God at least I hope it was you.”
McClane didn’t say anything. But he raised an eyebrow at that last bit.
“I-“ Matt started, ever so eloquently, “It’s just. That. Well, half the people there who weren’t you, were like, your co-worker or - oh God - your boss, and I- Oh GOD if it was your boss…”
McClane was still looking nonplussed and still not saying anything.
“If it was anybody,” Matt amended, “I swear it didn’t mean a single…okay look.”
Matt put a pale, shaky-looking hand through his hair. Then he put it down again because the bedhead he encountered was also some rather high percentage of bad.
He sucked in a still-sort-of-pukey-feeling breath, and let it out slowly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you anyway, for some time now actually, that you- that I…”
“Relax kid,” McClane cut in, rescuing him mercifully from saying the rest of what was now probably completely obvious anyway, even though Matt himself wasn’t sure what he had been about to say.
“I did though, right?” Matt persisted, as McClane finally succeeded in pressing the glass of purportedly medicinal mimosa into his hand again. “Did I? Try t-kiss you I mean?”
“More than try,” McClane confirmed.
“Ohhhhhkay. See. That’s. Champagne plus Matt equals hashtag never again,” Matt asserted, thrusting the concoction back toward McClane, who made no move to take it this time. “I’m sorry,” he lamented. I’m so sorry McClane.”
He meant it. But McClane just shrugged. Then he smiled.
“Like I said, it wasn’t so bad.”
“Wait,” Matt said. Because waaaaaaaaaaaaait. “…Did you- did you… let me?”
“Longer than I should have,” McClane answered seriously.
“D-wow.” Matt said, growing apparently more eloquent by the minute.
Wow. And whoa.
Now seemed as good a time as any to give in and try a tentative sip of his drink.
“…Wow,” Matt said again, and pulled a face.
For all McClane might insist this was medicine, it sure went down feeling a lot more like poison. Why did champagne have to be so bad?
McClane didn’t seem to be noticing Matt’s imminent death due to poisoning though. He was looking down at the bed covers with a pensive look that made his brow furrow up in a way that was actually kind of handsome. Matt took another poisonous sip of mimosa while he appreciated the view, and congratulated himself on managing to keep it down.
“I owe you an apology, kid,” McClane was saying. “I should have known better.”
Matt was about to point out that McClane wasn’t the one who ought to be apologizing, when he pried that handsomely furrowed look up from the covers and aimed it right at Matt in a way that made him have to put in conscious effort not to spill his cup of OJ and snake venom all over McClane’s stripey blue comforter.
“When I brought that mistletoe to the party,” McClane confessed, “Y’know, I hoped… but I didn’t expect it to land you in my bed on the first shot.”
“You brought-!” Matt let out a surprised laugh, and the venomous mimosa wobbled in its glass.
“Guess I forgot to factor in how much you computer types like free snacks and booze.”
Matt recovered from his surprise quickly enough to feel a little smidge of pride, given his current state, and batted his eyes coquettishly.
“Why Detective,” he simpered, “I do believe your intentions may have been less than honourable!” Matt leaned over to the bedside table to set the drink safely down, freeing up his hands for some much more interesting uses that he had a sudden newfound hope might be up for consideration. “And I couldn’t be happier about it,” he finished, slyly, hopefully making his point.
“You got a thing for dirty old men, then?” McClane said, still sounding kind of rueful and unnecessarily ashamed.
“Oh I have-I have a huge thing,” Matt agreed without hesitation. “…Wanna see it?”
McClane laughed. Finally.
“Raincheck,” he demurred gruffly.
Matt pouted, but quit it real fast when McClane went to grab at his protruding lip with a rough thumb and forefinger.
They were both laughing now, which was nice. Much more their usual. Matt put up a considerably less shaky-feeling hand and made a futile attempt at finger-combing through his hair again.
Then McClane reached out and took over for him, which was definitely not their usual. Matt froze up a little bit, since his whole body had basically turned into a giant goosepimple.
“Don’t get me wrong,” McClane backpedaled huskily, while his fingers threaded surprisingly gently through the tangled strands of Matt’s hair, and Matt focused on trying not to melt happily into a shivery pool of primordial hacker-ooze. “I plan on making good on it. I’d just like next time to be without any booze involved.”
