FNL fic: A Little Bit of Paint-by-Numbers (Matt) Gen
Friday Night Lights
A Little Bit of Paint-By-Numbers
Matt, Grandma, Landry. Rated E for Everyone.
Missing scene from Episode 106: El Accidente. The faith of the two people who know him best hangs on his shoulders.
Thanks to askmehow for beta-work. Any remaining errors are mine.
A Little Bit of Paint-by-Numbers
It takes about five seconds to realize that he’s stranded.
He doesn’t really want to go back inside, especially not with the guys looking at him all suspicious and confused, but he does anyway and he sits at the counter by himself drinking the Coke that the sympathetic waitress gives him. He kind of expects something to happen, a confrontation, an invitation, whatever, but for some reason they all sit by the window and leave him be. He gnaws on the ice cubes until his mouth goes numb, staring into the kitchen, where the cook is sneezing onto the grill.
When Dolia comes by and offers him a ride, he almost refuses but then thinks about Julie saying he looks pathetic and how everyone in EZ’s knows he’s sitting in here moping like a girl. Plus, Dillon might be a small town, but he doesn’t want to walk across 191 just to prove a point. He shrugs and follows Dolia to the car, dreading the conversation to come.
He forgets, though, that most people aren’t like Landry, who will talk until Matt wants to put a hole in his head. After finding out where exactly Matt lives, Dolia flips on the radio and scrolls through stations until he finally settles on Lone Star 92. Landry’s radio is pretty much permanently set to All Sports because Matt accidentally ripped off the tuning wheel so that now they have to change it by a strange method involving a paper clip and Matt’s head on Landry’s lap that neither of them can really be bothered to deal with. Landry sometimes bitches he’ll never win South by Southwest passes listening to Texas sports, but one of his favorite theories is that Sammy’s got subliminal messages in his program because Landry’s actually starting to look forward to the damn updates, so Matt suspects he doesn’t mind that much.
Matt’s not used to paying attention to the roads anymore, not since Landry always knows where they’re going, so Dolia winds up taking not one but three wrong turns and Matt nearly directs him into an abandoned construction ditch. He’s mostly just flustered and stutters his apologies when Dolia gives an weary sigh. By the time they pull up in front of Matt’s house, the sun is slanting red-gold rays directly into their eyes. He carefully doesn’t look at Dolia’s face has he takes in the surroundings, just stares straight into the sun and hopes it blinds them both. There’s a pause after Matt thanks him, and he wonders if there’s some hidden ritual, some other test he just failed.
“See you tomorrow.” The words aren’t even out of his mouth when the car begins to pull away from the curb. “Thanks.” The words disappear into the empty air.
The lawn sign is crooked again, but it hasn’t been defaced so he counts this week among his lucky ones. The grin that breaks across his face when he curls his hands around the sign to pound it into the ground good and hard nearly rips off his jaw. Mrs. Johnson next door gives him a wave from her kitchen window and holds up four fingers. The fourth quarter is ours. He swings his school bag around his shoulders, gives the lawn sign one last pat. They won the game. He won the game when the hotshot from Louisiana couldn’t.
“Matthew, is that you?” His grandma is in her chair. She doesn’t take her eyes off the antique show, but she turns her head to smile at him.
“Yeah, Grandma, it’s me.” He drops suddenly to hug her from behind, chair and all, his good mood ready to lift him to the ceiling. “Did you hear? We’re keeping the win.”
She reaches up to pat his cheek. “Didn’t I tell you? God favors the good and you,” she turns to look up at him when he releases her, “you are the best of them all.”
He can’t stop smiling. “Thanks Grandma.” Then he pauses, turns and stares at her. “It smells good.” The words are tentative. When he walks into the kitchen, there’s a tray of lasagna on the stove, aluminum foil over it to keep it hot. He stares down at the tray, then back at her. She’s watching him, clear-eyed as ever. “You made dinner.”
She waves him off. “Oh, that. It’s just frozen. All I did was pop it in the oven.”