Matt was still a giant goosepimple, but even with his brain set to all-over-shiver-mode, he could still process a strange hint of jealousy. They had kissed. McClane got to remember it, and all Matt got to do was make allegedly humorous innuendo and get nobly and virtuously shot down. Well, that sucked.
“What happened,” he finally dared to ask. “After I sloppily molested you I mean? …And you totally let me. …Way longer than you should have.”
McClane stopped combing through his hair and gave him a sidelong ‘are you done talking’ look that always made Matt be done talking. For at least several seconds.
“You know what happened,” he said in a voice Matt could shockingly describe as bashful. “Free champagne and mistletoe.”
“And then,” Matt pressed, angling for the little thrill he got from hearing that new, softer tone in the gravelled voice. He was seeing a whole new side of McClane this morning. It was weirdly hot.
“Then…you kissed me.”
“And you let me.”
“Yeah.”
“Way longer than you should have.”
McClane was giving him that look again.
“Okay okay,” Matt laughed, trying to rein himself in. He was feeling impressively giddy for someone with his level of hangover. “But on the mouth?”
“Yeah,” McClane said again.
“Tongue?” Matt ventured.
“Nope.”
Matt tried not to pout again.
“…Then what?” he asked cautiously.
He was almost afraid to know how the evening had ended. Even though when he looked down at himself he noticed he was disappointingly still fully clothed. From the feel under the covers McClane had stopped at simply removing his shoes.
“Then…” McClane said, and that tentative sound in his voice wasn’t such a thrill this time around. “You announced pretty loudly that you just ‘macked’ on John McClane, and you were going to ‘pone’ this year, whatever that means.”
Matt groaned, but didn’t interrupt. He didn’t think he had said ‘PWN’ in about three or four years’ time now. Champagne was a very very high percentage of bad. It was like a super-saturated solution of badness.
“…You tried to do a touchdown dance and crashed into a waiter carrying a full tray of canape. We got ‘escorted’ out to my car, and you passed out on the way here,” McClane finished up plainly.
Matt let out another long groan and collapsed back against the pillows. He as pretty sure he heard a snicker from McClane.
“At least Lucy missed this one,” Matt said, grasping for a silver lining in the cloud of bubbly, sparkling regret fogging up his brain.
“Oh she knows already,” McClane said.
“I’m s-she knows?” Matt scrambled up on one elbow. “How!?”
“You announced to a party full of New York City people attached at the hip to their cell phones that you just macked on John McClane,” McClane responded like he was addressing a first grader. “You’re Matt Farrell. We’re the famous ‘Angels against Gabriel’. It was all over the Insta-net.”
“Instagram,” Matt groaned his out his correction on autopilot.
“Yeah,” McClane said, accepting it as unfazededly as usual.
“Uuuuuugh you said it ‘wasn’t that bad’!” Matt moaned.
“It isn’t,” McClane said simply. There were fingers in Matt’s hair again.
Matt looked at McClane. His eyes were calmly focused on still trying to work out what champagne-induced touchdown dancing, hungover sleep-tossing, and a full tray of canape must have done to Matt’s hair, and his lips were decidedly smirking.
Matt had kissed those lips. Longer than he should have. And the whole world knew about it. The whole world plus Lucy. And still, McClane was smiling. And stroking.
Matt shivered happily and worked on melting cooperatively into a puddle of contented primordial hacker-ooze.
“But you can see why I wanna wait until there’s no booze involved next time, right?” McClane asked, and let his hand drift down over the shell of Matt’s ear and curve around the side of his neck. His voice was all soft again, but Matt couldn’t get any shivery-er or more melted.
“I’m not drunk anymore,” he argued. “I’m too hungover to be drunk.”
“Not you,” McClane replied, brushing his thumb across Matt’s cheek. Okay so he could get a little more shivery-melted. “Me.”
“You’re still drunk?” Matt asked.
He might have been a little intoxicated himself, but he was sure it had nothing to do with evil, bad, champagne and a lot to do with the thumb now caressing the lobe of his ear, and a look in a certain handsomely furrowed set of features like McClane was fighting off a temptation to put his mouth there instead.
God, Matt wanted him to put his mouth there instead. A lot.
But McClane shook his head. “Didn’t drink last night. Too nervous. But I’m a little buzzed now. I had a couple of those in the kitchen before I came to wake you up,” McClane admitted, with a nod at the bedside Mimosa of Doom.