“Yeah, but-” he stops. It smells so good, like when he used to come over for Sunday dinners and she’d put out a whole spread of the kind of food that his mother never had time to cook. Creamy mashed potatoes and homemade pies and those cheese and chili cookies that he’d eat until he made himself sick. It seems like a lifetime ago. “Thanks.” There’s a plate next to the tray. “Do you-”
“I already had some, but you come over here so I can make sure you like it.” He can feel her eyes on him. “Sometimes I worry you’re working too hard and not eating enough.”
He bites back a smile at the severe tone in her voice. “Okay, Grandma.” He loads up as much lasagna as the plate will hold without spilling over and pulls up a kitchen chair next to her. She watches as he takes the first bite and he makes sure to make approving sounds when as he chews. It’s piping hot and salty, with tomato sauce and clinging strings of cheese. He immediately dribbles some down his chin and wipes his hand over his mouth, hoping she doesn’t notice. “Good.” He nods at her questioning glance. They sit in silence for a bit while a man on television tells them not to dust their armoire because the solvent in Pine-Sol might devalue the wood. Matt greedily swallows his dinner, burning off his taste buds and not caring in the slightest.
“You’re not friends with that boy, are you?” Matt just stares at her. She’s not looking at the television anymore; her gaze is trained somewhere on the wall beyond it. “The boy? The one that got beat up?” At his look she shakes her head. “I read the papers, Matthew, don’t look at me like that. I read that article and I seem to recall you two being friendly.”
“Uh…” his voice catches in his throat, “not-not really anymore. We used to be.” He swallows his mouthful painfully.
“That’s probably best to stay away from those kinds of people.” She shakes her head. “You’d think people would raise their kids right, but…” she trails off. “They pollute, that’s what they do. They make it a harder place for everyone with that kind of trash talk.”
“I don’t-I mean, Kurt doesn’t-he’s not really… He doesn’t really believe all that stuff.” The words are weak even to him.
His grandma doesn’t look convinced either. “You know, I always thought there was something strange about that boy.”
He’s probably eaten too much lasagna because the cheese has begun congealing in his stomach, sitting heavy like a brick there. “Did, uh-Did someone call?” His eyes light upon the blinking light of the answering machine.
She looks startled for a moment, looks around the room like she’s not sure where she is, then clears right up. “The machine picked it up before I could get to it.” She looks back at the television. “It was Landry calling about the Homecoming game.”
He slumps into his chair. In the excitement he’d forgotten entirely about Homecoming. “I can ask Mrs. Johnson? I know that Landry’s, um,” he searches for some sort of plausible lie that would cover Landry’s sudden unwillingness to come to the game, “he’s been real busy lately, with Nan working nights now and-”
“He thinks we should leave early so that we can get good seats.” His grandma watches the antique dealer differentiate between two types of porcelain patterns. “What were you saying, Matthew?”
Matt looks down at his food for a minute, then clears his throat. “Nothing. Never mind.” He gets up quickly, nearly upending the chair. “Grandma, I’m going to go to Landry’s for a bit, okay?”
She glances up from the television for a second. “Take him some lasagna.” She makes a small sound of disapproval. “I don’t think that Nancy has ever cooked a meal in her life.”
“If you listen to Landry, she doesn’t even eat real food.”
He sets his plate in the sink. “I thought he’d be with you, actually. He’s the one who told me about the board.” There’s a pause. “I’m so proud of you, Matthew; you deserve this. You’re such a good boy.”
He kisses the top of her head. “Thanks, Grandma. I’ll be back later.”
It’s not cold on the walk to Landry’s house, but he kind of wishes he’d brought a sweatshirt anyway. The sun set unexpectedly while he was inside and now he’s got one fist shoved into his pocket, the other holding a Tupperware container full of lasagna. There’s not much going on in the street right now; most families are having dinner at this hour, but his grandma has eaten at six on the dot for as long as he can remember. Nowadays he’s usually at practice during those times and Landry comes over and sits with her so she doesn’t get lonely at dinner time.