Matt was sure that, between the intoxicating thumb-stroking and his already-foggy condition, by now he probably looked pretty confused. McClane had said mimosas were for hangover. “But if you didn’t-“
“For courage,” McClane clarified, before Matt could finish. “I mean, I finally had you in my bed.”
That handsome, furrowy gaze was looking right at him now. Well, in his eyes, and not at his earlobe, or neck. Or the line of his jaw. Which made Matt’s heart skip in a way that was pretty darn intriguing, but the other stuff had been nice too.
“Are you sure you’re not buzzed enough to make out with me just a little?”
John gave him that sideways look again.
“Okay,” Matt conceded with a grin. “How about enough to pretend it’s not totally weird if we share the bed, then? We could probably both use a nap?”
Matt spread a hand invitingly over the expanse of the bed. He had evidently had been tucked fully clothed into one side of McClane’s double bed last night, and from the undisturbed looks of the other side, McClane had dutifully spent a chaste and highly respectable - but probably not all that comfortable - night on the couch.
“Scoot over,” McClane conceded, which Matt attempted to do with alacrity.
It mostly just ended up as a lot of klutzy flailing, but that was okay, because by the time McClane slid under the covers next to him, they were both chuckling again, just like their usual.
But then McClane stripped off his shirt to reveal his iconic old wife-beater and a healthy showing of silvery chest hair and it was so so definitely not their usual, it was so so much way way better, and Matt could barely contain himself until McClane had settled down on the mattress.
“Fair warning,” he cautioned, setting his cheek down against McClane’s chest and pushing his fingers into the warm, waiting nest of silver body hair. “I’m probably going to get pretty handsy.”
Matt couldn’t see what his face was doing with his head tucked under McClane’s chin like it was, but a large hand traveled smoothly down the length of his side, over his hip and squeezed decisively at his left butt cheek. “Fair enough,” McClane growled, but that hand moved just as swift and smoothly back up to Matt’s shoulder again.
McClane was warm; muscly and hard everywhere Matt could feel their bodies touching, and it wasn’t long before that hand moved from his shoulder and back into his hair. He was definitely feeling a heck of a lot better than he had when he woke up.
He suspected McClane himself was a lot more medicinal than the highly suspicious mimosa still sitting smugly on the bedside table, but he could give McClane definite points for the whole gruff, sexy nursemaid act. And he purportedly had a couple of those punchy little numbers to thank for giving McClane the courage to come into the bedroom and go through with it.
Maybe champagne wasn’t all bad. After they had made a full recovery, Matt could maybe allow it a second chance sometime. New Years was coming up, after all.
And if he had anything to say about it, Matt thought sleepily, as he pushed his fingers idly through McClane’s warm, coarse chest hairs one more time, it was going to be a great year. A really great year.
They might even PWN it.
.
Author: persnickett
Fandom: Live Free or Die Hard/Die Hard movies
Pairing/Characters: John/Matt
Rating/Category: PG/Slash
Prompt: Champagne
Spoilers: nope
Summary: Champagne was so good. But also some percentage of bad.
Notes/Warnings: Nope! Holiday fluff! Enjoy and hug your loved ones this season. <3
written for smallfandomfest. Which now lives here
Touch of the Bubbly
by Persnickett
Champagne was good. So so good.
Matt sipped his glass delicately and reflected that he finally got why people like Formula 1 drivers and Gwyneth Paltrow were so obsessed with it.
Matt even felt good. Despite whatever the Internet, in its acknowledged infinite wisdom, had to say about cops - some of it admittedly penned by none other than Matt himself, in various chat rooms, blog posts, pod-casts and even a few youtube comments - they sure knew how to throw a party.
Matt sipped his drink again and looked around the room. The lobby of the Plaza couldn’t have been cheap to book, and the decorations were on point. Every cornice and balustrade was festooned with showy boughs of what looked like real spruce, dripping with glittering gold balls and glass ornaments that shone like gilded icicles.
Granted, when McClane had dropped the shindig into their recent conversation, casually mentioning that Matt might as well consider himself welcome, he had pointed out this was also Scalvino’s retirement. So it would be sort of a two-fer budget-wise, and a bit of a to-do.
Lucy would be sorry she missed this one. Matt made a mental note to snap some pics and rub it in later over Instagram. Not that he was generally one to brag, but who wouldn’t appreciate a scene like this, with tuxedoed waiters carrying trays of passed hors d’oeuvres and champagne…but mostly the champagne. Matt drained his glass and snagged a fresh one as another tray made its way past.