The gate’s open, rusted permanently against the rest of the wire fence. The grass is long; weeds sprouting up from cracks in the sidewalk reach to touch Matt’s knees. Landry’s car is in the driveway, the windows all fogged up on one side and tall grasses brushes the wheels and the familiar blue glow of a television lights up the front windows. Matt stands on the stoop for a second and considers walking right in, but years of his grandma’s Miss Manners lessons and a hint of shame have him banging on the wood paneling of the screen door.
He waits, looking at the rotted house on the front stoop and wondering if Landry’s ever watered a lawn in his life. There’s a muffled sound that might be an invitation or it might just be the television from within. Matt shrugs, swinging the screen door open and pushing on the inner door that hasn’t closed properly in seven years.
Landry’s sprawled on the sofa, a forgotten textbook open on his stomach; he’s watching some true-crime show about murders that happened places far away in towns just like this one. The coffee table they built together in fourth grade is sagging beneath the weight of empty glasses and stacks of sticky plates. When Matt goes to shut the door behind him, Landry’s voice breaks over the television. “Leave it open. Let this place air out a little.” His voice is raspy and tired.
“I wake you up?”
Landry glances over at him, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “No.” Matt nods even though Landry’s not looking at him. The air is thick and heavy with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and burned coffee; sometime around the seventh grade, Nan’s morning pick-me-up morphed into a pack-a-day habit that had Matt’s dad checking his pockets for lighters and matches all through junior high.
On screen, a silhouette sneaks up behind a woman in her kitchen. Matt nods at the television. “You keep watching stuff like this, you’re going to start seeing ghosts everywhere.” The arm of the sofa crumbles a bit under Matt’s weight when he sits down, ignoring Landry’s feet. They watch a man in handcuffs walk out of a court building. “You should-you should probably get there like an hour early at least.”
“I was thinking an hour and a half. Maybe two.” Landry shifts, scooting up the couch so that he’s halfway sitting. Matt looks down at the carpet, running over different apologies in his head; they all sound equally unconvincing. He’s not like Landry, always ready with words of any kind. There’s not really an appropriate apology to give someone who will spend an entire Saturday afternoon with his grandma, even when that someone thinks he’s crossed over to the dark side. “So we can get good seats.”
“You just want to be close to the cheerleaders.” That, at least, gets a smile.
“She won’t sit near them. Something about her ears and their skirts.” He doesn’t think Landry’s doing it on purpose, just like his grandma wasn’t, but a part of Matt just wants to knock Landry across the face for making him feel so damned guilty. The lasagna sits in his stomach and he wishes he were back at his kitchen table, celebrating the board’s decision with the only two people who have always believed in him.
“Listen, I’m just trying to-” Landry stops himself in the middle, looking around like the decaying living room is going to hold the answers. “I don’t want you to forget who you are, you know?”
He tries for a grin. “I’m Matt Saracen. QB1.” At that he half-thinks Landry’s going to jump up and push him on his ass, but he just gets a squinted look in return.
“Must be rough.”
Matt sighs, looks up at the ceiling. “I came over here to ask you if you could drive me to Coach Taylor’s.” The words come out in a jumble because he doesn’t want to give Landry any opportunity to interrupt.
“You did.”
“Yeah, I did.” He keeps the edge out of his voice, just barely.
“You could just call her, you know.”
The silence stretches for a few seconds while Landry carefully watches tv and Matt turns the words over a couple times. “I want to talk to Coach.” Landry looks at him and Matt leans over and sets the Tupperware on Landry’s textbook. “Asshole.”
Landry picks up the container and peers through it in the dim light. “You brought me food?”
“I figured you hadn’t eaten.”
“You’re grandma made you, didn’t she?”
“I would’ve done it anyway.” Landry laughs a little at that, shakes his head like he’s such a sucker. Matt’s stomach clenches tight while Landry goes to find a fork so that he can eat his dinner in the car. He tries to imagine the look on Coach Taylor’s face when he hears that Matt stood around and did nothing, thinks for just a second of calling the whole thing off; Landry, at least, will forgive him. Then he catches the look Landry’s giving him and he stares down at the faded carpet. The faith of the two people who know him best hangs on his shoulders. They’ve always believed he’s better than he is.
He owes it to them to live up to that.
end.
Feedback greatly appreciated.
A Little Bit of Paint-By-Numbers
Matt, Grandma, Landry. Rated E for Everyone.
Missing scene from Episode 106: El Accidente. The faith of the two people who know him best hangs on his shoulders.
Thanks to askmehow for beta-work. Any remaining errors are mine.
A Little Bit of Paint-by-Numbers
It takes about five seconds to realize that he’s stranded.
He doesn’t really want to go back inside, especially not with the guys looking at him all suspicious and confused, but he does anyway and he sits at the counter by himself drinking the Coke that the sympathetic waitress gives him. He kind of expects something to happen, a confrontation, an invitation, whatever, but for some reason they all sit by the window and leave him be. He gnaws on the ice cubes until his mouth goes numb, staring into the kitchen, where the cook is sneezing onto the grill.
When Dolia comes by and offers him a ride, he almost refuses but then thinks about Julie saying he looks pathetic and how everyone in EZ’s knows he’s sitting in here moping like a girl. Plus, Dillon might be a small town, but he doesn’t want to walk across 191 just to prove a point. He shrugs and follows Dolia to the car, dreading the conversation to come.
He forgets, though, that most people aren’t like Landry, who will talk until Matt wants to put a hole in his head. After finding out where exactly Matt lives, Dolia flips on the radio and scrolls through stations until he finally settles on Lone Star 92. Landry’s radio is pretty much permanently set to All Sports because Matt accidentally ripped off the tuning wheel so that now they have to change it by a strange method involving a paper clip and Matt’s head on Landry’s lap that neither of them can really be bothered to deal with. Landry sometimes bitches he’ll never win South by Southwest passes listening to Texas sports, but one of his favorite theories is that Sammy’s got subliminal messages in his program because Landry’s actually starting to look forward to the damn updates, so Matt suspects he doesn’t mind that much.
Matt’s not used to paying attention to the roads anymore, not since Landry always knows where they’re going, so Dolia winds up taking not one but three wrong turns and Matt nearly directs him into an abandoned construction ditch. He’s mostly just flustered and stutters his apologies when Dolia gives an weary sigh. By the time they pull up in front of Matt’s house, the sun is slanting red-gold rays directly into their eyes. He carefully doesn’t look at Dolia’s face has he takes in the surroundings, just stares straight into the sun and hopes it blinds them both. There’s a pause after Matt thanks him, and he wonders if there’s some hidden ritual, some other test he just failed.
“See you tomorrow.” The words aren’t even out of his mouth when the car begins to pull away from the curb. “Thanks.” The words disappear into the empty air.
The lawn sign is crooked again, but it hasn’t been defaced so he counts this week among his lucky ones. The grin that breaks across his face when he curls his hands around the sign to pound it into the ground good and hard nearly rips off his jaw. Mrs. Johnson next door gives him a wave from her kitchen window and holds up four fingers. The fourth quarter is ours. He swings his school bag around his shoulders, gives the lawn sign one last pat. They won the game. He won the game when the hotshot from Louisiana couldn’t.
“Matthew, is that you?” His grandma is in her chair. She doesn’t take her eyes off the antique show, but she turns her head to smile at him.
“Yeah, Grandma, it’s me.” He drops suddenly to hug her from behind, chair and all, his good mood ready to lift him to the ceiling. “Did you hear? We’re keeping the win.”
She reaches up to pat his cheek. “Didn’t I tell you? God favors the good and you,” she turns to look up at him when he releases her, “you are the best of them all.”
He can’t stop smiling. “Thanks Grandma.” Then he pauses, turns and stares at her. “It smells good.” The words are tentative. When he walks into the kitchen, there’s a tray of lasagna on the stove, aluminum foil over it to keep it hot. He stares down at the tray, then back at her. She’s watching him, clear-eyed as ever. “You made dinner.”
She waves him off. “Oh, that. It’s just frozen. All I did was pop it in the oven.”