From what Matt knew, Lucy usually accompanied her dad to these things but she had flown out to her mom’s place for the holidays early this year. Probably why Matt had ended up scoring the last-minute invite, but if he was honest, he kind of wished she was here. He didn’t know anyone, other than McClane, and McClane seemed to know everyone.
And not just cops. The place was full of society dames and fawning charity reps too, and McClane made the rounds to so many of them Matt had lost track of him three times so far, and he hadn’t even made contact yet. He scanned the room one more time and spotted him, leaned up against a marble column and chatting up a muscle-bound woman in a cocktail dress Matt assumed was a co-worker.
McClane looked over and gave him a brief nod. Matt smiled back, and then down into the bubbles winking sassily in his glass. When he looked up again, McClane had returned his focus to the conversation, and Matt was free to - well okay, to outright leer.
McClane looked good. Matt had never seen him in a suit. He looked…like a bit of Christmas himself, really. All sort of shiny, and lit up with all that golden Christmas-tree light, and in that smart grey suit and… leaning.
Matt’s life had improved in a lot of ways since he had met McClane. Not the least of which was the way that his life was still an actual thing. Since McClane saved it like a whole dumptruck-load of times. And then there were the benefits of things like tonight. Tonight was a great night.
And with McClane around, keeping the country safe from terrorists and cyber-psychos and making Matt go places like this, and the gym, and heck, outside - it was going to be a great year too. A really great year.
McClane’s conversation seemed to be winding down and Matt figured he should probably go over and tell him so. Right now. Before another society hag horned in on his attention.
Matt put on his fanciest snooty-party face and started to make his way across the room - but he was sure to pass by another be-tuxedoed tray on his way.
Champagne was soooo good.
***
Matt opened his eyes. And then shut them immediately, because opening them apparently turned wherever it was he had fallen asleep into a giant - and for some reason kind of mean - roulette wheel. Even with them shut he could still feel it spinning.
Ugh. Champagne was bad.
Matt kept his eyes shut and reached out a hand blindly, flailing ineffectually for the handle that would make the room stop turning. Or maybe just for something, anything, to cling to until he could suss out which direction was up.
“Hey, kid?” A voice came out of the still-vindictively-swooping darkness. A voice that sounded distinctly like McClane’s, and oh champagne was so, so bad, because now Matt was obviously hallucinating.
Something nudged the back of his hand. It was cold. Which was both somehow unwelcome and yet strangely soothing at the same time. Matt left his hand there, soaking in the irksomely comforting cool, smooth touch of what felt like it might be glass.
“Here.” The cold thing nudged him again.
Ugh. Matt cracked open one eye a single, experimental sliver.
Apparently it was morning wherever he was, because blazing bright light lanced in under the chink in his eyelid, flooding his vision in a flare of white everywhere except where it was blacked out by the very distinctive, very broad, and very bald silhouette that went with that voice Matt had been imagining seconds before.
It was a very well-muscled silhouette, Matt thought to himself briefly. ‘Hunky’, one might even call it, to use the 80’s parlance of McClane’s own generation. Not that he could imagine McClane using the term to describe anybody. Like, ever. He had never heard McClane call anybody anything that wasn’t overtly insulting before, come to think of it.
“What would he say if he thought somebody was hot?” Matt mused, thickly.
The imaginary voice that sounded a lot like McClane’s grunted in a discomfited sounding way.
“Kid,” it said again.
Matt cracked open both eyes this time, and blinding-wash-of-painfully-white-sunlight aside, there was no imagining it this time. The very well-muscled, very bald, maybe-even-hunky shape of one very real John McClane was definitely there. Next to him. Sitting on the bed.
Matt groaned. Either from embarrassment, or from the seasick swell of nausea the act of trying to move his head brought on. Well okay, a little of Column A, a little of Column B.
“McClane?” It sounded like Matt’s voice, but that didn’t seem right, because his mouth felt like it was more or less pasted shut. “What are you doing in my room?”
“It’s my room,” McClane answered.
“Huh.” Matt dropped his head gingerly back onto the pillow. “Well that explains…nothing at all. Actually.” He finished his sentence with his eyes firmly shut again.
Against the slight pounding now starting in his temples, or from sheer terror at the thought of what last night’s events might have been in order to land him here. Yeah, that Column thing again.
Oh champagne, bad bad bad bad bad.
McClane was pushing the cold glass of whatever-it-was into his hand now. Matt gave in and took it.
He levered himself carefully into position and gave it a tentative sniff. “Ugh, what’s in this?”
“Orange juice.”
“Never heard of it,” Matt argued. “Highly suspect. S’not even orange.”
“You never heard of a mimosa? C’mon drink up. Hangovers are why these things were invented.”
“Hah. I knew this was suspicious. Mimosas are known to contain champagne, and champagne by the way,” Matt said, thrusting the drink back into McClane’s hand, “is never happening to me again. So.”
“Come on,” McClane said cajolingly, “it wasn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Matt was suddenly sitting up straighter than he had thought he was currently capable of. “What wasn’t bad, McClane? ‘Not that bad’ means that there is something that is at least some percentage of bad.”
His head wasn’t spinning anymore. That sensation had been unceremoniously replaced by a sour-mouthed, empty sort of feeling that was part panic, and probably some part impending potential for puking.
McClane looked nonplussed. “You don’t remember…”
“Don’t remember,” Matt said, hearing the panic-and-potential-puke in his voice and slowing down to take an intentional breath. “Don’t remember what?”
“Well,” McClane said, in a hesitant-sounding tone Matt didn’t think he had ever heard him use before, “there was mistletoe at the party…”
“Oh God,” Matt blurted, giving up on keeping the pukey-feeling-panic out of his voice and letting the verbal-vomit he was prone to any time he got nervous fly free. “Oh God who did I sloppily molest? It was you, wasn’t it, oh dear God at least I hope it was you.”
McClane didn’t say anything. But he raised an eyebrow at that last bit.
“I-“ Matt started, ever so eloquently, “It’s just. That. Well, half the people there who weren’t you, were like, your co-worker or - oh God - your boss, and I- Oh GOD if it was your boss…”
McClane was still looking nonplussed and still not saying anything.
“If it was anybody,” Matt amended, “I swear it didn’t mean a single…okay look.”
Matt put a pale, shaky-looking hand through his hair. Then he put it down again because the bedhead he encountered was also some rather high percentage of bad.
He sucked in a still-sort-of-pukey-feeling breath, and let it out slowly. “I’ve been meaning to tell you anyway, for some time now actually, that you- that I…”
“Relax kid,” McClane cut in, rescuing him mercifully from saying the rest of what was now probably completely obvious anyway, even though Matt himself wasn’t sure what he had been about to say.
“I did though, right?” Matt persisted, as McClane finally succeeded in pressing the glass of purportedly medicinal mimosa into his hand again. “Did I? Try t-kiss you I mean?”
“More than try,” McClane confirmed.
“Ohhhhhkay. See. That’s. Champagne plus Matt equals hashtag never again,” Matt asserted, thrusting the concoction back toward McClane, who made no move to take it this time. “I’m sorry,” he lamented. I’m so sorry McClane.”
He meant it. But McClane just shrugged. Then he smiled.
“Like I said, it wasn’t so bad.”
“Wait,” Matt said. Because waaaaaaaaaaaaait. “…Did you- did you… let me?”
“Longer than I should have,” McClane answered seriously.
“D-wow.” Matt said, growing apparently more eloquent by the minute.
Wow. And whoa.
Now seemed as good a time as any to give in and try a tentative sip of his drink.
“…Wow,” Matt said again, and pulled a face.
For all McClane might insist this was medicine, it sure went down feeling a lot more like poison. Why did champagne have to be so bad?
McClane didn’t seem to be noticing Matt’s imminent death due to poisoning though. He was looking down at the bed covers with a pensive look that made his brow furrow up in a way that was actually kind of handsome. Matt took another poisonous sip of mimosa while he appreciated the view, and congratulated himself on managing to keep it down.
“I owe you an apology, kid,” McClane was saying. “I should have known better.”
Matt was about to point out that McClane wasn’t the one who ought to be apologizing, when he pried that handsomely furrowed look up from the covers and aimed it right at Matt in a way that made him have to put in conscious effort not to spill his cup of OJ and snake venom all over McClane’s stripey blue comforter.
“When I brought that mistletoe to the party,” McClane confessed, “Y’know, I hoped… but I didn’t expect it to land you in my bed on the first shot.”