“Yeah, but-” he stops. It smells so good, like when he used to come over for Sunday dinners and she’d put out a whole spread of the kind of food that his mother never had time to cook. Creamy mashed potatoes and homemade pies and those cheese and chili cookies that he’d eat until he made himself sick. It seems like a lifetime ago. “Thanks.” There’s a plate next to the tray. “Do you-”
“I already had some, but you come over here so I can make sure you like it.” He can feel her eyes on him. “Sometimes I worry you’re working too hard and not eating enough.”
He bites back a smile at the severe tone in her voice. “Okay, Grandma.” He loads up as much lasagna as the plate will hold without spilling over and pulls up a kitchen chair next to her. She watches as he takes the first bite and he makes sure to make approving sounds when as he chews. It’s piping hot and salty, with tomato sauce and clinging strings of cheese. He immediately dribbles some down his chin and wipes his hand over his mouth, hoping she doesn’t notice. “Good.” He nods at her questioning glance. They sit in silence for a bit while a man on television tells them not to dust their armoire because the solvent in Pine-Sol might devalue the wood. Matt greedily swallows his dinner, burning off his taste buds and not caring in the slightest.
“You’re not friends with that boy, are you?” Matt just stares at her. She’s not looking at the television anymore; her gaze is trained somewhere on the wall beyond it. “The boy? The one that got beat up?” At his look she shakes her head. “I read the papers, Matthew, don’t look at me like that. I read that article and I seem to recall you two being friendly.”
“Uh…” his voice catches in his throat, “not-not really anymore. We used to be.” He swallows his mouthful painfully.
“That’s probably best to stay away from those kinds of people.” She shakes her head. “You’d think people would raise their kids right, but…” she trails off. “They pollute, that’s what they do. They make it a harder place for everyone with that kind of trash talk.”
“I don’t-I mean, Kurt doesn’t-he’s not really… He doesn’t really believe all that stuff.” The words are weak even to him.
His grandma doesn’t look convinced either. “You know, I always thought there was something strange about that boy.”
He’s probably eaten too much lasagna because the cheese has begun congealing in his stomach, sitting heavy like a brick there. “Did, uh-Did someone call?” His eyes light upon the blinking light of the answering machine.
She looks startled for a moment, looks around the room like she’s not sure where she is, then clears right up. “The machine picked it up before I could get to it.” She looks back at the television. “It was Landry calling about the Homecoming game.”
He slumps into his chair. In the excitement he’d forgotten entirely about Homecoming. “I can ask Mrs. Johnson? I know that Landry’s, um,” he searches for some sort of plausible lie that would cover Landry’s sudden unwillingness to come to the game, “he’s been real busy lately, with Nan working nights now and-”
“He thinks we should leave early so that we can get good seats.” His grandma watches the antique dealer differentiate between two types of porcelain patterns. “What were you saying, Matthew?”
Matt looks down at his food for a minute, then clears his throat. “Nothing. Never mind.” He gets up quickly, nearly upending the chair. “Grandma, I’m going to go to Landry’s for a bit, okay?”
She glances up from the television for a second. “Take him some lasagna.” She makes a small sound of disapproval. “I don’t think that Nancy has ever cooked a meal in her life.”
“If you listen to Landry, she doesn’t even eat real food.”
He sets his plate in the sink. “I thought he’d be with you, actually. He’s the one who told me about the board.” There’s a pause. “I’m so proud of you, Matthew; you deserve this. You’re such a good boy.”
He kisses the top of her head. “Thanks, Grandma. I’ll be back later.”
It’s not cold on the walk to Landry’s house, but he kind of wishes he’d brought a sweatshirt anyway. The sun set unexpectedly while he was inside and now he’s got one fist shoved into his pocket, the other holding a Tupperware container full of lasagna. There’s not much going on in the street right now; most families are having dinner at this hour, but his grandma has eaten at six on the dot for as long as he can remember. Nowadays he’s usually at practice during those times and Landry comes over and sits with her so she doesn’t get lonely at dinner time.
The gate’s open, rusted permanently against the rest of the wire fence. The grass is long; weeds sprouting up from cracks in the sidewalk reach to touch Matt’s knees. Landry’s car is in the driveway, the windows all fogged up on one side and tall grasses brushes the wheels and the familiar blue glow of a television lights up the front windows. Matt stands on the stoop for a second and considers walking right in, but years of his grandma’s Miss Manners lessons and a hint of shame have him banging on the wood paneling of the screen door.
He waits, looking at the rotted house on the front stoop and wondering if Landry’s ever watered a lawn in his life. There’s a muffled sound that might be an invitation or it might just be the television from within. Matt shrugs, swinging the screen door open and pushing on the inner door that hasn’t closed properly in seven years.
Landry’s sprawled on the sofa, a forgotten textbook open on his stomach; he’s watching some true-crime show about murders that happened places far away in towns just like this one. The coffee table they built together in fourth grade is sagging beneath the weight of empty glasses and stacks of sticky plates. When Matt goes to shut the door behind him, Landry’s voice breaks over the television. “Leave it open. Let this place air out a little.” His voice is raspy and tired.
“I wake you up?”
Landry glances over at him, eyebrows raised in disbelief. “No.” Matt nods even though Landry’s not looking at him. The air is thick and heavy with the smell of stale cigarette smoke and burned coffee; sometime around the seventh grade, Nan’s morning pick-me-up morphed into a pack-a-day habit that had Matt’s dad checking his pockets for lighters and matches all through junior high.
On screen, a silhouette sneaks up behind a woman in her kitchen. Matt nods at the television. “You keep watching stuff like this, you’re going to start seeing ghosts everywhere.” The arm of the sofa crumbles a bit under Matt’s weight when he sits down, ignoring Landry’s feet. They watch a man in handcuffs walk out of a court building. “You should-you should probably get there like an hour early at least.”
“I was thinking an hour and a half. Maybe two.” Landry shifts, scooting up the couch so that he’s halfway sitting. Matt looks down at the carpet, running over different apologies in his head; they all sound equally unconvincing. He’s not like Landry, always ready with words of any kind. There’s not really an appropriate apology to give someone who will spend an entire Saturday afternoon with his grandma, even when that someone thinks he’s crossed over to the dark side. “So we can get good seats.”
“You just want to be close to the cheerleaders.” That, at least, gets a smile.
“She won’t sit near them. Something about her ears and their skirts.” He doesn’t think Landry’s doing it on purpose, just like his grandma wasn’t, but a part of Matt just wants to knock Landry across the face for making him feel so damned guilty. The lasagna sits in his stomach and he wishes he were back at his kitchen table, celebrating the board’s decision with the only two people who have always believed in him.
“Listen, I’m just trying to-” Landry stops himself in the middle, looking around like the decaying living room is going to hold the answers. “I don’t want you to forget who you are, you know?”
He tries for a grin. “I’m Matt Saracen. QB1.” At that he half-thinks Landry’s going to jump up and push him on his ass, but he just gets a squinted look in return.
“Must be rough.”
Matt sighs, looks up at the ceiling. “I came over here to ask you if you could drive me to Coach Taylor’s.” The words come out in a jumble because he doesn’t want to give Landry any opportunity to interrupt.
“You did.”
“Yeah, I did.” He keeps the edge out of his voice, just barely.
“You could just call her, you know.”
The silence stretches for a few seconds while Landry carefully watches tv and Matt turns the words over a couple times. “I want to talk to Coach.” Landry looks at him and Matt leans over and sets the Tupperware on Landry’s textbook. “Asshole.”
Landry picks up the container and peers through it in the dim light. “You brought me food?”
“I figured you hadn’t eaten.”
“You’re grandma made you, didn’t she?”
“I would’ve done it anyway.” Landry laughs a little at that, shakes his head like he’s such a sucker. Matt’s stomach clenches tight while Landry goes to find a fork so that he can eat his dinner in the car. He tries to imagine the look on Coach Taylor’s face when he hears that Matt stood around and did nothing, thinks for just a second of calling the whole thing off; Landry, at least, will forgive him. Then he catches the look Landry’s giving him and he stares down at the faded carpet. The faith of the two people who know him best hangs on his shoulders. They’ve always believed he’s better than he is.
He owes it to them to live up to that.
end.
Feedback greatly appreciated.