“You brought-!” Matt let out a surprised laugh, and the venomous mimosa wobbled in its glass.
“Guess I forgot to factor in how much you computer types like free snacks and booze.”
Matt recovered from his surprise quickly enough to feel a little smidge of pride, given his current state, and batted his eyes coquettishly.
“Why Detective,” he simpered, “I do believe your intentions may have been less than honourable!” Matt leaned over to the bedside table to set the drink safely down, freeing up his hands for some much more interesting uses that he had a sudden newfound hope might be up for consideration. “And I couldn’t be happier about it,” he finished, slyly, hopefully making his point.
“You got a thing for dirty old men, then?” McClane said, still sounding kind of rueful and unnecessarily ashamed.
“Oh I have-I have a huge thing,” Matt agreed without hesitation. “…Wanna see it?”
McClane laughed. Finally.
“Raincheck,” he demurred gruffly.
Matt pouted, but quit it real fast when McClane went to grab at his protruding lip with a rough thumb and forefinger.
They were both laughing now, which was nice. Much more their usual. Matt put up a considerably less shaky-feeling hand and made a futile attempt at finger-combing through his hair again.
Then McClane reached out and took over for him, which was definitely not their usual. Matt froze up a little bit, since his whole body had basically turned into a giant goosepimple.
“Don’t get me wrong,” McClane backpedaled huskily, while his fingers threaded surprisingly gently through the tangled strands of Matt’s hair, and Matt focused on trying not to melt happily into a shivery pool of primordial hacker-ooze. “I plan on making good on it. I’d just like next time to be without any booze involved.”
Matt was still a giant goosepimple, but even with his brain set to all-over-shiver-mode, he could still process a strange hint of jealousy. They had kissed. McClane got to remember it, and all Matt got to do was make allegedly humorous innuendo and get nobly and virtuously shot down. Well, that sucked.
“What happened,” he finally dared to ask. “After I sloppily molested you I mean? …And you totally let me. …Way longer than you should have.”
McClane stopped combing through his hair and gave him a sidelong ‘are you done talking’ look that always made Matt be done talking. For at least several seconds.
“You know what happened,” he said in a voice Matt could shockingly describe as bashful. “Free champagne and mistletoe.”
“And then,” Matt pressed, angling for the little thrill he got from hearing that new, softer tone in the gravelled voice. He was seeing a whole new side of McClane this morning. It was weirdly hot.
“Then…you kissed me.”
“And you let me.”
“Yeah.”
“Way longer than you should have.”
McClane was giving him that look again.
“Okay okay,” Matt laughed, trying to rein himself in. He was feeling impressively giddy for someone with his level of hangover. “But on the mouth?”
“Yeah,” McClane said again.
“Tongue?” Matt ventured.
“Nope.”
Matt tried not to pout again.
“…Then what?” he asked cautiously.
He was almost afraid to know how the evening had ended. Even though when he looked down at himself he noticed he was disappointingly still fully clothed. From the feel under the covers McClane had stopped at simply removing his shoes.
“Then…” McClane said, and that tentative sound in his voice wasn’t such a thrill this time around. “You announced pretty loudly that you just ‘macked’ on John McClane, and you were going to ‘pone’ this year, whatever that means.”
Matt groaned, but didn’t interrupt. He didn’t think he had said ‘PWN’ in about three or four years’ time now. Champagne was a very very high percentage of bad. It was like a super-saturated solution of badness.
“…You tried to do a touchdown dance and crashed into a waiter carrying a full tray of canape. We got ‘escorted’ out to my car, and you passed out on the way here,” McClane finished up plainly.
Matt let out another long groan and collapsed back against the pillows. He as pretty sure he heard a snicker from McClane.
“At least Lucy missed this one,” Matt said, grasping for a silver lining in the cloud of bubbly, sparkling regret fogging up his brain.
“Oh she knows already,” McClane said.
“I’m s-she knows?” Matt scrambled up on one elbow. “How!?”
“You announced to a party full of New York City people attached at the hip to their cell phones that you just macked on John McClane,” McClane responded like he was addressing a first grader. “You’re Matt Farrell. We’re the famous ‘Angels against Gabriel’. It was all over the Insta-net.”
“Instagram,” Matt groaned his out his correction on autopilot.
“Yeah,” McClane said, accepting it as unfazededly as usual.
“Uuuuuugh you said it ‘wasn’t that bad’!” Matt moaned.
“It isn’t,” McClane said simply. There were fingers in Matt’s hair again.
Matt looked at McClane. His eyes were calmly focused on still trying to work out what champagne-induced touchdown dancing, hungover sleep-tossing, and a full tray of canape must have done to Matt’s hair, and his lips were decidedly smirking.
Matt had kissed those lips. Longer than he should have. And the whole world knew about it. The whole world plus Lucy. And still, McClane was smiling. And stroking.
Matt shivered happily and worked on melting cooperatively into a puddle of contented primordial hacker-ooze.
“But you can see why I wanna wait until there’s no booze involved next time, right?” McClane asked, and let his hand drift down over the shell of Matt’s ear and curve around the side of his neck. His voice was all soft again, but Matt couldn’t get any shivery-er or more melted.
“I’m not drunk anymore,” he argued. “I’m too hungover to be drunk.”
“Not you,” McClane replied, brushing his thumb across Matt’s cheek. Okay so he could get a little more shivery-melted. “Me.”
“You’re still drunk?” Matt asked.
He might have been a little intoxicated himself, but he was sure it had nothing to do with evil, bad, champagne and a lot to do with the thumb now caressing the lobe of his ear, and a look in a certain handsomely furrowed set of features like McClane was fighting off a temptation to put his mouth there instead.
God, Matt wanted him to put his mouth there instead. A lot.
But McClane shook his head. “Didn’t drink last night. Too nervous. But I’m a little buzzed now. I had a couple of those in the kitchen before I came to wake you up,” McClane admitted, with a nod at the bedside Mimosa of Doom.
Matt was sure that, between the intoxicating thumb-stroking and his already-foggy condition, by now he probably looked pretty confused. McClane had said mimosas were for hangover. “But if you didn’t-“
“For courage,” McClane clarified, before Matt could finish. “I mean, I finally had you in my bed.”
That handsome, furrowy gaze was looking right at him now. Well, in his eyes, and not at his earlobe, or neck. Or the line of his jaw. Which made Matt’s heart skip in a way that was pretty darn intriguing, but the other stuff had been nice too.
“Are you sure you’re not buzzed enough to make out with me just a little?”
John gave him that sideways look again.
“Okay,” Matt conceded with a grin. “How about enough to pretend it’s not totally weird if we share the bed, then? We could probably both use a nap?”
Matt spread a hand invitingly over the expanse of the bed. He had evidently had been tucked fully clothed into one side of McClane’s double bed last night, and from the undisturbed looks of the other side, McClane had dutifully spent a chaste and highly respectable - but probably not all that comfortable - night on the couch.
“Scoot over,” McClane conceded, which Matt attempted to do with alacrity.
It mostly just ended up as a lot of klutzy flailing, but that was okay, because by the time McClane slid under the covers next to him, they were both chuckling again, just like their usual.
But then McClane stripped off his shirt to reveal his iconic old wife-beater and a healthy showing of silvery chest hair and it was so so definitely not their usual, it was so so much way way better, and Matt could barely contain himself until McClane had settled down on the mattress.
“Fair warning,” he cautioned, setting his cheek down against McClane’s chest and pushing his fingers into the warm, waiting nest of silver body hair. “I’m probably going to get pretty handsy.”
Matt couldn’t see what his face was doing with his head tucked under McClane’s chin like it was, but a large hand traveled smoothly down the length of his side, over his hip and squeezed decisively at his left butt cheek. “Fair enough,” McClane growled, but that hand moved just as swift and smoothly back up to Matt’s shoulder again.
McClane was warm; muscly and hard everywhere Matt could feel their bodies touching, and it wasn’t long before that hand moved from his shoulder and back into his hair. He was definitely feeling a heck of a lot better than he had when he woke up.
He suspected McClane himself was a lot more medicinal than the highly suspicious mimosa still sitting smugly on the bedside table, but he could give McClane definite points for the whole gruff, sexy nursemaid act. And he purportedly had a couple of those punchy little numbers to thank for giving McClane the courage to come into the bedroom and go through with it.
Maybe champagne wasn’t all bad. After they had made a full recovery, Matt could maybe allow it a second chance sometime. New Years was coming up, after all.
And if he had anything to say about it, Matt thought sleepily, as he pushed his fingers idly through McClane’s warm, coarse chest hairs one more time, it was going to be a great year. A really great year.
They might even PWN it.
.